John 17 Acts; Choosing New Apostle

Did Judas have a choice?  Was he pre-destined to betray Jesus so that scripture might be fulfilled, or could he have taken another route, on the basis that some other would have betrayed Jesus instead?  Jesus’ comment in Matthew is ambiguous regarding Judas’ ability to choose.  He said,  “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”[1] Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus replied, “You have said so.”  Jesus knew who was to betray him, and we are told elsewhere that he knew what was in a man.  Maybe Judas was behaving in character.  Each of the disciples was flawed, as we all are, but Jesus worked with the people he had.  You will be relieved to hear that I don’t propose to go into the details of the Church’s 2000 years of tackling the question of predestination versus free will, however key-note writers include: St Paul, who in Romans states, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.  For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.  And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”[2]  Prominent amongst those who have wrestled with this issue are St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and, more recently, Karl Barth.  I’ll just touch on my personal experience of this phenomenon, which you can take or leave as you may.

As some of you know, I came to faith some 11 years ago on an Alpha course run by Holy Trinity Brompton.  At the time I was working in the City and had achieved all my ambitions, being left with a sense of “Is that it then?”  Within six months I got the impression that God said to me, “Well I don’t know what took you so long to arrive, but now you’re here I’d like you full time, but you’d better get yourself an education.”  Within 18 months I had left the City and read for a Theology degree at the University Cambridge.  I had no intention of getting ordained, as I don’t like institutions very much.  One weekend in February my mother (who had come to faith 18 months after me, aged 72) and I went to a prayer weekend in Chichester.  On the Sunday morning we were invited to come up for prayer if we would like some insight in to what God had in mind for us.  I didn’t go.  I had to take finals in June and then my husband John had a sabbatical year and that was as much of the future as I wanted to know, thank you very much.  On the drive back my mother suddenly had a picture of me but didn’t say anything as she thought I’d be cross.  I left her in London and on my way up the A1 in the dark, not thinking about anything except driving, I suddenly saw in huge letters of fire across the night sky the word “Ordination”!  My language was not repeatable from a pulpit.  I was really upset and felt completely trapped.  Each time I thought about it and prayed about it I ended up in tears, but I also sensed I had little choice but to offer myself to the ordination selection process.  When I phoned my mother and told her she said, “Well darling, the funny thing was that as we were driving I saw you in full clerical robes preaching, and somebody saying “She doesn’t normally dress like that you know””.  I continued to kick up a fuss but ended up at Ridley Hall in Cambridge training for the ministry.  At the end of the first term I was hating it so much that I had determined I wouldn’t go back after Christmas.  We were in chapel at the college’s weekly Holy Communion service and I was feeling pretty grumpy.  I went up to receive communion and ate the bread.  As the chalice was being handed to me I suddenly saw something I realized others with me weren’t seeing.  I was at the last supper and Jesus was reclining on a couch handing me the same chalice and eyeballing me.  He seemed to say, “I want you here.  Will you take this cup?”  In that instant I knew I had a choice, but it was an all or nothing choice.  Either I could get up, walk out of chapel and leave the whole of my faith behind, rejecting God entirely, or I had to drink the cup in all senses.  Yes I had free-will but it was not to pick and choose how much I obeyed God’s call on my life.  It was either all or nothing.  I drank the wine, handed back the chalice to Jesus/the server, the vision faded and I was back with my fellow ordinands, in a state of shock.  Was I pre-destined to make that choice?  I have no idea. 

 Judas made his choice of whether he would follow God or reject him at the last supper.  He left the room and it was night.  John’s gospel plays on the themes of light and darkness.  “This is [God’s] judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  For all who do evil, hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”[3]  Recently we have been getting an expense claim-by-claim account in the Telegraph newspapers graphically illustrating this phenomenon.  Members of Parliament wanted to be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.  They wanted their expenses to remain in darkness, and now we know why.  The ‘rules’, which they are constantly telling us they haven’t broken, were formulated for an era when people had a belief that there was a higher authority who could see all that they did and would hold them accountable.  Most MPs have lost that sense and cannot understand why the rest of us find it odd, not to say unacceptable to be claiming for mortgages which had been paid off, or even for one when another MP is paying rent and also claiming for the same expense.  Let alone duck pond floating islands, moat cleaning and renting pornographic videos.  “For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” 

In our gospel reading Jesus emphases the difference between being in the world and of the world.  He prayed to his father, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. …  And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  While I was with them, I protected them in your name …. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled….  I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”  Jesus asked for protection for his followers because the world would hate them, as those who walk in the light show up those who skulk around in darkness.  I think we can view this protection both figuratively and physically.  Figuratively, in asking that they should not fall away from the faith in Jesus as the Son of God, sent by God; the way the truth and the life.  When Peter denied him thrice, Jesus restored him during a walk on the beach.  Jesus knew his followers would face opposition and persecution and of course many of them were martyred.  He also asked God to protect them physically so that they could spread the good news.

I think that this prayer has relevance for us today.  I sense that Jesus is still praying for all his followers to be protected.  Here in the West, that protection may be more from the figurative threats than physical ones, for example, the lure of worldly wealth and selfish values which seduce us away.  The temptation to obey rules, rather than following their spirit.  Our reticence at declaring our faith to others, as we find it embarrassing, or don’t want to cause awkwardness.  Here the risks are subtle but spiritually deadly.  In other parts of the world the threats are physically deadly.  Christians are being persecuted as we speak in many societies. For example, firstly:

“Three Iraqi Christians were murdered on 26th April and two others were injured in two separate incidents in the city of Kirkuk. These attacks took place in a context of intense hostility to Christians from militant Islamists. The following has been posted on various websites:

The General Secretariat of the Adherent of Islam Brigade has decided to address the final warning to … the infidel Christian Crusaders … and order you to leave immediately, in masses and permanently from the Muslim countries. There is no place for you infidel Christians among the Muslim believers in Iraq from now on. Otherwise, our swords will be legalized over your neck.

The letter is part of a determined Islamist campaign to drive out the Christian community from Iraq. Although the Christians, as ethnic Assyrians, are the indigenous people of Iraq, Muslim extremists are trying to “cleanse” the country of their supposedly defiling presence. In the face of threats such as these, which are often followed through in violence and even murder, the Christian population has dwindled from 1.5 million in 1990 and today may number no more than 400,000.”[4]

Secondly:

“In the run up to India’s general elections, Christians in Orissa were increasingly fearful that their electoral voice might not be heard. During months of violence against local Christians, attackers deliberately sought out identity papers and burnt them. With the loss of these papers, many Christians also lost their right to vote in the federal and local ballots which have just finished. The Global Council of Indian Christians estimates that as many as 70,000 Christians, who would normally vote for opposition political candidates, might have been affected, which would have enabled Hindu extremist political parties to maintain their dominance unchallenged.”[5]  Fortunately the Congress party which is Secular and more multicultural than the nationalistic BJP was elected.

Both these reports and many others like them have been given publicity by a charity which works for the support and protection of persecuted Christians world wide.  It is called the Barnabas fund and can be found on the web as Barnabasfund – all one word – Barnabasfund.org.  Jesus asked his father to protect his followers as he had done.  We are the body of Christ.  I believe his prayer for protection remains current but it is through us in the free West that he can act.  So I feel we should frequently hold up the persecuted church in prayer and, if we are so minded, give financial support to charities such as the Barnabas fund.

[2] Romans 8:28-30

[3] Jn 3:19-21

[4] © barnabasfund.org

[5] © barnabasfund.org updated for events after election.