The Gospel According to Who?That's right, Judas.

Sermon

Most of us are familiar with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The word "gospel" means, not truth but "good news." Gospel accounts were not written as ancient journalism, to give people accurate information about what was going on. Concepts like bias had nothing like the modern applications we give them. Gospels were written to offer a person's take on a story - they were interpretive, written from a particular perspective, and often with a particular audience in mind. Indeed, that all holds true for each of the four gospels in the New Testament.

In 1945, a bunch of ancient writings contained in codices, books, were found near Nag Hammadi, Egypt. These became known as the Nag Hammadi Library and though their stories vary widely, they share a strong gnostic orientation.

Gnosticism was an important religious flavor in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. Many of the mainstream religions had a gnostic aspect or subset to them, including ancient Judaism and also early Christianity. Whether Jesus was himself inclined towards gnosticism, we'll never truly know. Some of the New Testament accounts, particularly the gospel of John, contain gnostic elements. But others locate him firmly within mainstream Judaism, or firmly outside it. Jesus' message and meaning shifted according to who was presenting him.

Some of the documents found at Nag Hammadi have nothing to do with Jesus. But others are Gnostic Christian texts, and are all about Jesus and his followers. Though some sayings and stories echo some in the bible, many others present sides to him and his followers that are unknown, or even antithetical, to those codified in the New Testament.

In the 1970's, another codex was found in Middle Egypt. It contained 4 texts that date to the early 4th century CE, and like the Nag Hammadi Library, they were written in Coptic, a Greek-Egyptian hybrid language. After a couple of decades of misadventure, including many years in a safety deposit box in Hicksville, NY, followed by a disastrous sojourn in a freezer, the works finally found their way into responsible and capable hands. And it was then confirmed and reconfirmed that part of what had been found was a Gospel of Judas. Until now, we only knew that such a gnostic gospel had once existed, because Bishop Irenaeus excoriated the gospel in his work Against Heresies, that dates to about 180 CE. So we knew some such text necessarily predated his indictment of it; most scholars date the original text to between 140 and 160 CE. And indeed this gospel seems to be the one he was attacking, though this particular copy is a later one, dating to around 280 CE.

But before we talk more about this text in particular, it makes sense to review some very basic principles of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is based on the Greek word 'gnosis' or knowledge. The knowledge Gnostics treasured was the understanding that there were two worlds. There was a blessed, sacred, orderly upper world, patronized by a good and true God who existed only, and completely, in spirit not in flesh, as indeed all that world did. There was also a terribly, tragically flawed lower, material world, one that had been created by a fallen lesser god,(known as Yaldabaoth in the Gospel of Judas) who never should have created this flawed world in the first place. And this is where humanity resides. This was part of how the gnostics explained how so much injustice and suffering prevailed in our world - it was literally misbegotten.

According to this system of understanding, people were saved not by faith nor by works but by knowledge which they could only gain and appreciate if they had a divine spark in them - and not everyone did - a grain of grace that came from the upper world and the good God. Different gnostic texts credit different people and beings with that salvific knowledge, including some highly contreversial individuals. Jesus' role in these gospels is often that of a divine emissary from upper world, come to awaken that divine spark and impart the necessary knowledge to allow enlightened followers to spurn this world for the real, higher one, and live according to its realities. Until now, probably the most contraversial of his enlightened followers was Mary Magdalene, who is honored by Jesus with kisses and gnostic secrets as an apostle, indeed the wisest of his apostles, in the Nag Hammadi gnostic text The Gospel of Mary.

Of course, that was a pretty heretical set of circumstances. But all gnosticism was heretical according to what was becoming orthodox Christianity. Not only did they embrace alternative histories and interpretations of Jesus, but more generally, if people were saved by knowledge, then they had no need of bishops and priests; they had a direct connection to God and required no intermediaries or intercession.

The gospel begins by identifying itself as a secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke to Judas Iscariot just before he celebrated Passover. It acknowledges that he performed miracles and wonders towards saving humanity, and then mentions his calling of the twelve disciples, though the gospel says Jesus often appeared not as himself but as a child to his disciples. But almost immediately it is clear that even the disciples do not truly understand his message and the nature of this world and its god. Jesus even laughs when he observes their worship, though he says he is not laughing at them. The disciples, understandably, become angry and the proving scene which ensues is one of those that shows only Judas Iscariot has the ability to understand Jesus' message. Indeed, in true gnostic form, Jesus takes him aside and teaches him privately. And the more Jesus works with the disciples, the more their errors and lack of understanding become clear. In the end, Judas has some visions that show him the world to come, and Jesus confirms that vision for him, along with his destiny to 'sacrifice the man that clothes me (Jesus).'

The world according to the Gospel of Judas is Sethian. In other words, it speaks of generations of man and believes that the humans who have that divine spark are those of the generation of (who are descended from) Seth, Adam and Eve's third son, because he was free of the taint of murder and gave humanity a fresh start.

In this gospel, one of the heresies is that Jesus' role is that of a teacher, not a messiah. It is not his death that saves but his information, his teachings. And really, though it begins with mention of Jesus performing saving miracles and actions for people, in what is left of the gospel, the only individual that it records Jesus saving is Judas - a very different and much more limited record of salvation. But in this gospel Judas is also, even among the 12 disciples, the only one who seems to understand Jesus. perhaps he is the only one who can be saved. The gospel ends not with Jesus' death, but with Judas' betrayal - which in this gospel is actually Judas' obedience to Jesus' will, and a virtuous act that will ultimately set Jesus free of his time in this flawed world. It will even be good for Judas, though the text mentions that grief awaits him along the way. Judas' own death will free him from this world and allow him to ascend to the true and blessed realm.

This gospel has been published to great furor. James Robinson, who edited the compiled publication of the Nag Hammadi Library has put out a book called The Secrets of Judas - the Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel. Time and Newsweek have done cover stories on it. Even The New Yorker reviewed The Gospel of Judas and basically noted that Jesus doesn't come across very appealingly - though he laughs in this version more than once, and in none other at all, for all his protestations Jesus does indeed seem to be laughing at the ignorance of his earnest followers and it doesn't endear him to us, though certainly he has other unendearing moments in the New Testament gospels as well. Prophets are not always comfortable nor comforting. Jesus, though more so than most, was not always kind.

But is Judas misunderstood? Is this gospel actually so revolutionary? Arguably it fleshes out the story some, and softens Judas' position by nuancing things differently. Here Jesus interprets Judas' betrayal very differently, as a sacrifice rather, and also a gift, freeing him from his service on this fallen plane of existence. Judas obeys, rather than betrays, and is ever depicted as a loyal and uniquely insightful follower. The others get angry at Jesus: not Judas. And the others of the 12 cannot rise to Jesus' challenges, but Judas can and does, though always with becoming humility.

But even in the canonical gospels, it is clear that Judas, whether he will or no, is following God's plan, one to which Jesus acquiesces. And if God is all-powerful, then Judas' will is actually a moot point. Jesus has to die, and it's going to happen a certain way and Judas is a cog in that mechanism. In this gospel, he is sympathetic and his motivation is that Jesus tells him to do this; in the others he is less sympathetic and his motivation is either left unclear or it is for the blood money: 30 pieces of silver. But even in this account he receives money and then hands Jesus over - so for some interpreters it is splitting hairs.

There are beautiful lines in this gospel about stars and destiny and vision. There are human lines about laughter and who is laughing and why or why not. There is striving for understanding and failure to understand and slow enlightenment and teaching. There are words about the apocalypse and the end of time for all those unenlightened, who are called stone upon which one cannot sow seed. There is a man much maligned who is shown to do the same act but in another light. And there is another man, much beloved, who is shown to do the same act, but in another light. It is fashionable nowadays to read fictional accounts of villians that show them actually to be heroes vilified by history or enemies - and this makes it almost uncanny to read an ancient account that performs the same office. But this history is not a revisiting of the story of Mordred or the evil Prince John. This story is one of faith, not legend.

And so for us in particular, as always, the Gospel of Judas matters for what we find in it. We find a slightly different Jesus, different even from some of the other gnostic gospel accounts. We find a slightly different Judas. Whether we find, as Robinson suggests, a misunderstood disciple depends on our larger vision of Jesus' life and meaning and those of his followers. The idea that what saves us is knowledge and understanding has a nice resonance for Unitarian Universalists - indeed it sounds much like some lines from Ralph Waldo Emerson, our own prophet. But the principle that only some may gain this knowledge and others cannot no matter what is less digestible to us.

Post-modernism wins out when it comes to bible history. There is no one truth. There are many contradictions even in the carefully codified New Testament. And there are certainly many more in surrounding texts and evidence. The Judas gospel doesn't finally reveal the true insider's story - it is simply another story. The fact that money is involved even in this version suggests further that it actually was involved. The fact that Judas is the 'betrayer' suggests that he really was the one to do it. And the nature of what he did and why are still not entirely clear, though certainly even more intriguing now that there are these different motivations suggested.

Perhaps apart from understanding the alternatives the Gospel of Judas presents, we may best take away from it a reminder of some gnosis that we already possess; it's pretty mundane actually. Things aren't simple. We don't always know everything we think we know. And we don't know what history will know, or think it does, about us later. For myself, this comes across as a charge to continue to do my best to know what I should, about myself, about the world misbegotten as it may be, about the people around me and far from me, so that my living is as right as I can make it. I will not presume to direct what anyone else may find in this gospel - at the very least it is fascinating for its contents and its personal history, and miraculous that it is here at all to be spread before us on modern pages and in modern English. Thank you to the one who hid it long ago and who could have had not inkling of what the world would be like when we received it again.

Amen.