“Dear Judas … I thought of you today”: So many people have sold their souls for 30 pieces of silver. Matthew 27: 1-10

Judas sells Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver: Photo, the Independent

… Pastor: “A Letter to the Evangelical Church”

“He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned in betraying innocent blood’.”

[Judas could not erase the guilt, but people today can.]

Every Christian knows the story of Judas Iscariot one of Jesus Christ’s 12 apostles who in a moment of weakness sold his mentor to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver. 

Judas kissed Jesus, his beloved leader and mentor, indicating the one they sought to those trying to destroy the King of the Jews, telling them which one he was. That act led to the crucifixion of Jesus, and the moral of that story is often not clear to all of us in the 21st Century, thousands of years after the real event. 

A pastor wrote a letter to other Christians last week, one in which he took to task those whom he essentially called Pharisees because they have sold their soul for those same pieces of silver, figurative or literal. 

Judas’ betrayal

As Jesus stood in the Garden at Getsemane sic, he told his disciples that the betrayer among them had arrived,

45 Then he returned to his disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand when the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners.

46 Get up, let us go. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”

The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus.

47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a large crowd, with swords and clubs, who had come from the chief priests and the elders of the people.

48 His betrayer had arranged a sign with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him.”

49 Immediately he went over to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!”* and he kissed him.

Matthew: 26: 45-49

John Pavlovitz: Letter to evangelicals

John Pavlovitz is a Christian pastor in North Carolina whose blog is entitled “Stuff that needs to be said” and reaches a global audience, according to his website. 

However, Pavlovitz is very upset at some of his fellow Protestant pastors. That is why he wrote a posting last this week in which he called evangelical pastors Judases, which is a strong condemnation of religious leaders who put money ahead of spiritual values and morals. 

Pavlovitz is blunt in his condemnation of those pastors who should be leading people to God but instead of exhibiting Judas-like behavior,

Dear Evangelicals,

I thought of you today.

I was reading the Bible. (You may remember the Bible from a sitting president’s recent upside-down, tear-gassed, church steps photo op.)

I came across Matthew’s story of Judas’ final moments here on the planet: overwhelmed with guilt, in a searing, sweaty panic—realizing that he had betrayed his beloved Jesus and sent him to an unthinkably violent death, all for thirty cold pieces of silver that now felt worthless in his hands.

He’d kissed him and he’d killed him, just to gain a quick windfall that he suddenly realized was fool’s gold.

He died knowing he’d forfeited his soul and couldn’t get a refund. 

I wonder if you will ever have such a last-minute awakening: a similarly sickening moment of clarity-come-too-late, when you look around and see all that you’ve destroyed and how many people you’ve grievously wounded—and if you too will realize that you’re now permanently in the red because you have abandoned your namesake for another name that adorns very different kinds of buildings.

Take a moment and survey the coins in your hand, now, friends. 

Roll them around your fingers.

Feel the weight of them. 

John Pavlovitz, “Dear Judas (A letter to the evangelical church), 

Stuff that needs to be said, November 20, 2020

Ministers have their own “Field of Blood”

That is contained in Matthew 27 when Judas felt overwhelming guilt that he could not justify in his heart or soul, 

Jesus Before Pilate.

1-4 Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver* to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? Look to it yourself.”

5-8 Flinging the money into the temple, he departed and went off and hanged himself. The chief priests gathered up the money, but said, “It is not lawful to deposit this in the temple treasury, for it is the price of blood.” After consultation, they used it to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why that field even today is called the Field of Blood.

9 Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet,* “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of a man with a price on his head, a price set by some of the Israelites,

10 and they paid it out for the potter’s field just as the Lord had commanded me.”

Matthew 27: 1-10

Judas could not stand what he had done and took his own life. However, what bothers Pavlovitz is that the evangelicals and other Christian leaders like Catholic bishops who were just vilified by the stories of horrific sexual abuse charges in the McCarrick Report do not acknowledge their guilt. 

The questions for Christian leaders

The problem for these evangelicals, other Protestant leaders, and Catholic priests and hierarchy is that they have stood up for an immoral, amoral, un-Christian, and corrupt man who is likely to spend eternity in hell is such a place exists,

Your thirty pieces of silver were these last four years, some Supreme Court Justices, a couple hundred of lower court judges, the temporary high of a few political wins, the bully pulpit of a President’s Twitter feed for forty-eight months,

and perhaps soon, a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body.

That was your soul’s selling price.

Was it all worth betraying Jesus for, I wonder?

Was it worth brutalizing the already vulnerable and oppressed, whose lives he said he inhabited?

Was it worth aligning with this petulant, profane Caesar in all his pervasive and prolific violence?

Was it worth driving a generation from the Church that Jesus built to be a refuge for wanderers, a balm for the hurting, a destination for weary pilgrims, and a home for prodigals?

John Pavlovitz, “Stuff that needs to be said,” November 20, 2020

What would Jesus do?

Some Christians who are politicians like to talk about examining their decision-making process with this acronym: WWJD?

George W. Bush used that to win the 2000 presidential election, and the proceeded to engage in un-Christian behavior like torture and invading countries that did nothing against us except oppose our philosophy. 

What would Jesus do? 

Here is what Pastor Pavlovitz thinks and believes will happen to those hypocrites, call them Scribes or Pharisees, who have engaged in this un-Christian behavior, saying that all of those things were not worth it,

From where I’m standing, it wasn’t. 

From where I’m standing, you’re bankrupt.

From where I’m standing, you’re stuck.

I’m out here with the multitudes who will never darken the door of one your gatherings ever again because they’ve seen your greed.

I’m here with those whose last remaining tethers to religion have been fully severed seeing you abandon the tender world-loving heart of Jesus, in favor of a thin facade of nationalistic bravado.

I’m here alongside hundreds of thousands sitting vigil for a democracy teetering precariously on the edge of death at your doing.

I’m with the disparate humanity who can find something redemptive and beautiful— anywhere else but alongside you.

I’m here with those whose grief you have manufactured, whose peace you have interrupted with chaos, whose voices you have intentionally silenced: with the poor and hurting and the hopeless.

I’m there because Jesus is there; where he’s always been. You are there with those thirty coins and the time that is running out. He will outlive you.

I imagine you’re not able to mourn any of this right now; that you still feel like you’re winning. You are still in between the payoff and the wake-up, and so all you’re feeling is the fleeting rush of a deal with the devil that always seems like a win—until it doesn’t.

But one day soon (either here or hereafter) you’re going to reach the place all Judases eventually find themselves: realizing all they’ve lost to gain a world:

They’ve lost everything that matters.

Hope those thirty pieces of silver were worth that.

Farewell.

John Pavlovitz, “Stuff that needs to be said,” November 20, 2020.

Conclusion

These people have driven so many people away from Jesus, away from God, by their duplicitous actions and behavior. That is particularly true of the younger people, but I now of people from my generation who have said things like this about the Catholic Church, 

That church should be placed on trial at The Hague for being an evil, criminal organization.

This comes from a man who grew up in a devout Catholic family and attended a Catholic school but has been driven away because of the abuse and hypocrisy of organized religion.

We have too many Judases in this world. We need people who will follow the words of Jesus Christ and not worry about how much money the people place in their collection plates or who send in their hard-earned money to the greedy pastors whose only interest is those 30 pieces of silver.