someone had to be judas

I think it is safe to say that most of us live in the abyss between the pseudo and the chaotic. We are continually vacillating between the two stages hoping to find a place beyond something … a place that is real, new, fresh, and alive.

Why is there so much disconnect? Can most of these failings be directly connected with and attributed to the lack of authenticity found within our church experience? Does this make it difficult to see oneself as a vital member of the body of Christ? Or are we simply asking too much from the community of faith? It’s been said, “church is the place where natural enemies gather. That, in essence, is what the Kingdom is.” I have also heard it said, “Grace is always manufactured from the outside but is God’s gift. It will always be external forces that push the church to be the church that God intends for it to be within His creative intention.”

Another question I found myself exploring, as a youth minister is why we were so “in-reach” focused. Not a week went by without my office being inundated with flyers, club cards, and other “ministry explosion” invitations. All of these events promised that the Spirit of God would be there and lives would be altered. Within this invitation there is little to no mention of their own local community, which they are called to serve. Instead these invitations often ask that we invite our community youth. Why has the expression of our faith reached entertaining proportions? Why have we identified what is pseudo as reality and identified reality as heresy? What are we so afraid of?

On the one hand it can be said that we lack the ability to dialogue with the world outside of our church walls. But it may actually be that we lack the very desire to even go outside. What are the effects of this mentality on our core mission? Do we still see ourselves as salt? Is it still part of our functionality to be a light on a hill? Or is that expectation not only lacking in cost efficiency but also woefully inefficient? It is my opinion that Sunday morning may be the largest, ongoing pseudo-event happening. Mercifully, God’s thoughts are so far above our own that life sometimes will simply force us to consider a wheat & tears theology (Matthew 13:24-30).

Another crazy question I started to ponder revolved around the inclusion of Judas into the Twelve. Was Judas’ inclusion into the circle of the apostles more for the community of the twelve? Asked another way, were there human elements deep inside of Judas, which could only come to the surface through the blessing of authentic relationships – which in turn would draw other human elements out of the other members within that circle?

Is Judas the ultimate “wheat & tears” example?

It seems we have, for years focused on the “spiritual” component of Judas’ selection. We understand that someone had to betray Jesus. But are we also able to see Judas as someone who had no desire to understand the principles of the Kingdom because he almost seemed to become disillusioned with Jesus and His Messianic pronouncements?

I think what we fail to highlight is Jesus’ inclusion of someone whom He knew was already disqualified and seemingly had nothing to offer. Could it be that Judas represented the possibility of someone who was regenerated while their mind still resided within the depths of Hell?

Failure of imagination is the loss of the ability to envision life any differently than the life already being lived and experienced by the person. Could Judas have suffered from a failure of imagination? Could this have been his main assault to the Kingdom? Was it his inability to imagine a life separate from what he already envisioned the Messiah to be that doomed him to be the one who would betray the Son of Man?

I wonder if this could another glimpse at some of the root causes behind our stagnated Evangelical youth movement. Are we ready, as a community of faith, to not only seek to convert souls but actively seek the conversion of the even more difficult to reach imagination? Are we willing and able to allow God to convert our imaginations? Can we imagine this Grace, which the Lord will bring from the outside, to be what will most definitely propels this conversion?

Although there are so many questions standing between where we are and our destination, one thing I do understand is that this does not happen in isolation. It can only take place within authentic community. This is indeed the very hard journey to finding a way of understanding and enjoying God through our family of humanity.