Today, Holy Wednesday, at times is referred to as Spy Wednesday. That’s because in the gospel reading for today we see that Jesus is being spied on by one of his supposed closest allies, Judas.
But Jesus is not willing to be passive aggressive or screw around by pretending that He doesn’t know this is happening or who is doing it. He simply says that He’s going to give a piece of bread to the one who will betray Him. When Judas gets given that piece of bread he knows the gig is up. So then he bails as there’s no point in spying on Jesus or pretending to be an ally any longer.
Today during the different politicians press conferences outlining their approach to how to best respond to COVID-19, you could see these passive aggressive political shots being taken at one another. The 'right' saying that the 'left' is making bad decisions and the 'left' saying that the 'right' is wrong.
The beauty of focussing on Jesus through it all is that He is saying that life is too short to get caught up in all this crap.
People are dying.
The world is full of injustice.
We don’t have time to play games here.
As Brueggemann reminds us, ‘left‘ and ‘right’ are not biblical categories. The only true biblical category is 'neighbourliness'.
If we’re not looking after one another in love, what exactly are we doing?
Playing games?
Wasting time?
Throwing stones?
If this time in our history isn’t scary enough to teach us that life is too short for this wonkiness, I don’t know what is.
Prayer
(based on today’s Gospel reading from John 13: 21-32)
Holy God,
Thank-you you're not a spy God; watching and waiting for us to slip up.
On this Holy Wednesday, this Spy Wednesday, I pray for strength to not get caught up in the passive-aggressive side-taking madness all around us.
Help me to not get swayed by a smooth talking politician or someone offering me a few measly shekels to betray my friends.
Lord of my life,
Help me to know when I’m around someone who is playing games and dangerous to trust.
Help me to not be that guy who is playing games and dangerous to trust.
But most of all, help me to follow your example on the cross and have the strength to forgive people who might hurt me or those I love.
Forgiving God,
This Holy Week thing is stinking hard.
Help me to learn from the example Jesus gave us during this week,
No matter how hard it is.
Or how much it costs.
Amen