RKT2 - The Banality of Betrayal

When we think of betrayal, we usually think of something quite dramatic and sinister. But, for me, betrayal is something a little bit more mundane. It was the summer when I was 15 years old that I betrayed my father. We had packed up the car in preparation for a mini-family vacation to King’s Island, my favorite annual amusement park experience. While my spirit and my nose were dreading a two-hour car ride with my brother and his stinky feet, my heart was already thrilling with visions of rides on the Beast, the Racer and the Vortex. My father had just gone outside to pull the van from the garage into the driveway when the phone rang. I answered, “Hello?”

“Is Larry Doty there?” the voice in the receiver said.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“This is Eli Lilly,” the voice answered. My father’s work. Being a high-voltage electrician, my father was infrequently called to manage some electrical crisis at one of their several plants in Indianapolis. Simultaneously my heart sank and my mind raced. This was our family vacation, how dare they call him to work when he was supposed to be on vacation.

My father walked in the door. Should I tell them he was here, I thought to myself, and risk losing our trip? I knew my father was just as excited about the trip as I was. “He really was on vacation, which was almost like being away,” the little voice in my head said. If I say he’s gone, then we can just leave for our trip and no one has to know.

“He’s not here,” I heard myself say. Perfect.

Then from the kitchen came my dad’s voice, “Who is it, Kevin?”

“It’s your work,” I replied.

He had heard my lie. And he knew. I felt ashamed and embarrassed and vile. My father knew and he simply glanced at me as he took the receiver from my hand, saying, “This is Larry.” In that moment I had betrayed his trust and the values of honesty and hard work that he had taught me. It wasn’t the first betrayal nor the last, but it was for me the most memorable.

We are all experienced betrayers - those mundane but somehow central moments when the facades we build around ourselves suddenly come crashing down and our affinity for the enemies of our lives, enemies like selfishness, greed, ambition and pride, become painfully visible to the rest of the world and to us.

My betrayals are all too frequent and too mundane and unfortunately often they are also too true.

As we continue in this season of Lent, I have been pondering the betrayal of all of the disciples, but especially Judas. I think while our hope is that we are more like Peter, denying Christ, but ultimately being forgiven, our deepest fear is that we are each a faithless Judas. We have willing been betrayed by our own anger and succumbed to violence, been betrayed by our loneliness and sought quick passions, been betrayed by our own helplessness and anxiety and fear and covered them up with intoxicating substances or pushed them down into the deepest recesses of our spirit hoping they never return.

But the good news of the gospel, for Judas and for us, is not that we will never be betrayers or denyers or deserters of our professed faith. The good news is that its not our faith that saves us who makes us right with God. It is not faith in Jesus Christ but the faith of Jesus Christ that matters.