Hilton Head Island, SC - April 6, 2006
The Chapel Without Walls
Matthew 26:47-50; 27:3-8
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Voices Near The Cross: Judas Iscariot
You can say whatever yuh wanna, but Ah'm tellin' yuh: Ah ain't no traitor. Ah'm sick and tired of hearin' how Ah'm the only guy in the whole bunch who's a rat.
Ah don't know why Ah've always been the odd man out in this here outfit. Well, yes, Ah do too know. It's always been as plain as the nose on mah homely face. All o' them're northerners, and Ah'm the only southerner among 'em. They treat southerners like trash, them northerners! Yeshua doesn't; He don't treat nobody like trash, not even the Romans or the scribes, both of which are trash.
'Course, Ah'll admit: I ain't even like most southerners. Ah certainly ain't like the folks what live in Yerushalayim. They got class an' culture, and I'll tell the world -- well, the world done already told me, many times -- that I ain't got no class or culture. An' Ah don't. You come from where Ah come from, an' you wouldn't neither.
Let me tell yuh who Ah am. Mah name is Yudah; you know, Yudah: like the son of Yaacov? Like the tribe? Like the region? Well, that's mah name.
They also call me Yudah Ish-Keriot. It ain't a family name; we ain't got family names 'round here. Ish-Keriot means "Man of Keriot." Mah daddy was also called Ish-Keriot. His name was Shimon Ish-Keriot (See John 6:71).
So where's Keriot, you're gonna ask me. It ain't nowhere, hardly. If anyplace was ever no place, Keriot is the place what ain't. It's way south and a little east o' Yerushalayim, right in the middle o' the Negev Desert. Keriot is so far south not even God is sure where it is. An' a godforsaken little place it is! Anybody who lives in Keriot is poorer than a one-legged, no-eyed beggar. You jest can't hardly make a livin' there.
Mah daddy shore wasn't able to. It was bad enough in Keriot in my great-granddad's time, but by the time Ah was born, the damned Romans (you'll pardon mah Arabic!) had made life absolutely mis'able fer ever'body. Daddy was so burned up by them Romers that he became a member of the Zealots. Zealots, Ah guess you know, are 'bout the only Yudeans what has any courage. They've gotten together in little bands, an' they wage their own private little war on the Romer legionnaires. Whenever they can, they slip a sword into their backs, or stick a knife between their ribs. The Zealots do most o' their work at night. They know these hills like the backs of their hands, but the Romers don't know these parts from nuthin'.
Ah was the last child in a batch o' eight. Ah 'spect there would'a been a dozen or fifteen, 'ceptin' mah daddy got hisself killed jest b'fore Ah was born when a Zealot friend o' his ran off after the pair of 'em had stabbed a Romer, an' ten more Romers came over the hill just at that moment. Daddy never had a chance.
So mah mama raised me an' mah brothers an' sisters all by herself in Keriot. I remember bein' hungry a whole lot more than I remember having been full. Ah s'pose it ain't really right, but Ah blamed it all on the Romers. If they hadn't-a killed mah daddy, Ah figgered, ever'thin' would'a been all right. 'Course even without 'em, Keriot was still jest a wide spot in a narrow road, an' you could hardly grow a blade o' grass down there.
By the time Ah was sixteen, Ah had joined the Zealots mahself. Ah wanted tuh avenge mah daddy's death. You can un'erstan' that, cain't-shuh? If you couldn't even remember your daddy, an' yuh knew a bunch o' foreign soldiers had killed 'im, wouldn'tcha wanna kill 'em back? My life was probably never gonna amount tuh nuthin' anyway, bein' from Keriot an' all, but Ah wanted tuh set things right, and Ah also wanted tuh do somethin' fer other Jews. We gotta git these Romers outta here! We ain't ever gonna have a life as long as they got their foot on our neck!
By the time Ah was twenty, Ah had joined the meanest o' the Zealots, the ones called "The Sicarii." Lots o' the Romer soldiers carry a little sword which they call in their own language il sicari. Whenever we would kill a Romer, we'd take his sword, and after a while we each started callin' ourselves an Ish-Sicari, a Man of the Sicari. Some folks think that's how Ah got my name, Yudah Ish-Sicari, but Ah got it from mah daddy an' from mah hometown; me an' him both was Ish-Keriot.
Nearly three years ago, when Ah was twenty-two, I was sent up north tuh find a certain Romer centurion who I was told had become interested in the teachings of a Galilean rabbi by the name of Yeshua ha-Notzri: Jesus the Nazarene, Ah guess maybe is how you'd say it. Mah commander said he didn't want no Romers becomin' friendly with no Jews, so he told me to go up there and get rid of this soldier.
Ah'd never been in the north before. It's beautiful country --- and so much greener than the Negev! It was mighty pretty. Ah went to Kfar Nahum, where Ah had heard Yeshua hung out, and I was told that nearly everybody in town had jest started up the hill on the north side of the lake tuh hear him preach. "This is terrific!" Ah said to mahself; "maybe Ah'll find this here centurion somewhere in the crowd."
All of us arrived at a little knoll way above the lake. There was the man ever'one told me was Yeshua, and he was settin' on a rock, waitin' for us all tuh get there. He started speakin', and Ah'm tellin' you, Ah hadn't never heard nuthin' like that in mah whole life! "Blessed are the poor in spirit," he said, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Never was anybody poorer in spirit than I was! It was as though Yeshua was speakin' only tuh me! "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Fer mah whole life, Ah've been sad about a father Ah never knew, about a mother down there in the desert who died when she was only thirty-four and Ah was only nine, and Ah thought, "Mah Gawd, this man knows me!"
After Yeshua said a few other things, he said some particular things that nearly knocked me flat: "It has been said, 'You shall not murder.' But I say whoever is angry with anyone has already killed that person in his heart." An' Ah'm thinkin', "Ah'm here tuh kill a Romer centurion." "It has been said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say don't resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." An' Ah'm thinkin', "Ah've resisted Rome fer most o' mah life." "It has been said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemy, and pray for those who persecute you." "Good Gawd," Ah'm thinkin' to myself, "You ain't heard this man but ten minutes, and already he has taken comtrol of yer head - - - an' even more, yer heart!"
Ah never saw nobody like Yeshua before! Ah only wish you could'a heard him too! It was like nuthin' nobody ever said! Ah was all of a sudden a changed man! Ah no longer thought about that Romer! Ah no longer was so angry because of what happened to mah daddy! Ah no longer was so sad because mah mama had died! Ah started to feel --- Ah don't know --- whole! Until that moment Ah had never known Ah had always been broken, but now Ah had been put back together!
In less than an hour Ah became a new person! "Do not store up treasures for yourself on earth, but store up treasures in heaven." As long as I could remember, I had always been terribly angry at the rich -- the Roman rich especially, but even the Jewish rich. They always store up so much! If somebody's gonna be rich, then somebody else has gotta be poor, an' that somebody was me! But here was Yeshua, tellin' us we shouldn't even try to be rich, that we must be sure not to be rich, that the only real riches are in God's kingdom! "Don't worry about what to eat or drink or wear," he said, an' Ah had spent nearly every minute of every day worryin' about that!
Ah was a poor man --- don't you un'erstan'? Ah am a poor man! Ah have always been poor, along with most everybody else Ah know! But here was Yeshua, holdin' out hope for poor folks! If you're treated like dirt fer long enough, yuh begin to feel like dirt, but suddenly Ah felt like somebody! For the first time ever Ah felt like somebody!
Ah guess Yeshua must've seen somethin' powerful goin' on inside me, 'cause afterwards he came directly up to me an asked if Ah would want to follow him. "Would I!" Ah said, and from that moment on Ah did. Never again did Ah carry a sword. Never again did Ah want to kill another Romer.
But Ah still wanted Rome out o' Yisroel. An' Ah still do. It ain't right that they should be here. They should go on back across the sea where they came from, and leave us alone. Ah tried to get Yeshua to see that, an' he would always jest smile at me, and say, "Ah, Yudah, Yudah, you are so intense! Loosen up! You can't overcome the past! You can't make right what you feel is so wrong! I didn't come here to make war! I came to preach peace, the peace of God!"
In my heart I felt only peace and love toward Yeshua, but Ah'm gonna tell yuh, to the other eleven I felt a whole bunch o' anger. They never accepted me, ever. "He's a southerner!" they whispered to one another, as though I was some kind o' leper. Well who do they think they are? Ah'm tellin' yuh, this treatment as a fifth-class citizen by eleven men who are at most fourth class citizens themselves literally drives me crazy. It is as if they needed a fall guy, an' since Ah'm from the South, Ah'm it.
Well, they won't have me around much longer. Ah'm gonna be leavin', an' soon.
Before Ah go, though, Ah have to tell yuh about the last few days. For almost three years Yeshua went all over the Galil, preachin' an' teachin'. Most never paid him much mind, but some did. Last Sunday we all come intuh Yerushalayim. It was like the whole world suddenly seen Yeshua as the Mesheach, an' all of 'em at once. Nobody'd seen it, includin' us, and then ever'body seen it. They was hoopin' an' hollerin' an' carryin' on like you wouldn't believe. "This is it!", says Ah to myself; "at last Yeshua is going to use his power to throw the Romers out!" Ah knew he wouldn't never hurt none of 'em, but Ah was sure he would call God down, somehow, and God would move them Eye-talian boys right on outta here.
Well, it didn't work that way: not at all. Yeshua didn't lift a finger 'gainst nuthin' or nobody. "Yeshua," I says to myself, "you know what tuh do! You gotta free us: fer the sake o' Yisroel, fer mah daddy's sake, fer yer own sake! If you ain't gonna do this quite yet, Ah'm-a gonna have tuh force yer hand! Ah know this is what you wanna do! It's maybe the main part o' why you come here --- ain't it?"
The folks who hated Yeshua the most was the priests. They treated him terrible; the things they said to him! So Ah decided, "Ah know what Ah'll do. Ah'll go see the big shots among the priests, an' Ah'll make a deal with 'em. Ah'll tell 'em Ah'll turn Yeshua over to 'em, and then they'll think they got him dead to rights, and then he'll have tuh do somethin'. Ah'll jest make him do it a little sooner, so's he does what Ah'm sure he's been wantin' tuh do anyway."
And that's jest what Ah did. Them priests, 'specially that one named Caiaphas, was only too glad to strike a deal. They gave me thirty pieces of silver tuh seal the bargain. I never had no plans tuh keep that money; I jest let 'em think Ah did. After this thing was all over, and Yeshua had chucked out the Romers, I was gonna give it back to 'em, and laugh in their faces.
Last night Yeshua took all twelve of us up to a room he knew about over a house on Mt. Zion. We celebrated Pesach there. When Yeshua had said a bunch o' things, some of which Ah didn't quite un'erstan', he said somethin' real strange, somethin' that turned mah heart tuh ice. "One of you will betray me," he said. Ever'body seemed scared half tuh death when he said it. One after the other, they went right 'round the table, "Is it I, Lord?" "Is it I?" "Is it I?" Finally it was mah turn. Ah was right next tuh Yeshua. I couldn't hardly get the words outta mah mouth. "Is it me?" Yeshua looked at me, he looked through me, an' he said, "You have said so."
That was the worst Ah ever felt in mah whole life, up tuh right then. It was like Yeshua knew what I was gonna do, but like he also didn't want it to happen an' couldn't do nuthin' about it. Ah was so scared, Ah was so confused, Ah felt so bad, that Ah got up right then and ran outta the room. Right off Ah went to the priests, an' we all went to the Romers, and they brought a bunch o' soldiers. Ah knew Yeshua would take the other disciples to the Garden o' Gethsemane, 'cause that's where we always went, and sure 'nuff, when we got there, there he was. Ah had told the Romers that the one Ah kissed would be the man tuh nab.
When me an' the soldiers showed up, the other disciples took off like scared rabbits, 'cept fer Shimon. Ah went up to Yeshua, and as we all always did, Ah kissed him, once on each cheek. He kissed me back. But, although he seemed to know ever'thin' that was happenin', he hugged me, hard, like he always did; in fact, he always seemed to hug me harder than any o' the others; Ah never un'erstood that. An' he kissed me like he always did. An' mah Gawd, those kisses burned a hole right through me! Ah thought that would be the moment he'd do somethin', somethin' big, that'd be when he would call down fire from heaven, that was when at last Rome would get it! But Yeshua did nuthin'!!! He jest looked at me! And the soldiers led him away! And he looked so small, so meek, so gentle!!!
They crucified him! You hear me? They crucified him! He never fought back! He never did anything!
Why? He coulda called down a thousand angels, and they woulda done ever'thin' he asked! There was nobody like Yeshua --- ever!!! But he didn't do nuthin'!!! An' it's all mah fault!!! He died, an' it's all mah fault!!!
Ah don't know what Ah'm gonna do. Ah feel worse than Ah have ever felt. Ah think back to when Ah first heard Yeshua on that hill up there in the Galil, an' Ah say to mahself, Ah wish fer his sake Ah'd never met him. He has made all the difference in the world to me, but what have Ah done tuh him? What have Ah done?
(Biblical Note: Judas, according to one of the Gospels, Matthew, but Matthew only, committed suicide. The thirty pieces of silver, which Judas flung back at the priests, the priests used to purchase a burial place for outcasts and Gentiles [Matt. 27:3-10]. In that field, called Hakeldamah in Hebrew ["The Field of Blood"], says the Book of Acts, Judas died, "and his bowels gushed out [Acts 1:18].” So the biblical writers were not able to agree on exactly how Judas came to a bad end; only that he did come to a bad end. But in the end, none of us comes to a bad end, because in the end, God is always there, so the end can never be ultimately bad. A particular theological viewpoint expressed by JMM.)