Reading Luke Together

My husband, Carl, and I have been reading our 15 minutes of Bible reading out loud. One of us reads and the other listens. Some nights we trade off--one reads for half the time, the other for the other half.

Some nights I feel we've become our grandparents, although I'm not sure that they read the Bible to each other out loud, the way that we're doing. It feels very earlier-century to me.

And yet, I find myself looking forward to it. One of the things that I miss most about my younger school days is that it was the last time when I was surrounded by people who were all reading the same thing. There was always a discussion partner near by.

Last night, Carl paused over Luke's telling of how Jesus came to be betrayed. Luke says that Satan entered Judas. I know that this is a Biblical way of talking about how humans go astray, but I don't like the way that it takes agency away from Judas. It's as if Judas couldn't help himself; it recalls that old line, "The devil made me do it."

It detracts from one of the central lessons of Judas, which is that humans will betray each other for any number of petty reasons. Sometimes it's for a monetary pay off. Sometimes it's to satisfy our jealousy or our hatred or our envy. Some people just like to make mischief. I suspect that we often don't understand why we betray each other--and that may account for Judas better than anything else.

And perhaps that should be one of the lessons of Judas. Judas had plenty of time to change his mind, or at least, it sounds like he did. He could have made the arrangements to betray Jesus and then not have shown up. He could have been more introspective: "Hmm. I want to betray Jesus. I wonder why I want to do that. Thirty pieces of silver really isn't that much money. How will I live with myself after I tear apart my community here?"

Most of us just aren't very introspective. We don't understand why we act the way that we do. And many of us go through life, sowing destruction, when we could be agents for peace.