I Led Three Lives

Maundy Thursday

March 20, 2008

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

When I was a child I read a Cold War-era book called “I Led Three Lives.”

I’ve often though that would make a good title for my autobiography, if I were to be so bold as to write one. I’ve never been a double-agent, like the subject of the original book, but I have had three careers. First, as a newspaper journalist beginning in high school. Then, after graduate study, a college professor specializing in media history. Now, as you can see, I am a priest in God’s one holy, catholic, and apostolic church – a cure of souls, and a preacher of the Gospel.

These three professions have something in common: a search for the truth. Not the absolute, overwhelming TRUTH, but the best that can be found with our faculties. The journalist seeks out the who, what, when, where, why, and how. The historian asks, what is the historical situation, what is the context? And the priest asks, where is the good, where is the evil, where is God in all this?

All three seeking the greater truth, sometimes the Truth with a Capital-T. And we never get to it. Little bits here and there, but we’re only human – even us priests. Especially us priests. It is a lifelong effort to resist the temptation to think that the Truth is within our grasp.

When I was a college professor, I found myself amidst a peculiar mix of people, of time, and place. I was interested in teaching my classes and conducting my research. The university and department that I was in were very interested in waging battles against one another. As a team player – and after all, I’d claimed to be one in my job interview – as a team player I was expected to pitch in and fight.

This was a time of great anxiety for me. I loved my students, respected my departmental colleages, and heartily disliked the university administration and Board of Trustees. It’s not nice to admit, but those are the facts. I boiled when one of my superiors would look me in the eye and say one thing, then go and do the direct opposite. I didn’t feel that I could trust anyone. And I, being a good team player, came to the logical conclusion that I was on the side of Right and Good. My superiors were on the side of Wrong and Evil. I was convinced that they were out to do us harm and were succeeding.

I didn’t like feeling this way. Resentment is a wasting disease. During this time, I went to bed every night with this prayer: “Lord, help me to cast bitterness from my heart.”

I meant every word of that prayer – but honestly, I wanted it to be answered in a way that would let me win and them lose. But still, I prayed it: “Lord, help me to cast bitterness from my heart.”

One day, I saw a book on my shelf and said, “Rich, you bought that book years ago and still haven’t read it. Why don’t you pick it up and read yourself to sleep with it?” As you can imagine, anxiety was interfering with my rest and sleep.

So I picked it up and read it. It was an autobiography, “The Education of Henry Adams.” Henry Adams was many things in his life, notable even at his birth as the grandson and great-grandson of Presidents John and John Quincy Adams. In his life story, I was struck by the time he had spent in England during the American Civil War.

Adams’ father was the American ambassador to Great Britain during much of the war, and Adams served as his father’s personal secretary, giving him a front row view of the diplomatic end of the war. Britain could see some advantage in a Confederate victory, considering arms sales, cotton supplies, and other important political and economic factors. Adams knew this and resented the British for their position.

He looked at the decisions of the Prime Minister, of the Foreign Secretary, of Parliament and saw self-interest, duplicity, and treachery. He saw eagerness to support the Confederates even when being looked in the eye with promises that Britain would not recognize the Confederate government. Adams was wrenched with bitterness and anxiety at the British politicians and their misdeeds.

Then he says that after the war had passed and, indeed, some of the major players passed, he had a chance to look at events in better context.

He was able to read the papers of Lord Palmerston and others and he found himself surprised. He had viewed their actions purely through the lens of the War and the Union position. He did not realize at the time the complex forces at work in every political decision. Domestic politics, economic pressures, and more. What he saw as actions aimed at the heart of the American cause often were simply byproducts of other disputes, of other political fights. This was an important lesson in the education of Henry Adams. He felt chastened.

And I, as my evangelical friends would say, I was convicted. I saw in that story my own story – my own inability to consider the pressures on others, the context in which they live, that my personal happiness or misery was not their intent. I could not with any honesty attribute treachery to their motivation – and indeed, I could not attribute any motivation at all. I could evaluate the actions themselves, but the intent, the motivation had to lie outside my consideration. My access to the truth – big or little T – my access to the truth was too limited.

And I found I could sleep. It was amazing how that prayer was answered. I still thought that the things the administrators were doing were boneheaded and wrong. But I no longer considered them evil. I began to enjoy my job more, and I slept soundly.

On the night before he died, Jesus was at table with friends. He broke bread with them and shared the cup. He washed their feet as an example of humility and service. And he did this knowing all the while that one of those friends would betray him. As he washed their feet, he said, “And you are clean, though not all of you.”

He said this because he knew that the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. St. John the Evangelist tells us that Judas was a petty thief, but taking a few coins is different than taking a life. John explains, then, that it was Satan who had entered into Judas. The other disciples did not know this, and for all we know they went to their grave never understanding why their colleague had betrayed Jesus, and had betrayed them.

It is hard to know what to make of Judas. We know his treachery – but all along, Jesus had said it was the will of his Father that he go to Jerusalem, where he would be raised up. And the result of this betrayal? Christ died, Christ was buried, and rose again. Jesus died for our sins, and whoever believes in this – whoever believes in him will have life everlasting. It’s a strange, strange story that such apparent treachery would have such everlasting positive implication for all our lives.

We do not have the full truth of what happened inside Judas. Why it was he that betrayed Jesus and not Peter or Andrew or John. Whether the Father allowed Satan to enter Judas, whether Jesus recognized evil when he saw it, or merely knew what was inevitable. We don’t know.

What we do know is that there is truth –truth with a little T—that we don’t know. About Judas. About those around us. About whether there is evil at work, or if there is simply complexity that we’ll never understand. About what goes on in the hearts of those with whom we disagree.

We don’t know about those things. And too much worry about them will lead to anxiety. To loss of sleep. To a hardening and darkening of our own hearts.

What we do know is that there is one source of truth – truth with a capital T. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That he commands us to love one another – not understand, not agree with – but to love one another.

That is Truth. And in truth there is love.

Amen.