Actions speak louder than thirty pieces of silver.

What if it IS True? Blog

Discovering, wrestling with, and trying like crazy to live Gospel virtue.

04/16/14

Matthew 26:14-25

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,
went to the chief priests and said,
“What are you willing to give me
if I hand him over to you?”
They paid him thirty pieces of silver,
and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
the disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Where do you want us to prepare
for you to eat the Passover?”
He said,
“Go into the city to a certain man and tell him,
‘The teacher says, “My appointed time draws near;
in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”‘“
The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,
and prepared the Passover.

When it was evening,
he reclined at table with the Twelve.
And while they were eating, he said,
“Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”
Deeply distressed at this,
they began to say to him one after another,
“Surely it is not I, Lord?”
He said in reply,
“He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me
is the one who will betray me.
The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him,
but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.
It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”
Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply,
“Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”
He answered, “You have said so.”

Surely it is not I? We want to think we're where we need to be. Surely we're not so far off track that we're in the Judas boat. After all, we haven't tried to sell Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver, or have we? Some estimates say that the value of the money would be around a quarter of a million dollars. We know this because he took the money and bought the land on which he killed himself. Nonetheless, he sold out. That's the real lesson here.

So what are we investing in? Realize that investments don't have to have a thing to do with money. We could be spending time doing any number of things that keep us from doing God's will. There're all kinds of distractions. Many of them can look great and be basically good. But where's the focus? It's like the chocolate cake analogy. Chocolate cake is good, unless it's what you eat at every meal. Or, if you choose to eat it all in one sitting, by yourself. How are you prioritizing?

An interesting thing I've seen since becoming Catholic is the nonchalant nature many have about mass attendance. This was common in the evangelical church I once attended. Especially if the pastor was on vacation. This was vacation from attending for many of the members. But it's an odd reality that many consider themselves faithful Catholics and rarely, if ever, attend mass. As Catholics we see mass skipping as a mortal sin. If we're not willing to honor God with our participation at mass we may as well be selling him out for what ever it is we're doing instead. And not that monetary value has anything to do with it, but I doubt we're making a quarter of a million dollars on the Sundays we choose to skip mass.

I say all of this to bring us perspective. We see Judas as a despicable character and probably see ourselves as being pretty good for the most part. We have to be aware of what our actions say. If we have excuses for avoiding the sacraments then we may eventually find that Jesus will say to us “You have said so”. And we'll have said it loudly with our priorities.

Good luck and God bless,

Leo Brown