Matthew 26:14-16
Rev. Clark Lynn Callender, 3/14/10
$412.65
According to those who calculate such things, that is the current value of the 30 pieces of silver that Judas received for betraying Jesus.
$412.65 - That’s about 8 average tanks of gas. 3 average trips to the supermarket. A couple months of Comcast cable.
For a life, it’s a bargain. For two lives, it’s a steal. And that’s exactly what it bought 2,000 years ago - a “twofer”: one Messiah crucified, one soul lost forever. All for just $412.65.
A bargain. A steal.
What’s Jesus worth to you?
Better yet: What are you worth to him?
This is something of what I’d like to talk about this morning...
In our text today (in our continuing study of the events of Holy Week – the final week of Jesus’ life) it is Wednesday, and according to Scripture no activity is recorded of Jesus on this day – no teachings, no preaching, no miracles. Nothing. As far as we can tell, he just sort of “lays low” – doesn’t even come in to the city. The only thing that is said to happen on this day is the event described in our reading this morning, namely: Judas, one of the 12 disciples, one of the “inner circle,” goes to the religious leaders and makes a deal to betray Jesus.
Now, down through the centuries, many faithful people have, quite understandably, struggled with this greatly. “Why did he do it?” Well, various theories have been put forth:
Some say it was pure greed – that he just wanted the money. Others say he was just a pawn – that Satan entered him and used him beyond his control. Still others, in the most prominent theory, claim that Judas had become disillusioned in Jesus – that, like the crowds, he was hoping that Jesus would lead them in a military overthrow of Rome, and when Jesus instead taught love and change from within; Judas turned on him. Still others argue that Judas did believe in Jesus’ cause, but he was just getting impatient and thought that handing Jesus over would “push along” the arrival of the kingdom. Still others say it’s all simple self preservation: As everything began to unravel, Judas was just looking out for himself.
Now, each of these theories has some basis in scripture; however, they each also have certain problems. And in the end, the texts don’t spell out the issue plainly. And that’s important...
I believe the gospels are deliberately ambiguous about Judas’ specific motivation because Judas himself was AMBIGUOUS! That is, he wasn’t just some plastic, one-dimensional character who acted on some simple, easily-understood motivation. Quite the opposite, he was this all-too-real, all-too-human, very complex, “jumbled-up” mess – much as we so often are! And the gospel authors make a point to show this so we might not just look at him and say: “He did something I don’t do, so I don’t have to worry;” but rather, that we might look at him and see ourselves: the complex jumbled-up mess of motivations that so often makes up our lives – and realize that this could happen to us as well!
To put it another way: The story of Judas is CAUTIONARY TALE – a story that says: “This could happen to any of you!” Most especially, a story that seeks to warn the FAITHFUL – saying: Here was a person who was close to Jesus – who ate with him, travelled with him, worshipped with him. He served in the church. He did everything you’re supposed to do, came so close; yet he ultimately threw it all away, lost the whole thing. Beware that, amidst the trappings of religiosity, you don’t do likewise!
“This could happen to any of you!” All of which brings us back to the question: What happened?
Well, in the midst of all the possible motivations Judas might be struggling with here; what is the common factor? That is, no matter what thoughts are running around in his mind, what action does he take?
He makes a deal, right? This is the turning point in his life. This is where the rubber hits the road, how he chooses to resolve his inner turmoil. He SETS A PRICE, a VALUE, on Jesus’ life. “What will you give me?” he asks. “What’s it worth?”
At the very heart of the matter: a question of WORTH.
Now, as noted, the price he gets for Jesus is insultingly low. However, what he doesn’t seem to recognize at this moment (but we, the observer, can see from the outside) is that the price he has put on Jesus is also the price he has put on himself – for in selling out Jesus, he also sells off HIS OWN SOUL!
Essentially, what he unknowingly says to the religious leaders is: “You want Jesus? Well I’ll throw myself in with the bargain. This is what Jesus is worth to me because this is what I’m worth to myself: $412.65!”
Judas sets his own worth at 30 piece of silver. Think about that... Particularly think about it in light of the following, namely: What is Jesus about to say that Judas, and everyone else - everyone one of us - is worth to him?
Everything, right?! A priceless treasure! Incalculable riches! God is about to give all he has for us!
In this key moment in the passion story, you see, we get this dramatic contrast in VALUES – two completely different senses of WORTH. And that’s the point! This is what is ultimately driving things here:
Judas wrestles with all the same temptations and doubts and fears and confusion that we all do – all of what it means to be human; but what ultimately does him in, why it all goes wrong, the warning of his life, is that, in the end, he SELLS HIMSELF CHEAP! That’s how he chooses to make his decision, resolve his direction in life. HE DOESN’T SEE HIS TRUE WORTH TO GOD IN JESUS CHRIST! And that’s why he is lost!
And this is at the core of all souls lost: VALUES SKEWED. Sense of DIVINE WORTH MISSING. Thus people take their lives in despair, starve themselves to be beautiful, drink and inject and eat and gamble their lives away, hurt one another, cut themselves, lash out in violence, accept abuse... simply never look in the mirror and like what they see!
It’s not the way it’s supposed to be!
Well this is what Jesus came to say (as embodied in the loss of Judas): “You are a priceless treasure – don’t let yourself be sold cheap! Look at me and what I do for you. This is your value to God – what you are truly worth. Base your life on that alone! Don’t let your life be lost!”
So how do we do this and not suffer the same fate that Judas did? A couple of thoughts:
(I)
First: LOOK AT HOW YOU’RE DEVALUING YOURSELF.
To begin with, obviously, if the goal is to set our worth as the value God sees in us in Jesus Christ, then the first thing we have to do is set that value as our standard – judge everything by that. Basically, what it comes down to is this:
Before everything you do, every action you take, ask yourself the following question – it’s very simple: “Is this worth the value Jesus sees in me?” All day long, in everything: “Is this worth the value Jesus sees in me?”
When someone hurts you and you’re angry and about to lash out in kind – ask: “Is this worth the value Jesus sees in me?”
When you’re depressed and about to take another drink to try to wash the pain away – ask: “Is this worth the value Jesus sees in me?”
When you’re sitting at home lost in bitterness, doing nothing because of some way life has failed to go the way it should – ask: “Is this worth the value Jesus sees in me?”
And if the answer is “No;” then stop and turn from that thing and go in the other direction. Instead of lashing out in anger, offer a kindness. Instead of taking the drink, put it down and call for help. Instead succumbing to loss, go and offer life!
Refuse to devalue your true worth in Jesus Christ.
You know, I can tell you, from personal experience, that this works. Just this past week, I as driving along one day thinking about this very sermon. Well, suddenly somebody cut me off. Jerk! Immediately, I’m bugged and I want to get even. “I’m not going to let him get away with that! I’m going to pass him and cut him off!”
I hit the gas and started to pull out, and just then my heart asked the very question I had been abstractly pondering: “Is this worth the value Jesus sees in you? Better yet, Clark, is all this just a theory, or are you actually going to try it out?”
I felt so stupid. I had to laugh. Of course my reaction to this minor traffic moment wasn’t worth the value Jesus sees in me. It wasn’t worth anything. I immediately backed off the gas and fell back in line. And you know what? I ended up having the most leisurely, enjoyable trip to my destination. And how often can you say that in New Jersey?!
We so often sell ourselves so cheaply: to anger, to bitterness, to laziness, to comfort, to safety, to possessions, to substances, to behaviors... One author writes:
“When we possess something of great value, we generally safeguard it. Through a series of errors, however, a South African woman recently failed to properly care for a collection of gold coins she had inherited from her mother.
“The valuable coins inadvertently became mixed in with the rest of the woman’s loose change. While on a shopping trip near Cape Town one day, she parked her car and used a Kruger sovereign to feed the parking meter. The gold coin, minted in 1890, was said to be worth $15,000. Despite its value, the coin bought no extra parking time, however – just the standard 15 minutes, thus making the cost of the parking for this shopping trip $1,000 a minute. I sure hope the store was having a great sale!
“Now we may laugh at her foolishness, but how often do we do the exactly the same thing: Exchange the priceless for the common, and trade the eternal for the temporary?”
In taking hold of the priceless worth God sees in you, that your life might not be lost (to all the forces, within and without, that seek to take it from you), first: LOOK AT HOW YOU ARE DEVALUING YOURSELF. And then...
(II)
Secondly: MAKE YOURSELF ABOUT VALUING OTHERS.
Obviously, as noted earlier, the worth that God sees in Judas is not simply for him alone; but rather, part and parcel of the worth God sees in all humanity. And this points us toward a central principle: That our worth to God is tied up in worth of all humanity, of everyone, to God. We are all inseparably intertwined.
This is a second crucial mistake that we all so often make and why so many lives are needlessly lost: We seek our own worth at the expense of others, rather than in-tandem with them! It doesn’t work that way! When we throw away the value of others we throw away our own value; when we seek to bring out the value of others we bring out our own value! This is God’s economy. I mean, haven’t you simply ever noticed that people who like other people tend to like themselves (and visa-versa); while people who don’t like other people tend to not like themselves (and visa-versa)? Think of the example of Judas himself:
He unknowingly sells himself cheap, and what form does this “bargain sale” take? It takes the form of selling someone else out cheaply!
Our worth together is intertwined within the love of God. What we see in others is what we see in ourselves. What we seek in others is what we find in ourselves! Thus how we take hold of the true worth God sees in US in Jesus Christ is by seeking to get OTHERS to see this in themselves! And let’s face it, we live in a world starving for this. It’s the plague of our age!
You know, I recently read this article by an author who said that this is the fundamental issue driving virtually all of our current cultural phenomenon – things like: reality television, online blogging, Facebook, Twitter... This author said that this is really all about people simply trying to be recognized, to be valued – to find someone, somewhere to say, “You matter.” Souls desperately searching after worth. Souls about to be lost. Will we save them?
Finding our own worth comes down to, every day, resolving to help someone else find their worth to God. And we can do this. Sometimes in ways dramatic and costly; but more often in simple, everyday things: stopping to listen, taking a moment to care, putting ourselves aside for a moment that our best selves might truly emerge. Christian author Mark Westen writes:
“I work as a postman at our local post office. Every week, this one older woman, Lucille, comes in and she always does the same thing: After waiting in the long lines we often have here, she finally gets up to the counter and buys just two or three stamps. I get her the stamps, and we talk briefly and then she mails her letters.
“Well, one day, after seeing this pattern repeated week after week, month after month, I said, ‘Lucille, you know, there’s a machine in the lobby that sells stamps. You could get them there so you don’t always have to stand I line.’ Her response caught me off guard, and reached deep into my heart - she said, ‘Yes, but the machine won’t ask me how my week has been... like you always do.’”
A soul that was desperately seeking to be valued somehow - to matter. In taking hold of the priceless worth God sees in you, that your life might not be lost, secondly: MAKE YOUR LIFE ABOUT VALUING OTHERS. And finally...
(III)
Third: LET JESUS ALONE CLOSE THE DEAL.
In the end, this issue of the 30 pieces of silver that Judas has been paid returns one more time with dramatic results. Just one chapter later in Matthew’s gospel:
Let me ask you: From what you know about Jesus... If this repentant Judas, having recognized his wrong, being obviously heart-broken over it, had come to Jesus – even with all the evil he had done – what do you think Jesus would have done?
He would have FORGIVEN him, right?! He could have known joy, a brand new life!
So why didn’t this happen?
Simple: Having set his own price, he stuck to it; instead of setting as the value of his life the love of Jesus Christ! He “closed the deal” rather than Jesus!
Well imagine if he had done otherwise. If instead of closing the deal himself, he had handed the contract over to Jesus. That is...
Think of the difference in his life if he had just WAITED THREE DAYS. If he had said to himself, “I’ve done a horrible evil, I’ve ruined everything, I deserve nothing. But I know that God is love and I am still valuable to him – even though it makes no sense. And despite all I’ve done, and how it all looks, I’m going to hold fast to that.”
What if he had held on to that in the darkness of Thursday night, when everything had gone wrong? What if he had held on to that in the darkness of Friday night, when everything had gotten even worse? What if he had held on to that in the darkness of Saturday night, when it seemed all was over?
What would he have discovered come Sunday morning?
Salvation! “Tears may linger through the night, but joy comes in the morning!”
Sometimes life comes down to just holding on to the love of God, against all odds, against all logic, for just one more day!
The final lesson here: Don’t close the deal yourself! Hand the contract for your life over to Jesus! No matter how things look, no matter what you see, hold on to the priceless worth God sees in you (revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and realize that God can make something great out of your life, better than you’ve ever known, if you’ll just entrust it to him!
When everything has gone wrong and it seems hopeless; when you’ve loused-up again and ruined everything; they devil will say, “Give up.” But Jesus says, “No! Give your life to me! I can take anything you’ve got, forgive anything you’ve done – and make something beautiful and new!”
Let Jesus close the deal – no one else!
A noted preacher – a man who grew up on the streets of Los Angeles, got into a gang, did drugs, sold drugs, eventually went to prison and there found the Lord and today is Lutheran pastor, writes:
“In 1463, members of the City Council of Florence Italy decided they needed a monument to enhance their city. They commissioned a sculptor to carve a giant statue to stand in front of city hall. Someone suggested a biblical character wrought in the neoclassical style, an expression of beauty and strength.
“They approached Agostino di Duccio, who agreed to their terms. Duccio went to the quarry near Carrara and marked off a 19-foot slab to be cut from the precious white marble. However, he had the slab cut too thin. When the block was removed, it fell, leaving a deep fracture down one side. The sculptor declared the stone worthless and demanded another, but the city council refused. Consequently, the gleaming block of marble lay on its side for the next 38 years, a source of embarrassment for all concerned.
“Then, in 1501, the council approached another citizen, the son of a local official, asking him if he would attempt the ambitious project, using the broken slab. Fortunately for them, the young man was Michelangelo. He was 26 years old, filled with energy, skill, and imagination.
“Michelangelo locked himself inside the workshop behind the cathedral to chisel and polish away on the stone for three years. When the work was finished, it took 49 men five days to bring it to rest before the city hall. Archways were torn down. Narrow streets were widened. People came from all across Europe, as they still do to this very day, to see the 14-foot statue of DAVID relaxing after defeating Goliath.
“It was even more than the city fathers had envisioned. Michelangelo had seen something magnificent in the stone, something no one else had seen, and he had brought it forth. The giant stone had been transformed from a massive fractured worthless waste of rock to a masterpiece surpassing the greatest art in the world, all because some people refused to give up and instead, entrust the project to a master.
“So also our lives often become a fractured, broken, seemingly worthless mess. But God still sees something magnificent within and can draw it forth if we’ll let him. We need only entrust the project to him! I know, because he did it for me!”
$412.65
A bargain-priced soul. Don’t let your life be lost the same way – to all the constant forces, within and without, that seek to take it from you. Instead, set your heart firmly upon YOUR PRICELESS WORTH TO GOD IN JESUS CHRIST and have that guide everything you are: Look at how you’re selling yourself cheap. Make your life about valuing others. And let Jesus alone close the deal!
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