Thread by @hannahboning

I'm maybe preaching on Judas for the Maundy Thursday service but I'm terrified because I feel like there's 500 ways to go wrong

but I can't stop thinking about Judas. we don't know much about him, but he was one of the Twelve, which means he spent three years traveling with Jesus.

and it's easy to cast Judas as the betrayer, the one who was evil and terrible and turned Jesus over.

but Judas, like all of us, was formed by the system he was raised in and believed in and trusted in.

and Jesus was out here inciting riots in the streets, and turning over tables in the temple - in the holy, set-apart space - and talking about taking down the institutional religion.

how do people typically react when their institution, their system of belief, their security is threatened?

it's easy for me to sit here and pass judgment on Judas. get with the program, dude, change is changing! don't hold to the old ways, the old systems, the old powers.

but god, change doesn't come easy. guns are still on the streets. the police are still killing people. trans women are still being murdered. queer kids are still killing themselves.

and when you're so deep in a system, it's hard to unlearn. it's hard to undo. it's hard to restructure the way you see things.

and I'm not trying to say that Judas was right, or that those who don't interrogate their privilege & power are right. what I'm trying to say is that systems of power damage the oppressor as well as the oppressed.

and that's not an excuse, and that doesn't make it okay for people keep being oppressive. but the way that systems of power work are by convincing the marginalized that they are less-than, and the powerful that they are more-than, and both of those mindsets need to be changed.

and y'all, you know what I usually don't have the patience for? sitting down with well-meaning white folks and trying to explain white privilege. it makes me want to pound my head against a wall.

can't you SEE? can't you see how the system is rigged? can't you see the injustice? why can't you see?

because the system gets in your brain and your body and you believe in it.

I'm so tired of trying to explain queerness to straight folks. doing the work to justify my existence. get it together, guys, you should be here by now.

but five years ago - I wasn't here. I grew up in a system that told me about right and wrong, black and white, clear lines and rules and that was all I knew and I trusted in it the system. and even now, out and queer and proud, I still carry scars from my conservative upbringing.

basically, what I'm saying is, when I see folks still trapped in the systems, still believing in the systems - I want to walk away. I want to write them off as wrong and evil.

and maybe Judas was motived by his own desire to take down Jesus, or pure greed. but maybe Judas was trapped in the systems of belief that he had been raised in.

and when Jesus encountered Judas, Judas who didn't quite grasp the revolutionary change that was coming, Judas who was maybe scared by this threat to his religion, Judas who turned the authorities he trusted, Judas who betrayed Jesus - Jesus didn't walk away.

Jesus walked the dusty roads with Judas, and broke bread, and washed his feet. In the face of one who was complicit with the system, Jesus offered radical hospitality.

"one of you will betray me."

god, I have been so hurt and betrayed by churches and religion and people who don't affirm my sexuality. but I can't but love them, deeply and desperately, love them enough to hope they change.

one of you will betray me - but still, here is the bread, broken for you. still, here is the cup, poured out for you. still, here am I, kneeling at your side and washing your feet.

I imagine Jesus' heart breaking for Judas, Judas who had traveled with him for years, preaching and teaching and learning, telling stories over fires and on long walks, Judas who did not know what he was doing.

Judas saw protest and called it riots. Judas saw revolution and called it rebellion. Judas saw radical equality and systems coming apart and clutched to keep them together. Judas saw war coming, an uprising, an attack on the government - and Judas hoped to keep the peace.

sound like anything we see happening today?

Matthew tells us that when Judas learned that Jesus had been condemned, he took the money back to the authorities and repented for betraying an innocent man.

maybe Judas didn't know what he was getting into. Judas just wanted to maintain law and order, wanted to stop a bloody riot from happening on the streets. Judas trusted the system, and the system let him down.

forgive them, for they know not what they have done.

the disciples coming to Jesus, permit us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left.

Peter, cutting the ear off a servant.

the disciples refusing to let the little children come to Jesus.

Judas wasn't the only one who didn't quite grasp what Christ was doing.