On Good Friday, at both of our services, I talked about the importance of betrayal in the development of faith, in the deepening of faith, in the movement through the cross to resurrection.
Not all that many people were able to be at those services so I wanted to go over what I said again, and expand a little on it. And I do so today because the Gospel today, I think, makes the very same connection.
At the Last Supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified."
There is a contextual, if not a causal connection, between the betrayal and the glorification of Christ here that is worth, I think, a deeper investigation.
When I was thinking about Good Friday, and thinking about betrayal, I realized betrayal had played a very important role in my life. I have been a betrayer and I have been betrayed. (That may be true for all parents and children.) It may be true in small or large ways for anyone who has been married, or been in any long term committed relationship. I know it is true for anyone who has been divorced.
My own divorce and the events leading up to it compounded my enmeshment in betrayal because, in all that I not only betrayed my marriage, but my ordination and parish and bishop as well. The ordination service asks the question: "Will you do your best to pattern your life and that of your family in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?" Well, maybe that was my best, but it wasn’t very good.
And then the justified consequences of my betrayal came about because I was, in turn, betrayed -- by people I trusted, by people I loved. And I don’t say all this as a kind of confessional exhibitionism, but to let you know that I’ve thought a lot about all of this. I’ve had a lot of time to think, and being a "glass is half full, when life gives you lemons make lemonade" kind of guy, I’ve tried to learn from it, to dig into its wisdom.
I don’t know whether it was before or after all this, I think it must have been before…but ever since I read the books for the first time, and even more after I’d seen the BBC serial production with Alec Guinness, I’ve always been fascinated by John Le Carre’s novels Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People. They are all about betrayal.
Set in the context of the British Intelligence Service, Tinker,Tailor is about the uncovering of a Russian counter-spy, a mole, in the service. And then Smiley’s People is about the turning of the Russian spymaster who placed the mole and his own defection to the West. The main protagonist is George Smiley (Alec Guinness) who comes out of retirement to make it all right – but if doesn’t really get made "all right". In the midst of following his duty and destiny, Smiley is both professionally and personally disillusioned with the bittersweet enlightenment that comes when any of us loses our illusions. Toward the end of the second novel, nearing his triumph, Smiley writes to the Russian spymaster he’s about to bring down
He writes: "By you actions you have disowned the system that made you. You have placed love above duty. The ground on which you once stood is cut away. You have become a citizen of No Man’s Land. I send you my greetings". I can identify with that.
The psychologist, Jean Houston, has written that "Betrayal, of all the woundings that may be suffered by the sour, can be the greatest agent of the sacred. This wound has always had an awful and luminous quality surrounding it. It marks the end of primal, unconscious trust and forces upon us those terrible conditions that accompany the taking of the next step".
Houston points out that there are three spiritually unhealthy ways of responding to betrayal.
The first of these is revenge. The Bible may say ‘an eye for an eye’, but as has been pointed out, if you follow that to its logical conclusion, everyone gets blinded in the end. The focus of revenge, and its spiritual companion resentment, narrows the focus of life – bringing both the betrayer and the betrayed into one’s own soul in a continuing hate, so that the story of the betrayal becomes the story of one’s life. That’s what happened in Germany between the wars and brought Hitler to power, and it’s what is behind some of the most fanatic and violent expressions of Islam. I recently saw a documentary about the genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath. Toward the end of the film there were pictures of the bewildered survivors, with a beautiful song playing in the background, and the words to the song translated at the bottom of the screen. "Listen to me, God of Rwanda," the song went, " Protect me from the urge to vengeance."
Another unhealthy reaction to betrayal, almost the opposite of revenge and resentment, is denial. This is the pretense that the betrayal never happened, that "it just wasn’t meant to be," that we didn’t really care.
But the whole point of betrayal, or at least the main positive point, it seems to me, is that it tears up our phony scripts. It doesn’t let us pretend anymore that we, or anybody else, can live up to the artificial roles we set for ourselves. It forces us to be real. And that’s what God created us to be. Denial just writes another script, and goes back to the beginning to betray and be betrayed again and again. How sad! How boring!
Lastly there is cynicism, which is probably the most crippling reaction to betrayal. It responds to lost hope with hopelessness, and a rejection of any opening to trust or love at all. Even more sad! Even more boring!
"The key to redeeming our betrayal," Houston says, "is forgiveness." And I would add it has to be that radical kind of forgiveness that moves beyond forgiveness and on into gratitude.
I pointed out to the Good Friday congregation that I always used to carry a level of tension in my neck and shoulders – but when my marriage fell apart and I was suspended from ministry, the tension went away. I was forced to allow myself to be just who I was – a spy who came in from the cold.
If it hadn’t been for that bundle of betrayal I’d still have and be a pain in the neck. Not only would I not have a new marriage and a new congregation, but I wouldn’t have the finally real, mutually appreciative relationship I have now with my ex-wife and my kids, as well as with our newly ex-Bishop.
"Only at the end of primal trust," Jean Houston says, "is Jesus available to the fullness of the human condition. He can die and be reborn and a fuller love, a fuller beingness comes then into existence."
Love is central for the meaning of betrayal. Without love there would be nothing to betray. And it is often in the search for love that betrayal takes place. And yet it is also true that love lies at the end of betrayal’s healing. The forgiveness that Jean Houston talks about comes from love and leads to love. The Gospel reading today, that begins in the context of betrayal, ends in the commandment to love one another.
Along with John Le Carre’s novels one of my favorite modern parables is the movie "The Truman Show". The premise of the movie is that this guy, Truman, played by Jim Carey, is the star of the ultimate reality TV show where his whole life, from the day he was born, from the day he was conceived, has been broadcast 24 hours a day. His whole world is a TV studio, big enough to be seen from outer space, and he is the only one who is not in on it, the only one who is not an actor. Everyone in "his" world is just playing a part in "his" life.
Little by little he begins to get a sense of the falseness of it all, and the motivating force behind this dawning realization is love. The lies perpetrated on him constitute a profound betrayal and, in a sense his desire to get away from them is a kind of betrayal as well. Where would the show be if he finally left it?
It is the story, ultimately, of how a life centered on ourselves alone is a betrayal of our true human potential. Truman faces his greatest fears, faces even death in trying to discover the truth beyond the betrayal and lies. In the end, he steps out into the darkness of reality – a reality not unlike the "No Man’s Land" referred to by Le Carre – although with Truman, instead of George Smiley’s bittersweet disillusionment, there is a kind of triumph of the human spirit, and a realistic hope for love, which pleases me – being a "glass is half full, if life gives you lemons then make lemonade" kind of guy.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says that where he is going we can’t come. But he says in another place that if we have love for one another he will be with us to the end of the age.
Love one another. Love one another. Love one another.
Thanks be to God.
