Lent 5: Judas and Faux Outrage
Jesus comes off as a bit of a jerk in today’s scripture. Or rather, the way some Christians have interpreted this section, particularly verse 12:8 has made Jesus seem like an uncaring, uncompassionate jerk. This is not surprising, because some Christians don’t worship a Jesus that came to nonviolently overthrow empire and usher in a new kingdom that rejects the values of the status quo: values based on oppression and violence. Too many Christians seem to skip over the numerous verses that speak about Jesus’s care for the poor, instead emphasizing Jesus as cosmic fire insurance: Believe in him or risk an eternity in hell.
It makes sense for this Jesus to have a blasé attitude toward the poor. It makes sense that when this Jesus says, “you will have the poor with you always,” it sounds like what some conservative politicians have uttered about the elderly, disabled, and immunosuppressed during COVID 19: “these people were just going to die anyway. Why should we have to inconvenience ourselves for people who are already sick.”
In this Jesus’s mouth: a Jesus whose sole purpose is to help individuals avoid spending an eternity in hell, this verse comes across as a bit cruel and dismissive. This Jesus doesn’t care about the poor.
But if we reject that image of Jesus and instead focus on the Jesus of the gospels-one that centers the poor and marginalized, this verse doesn’t come across as a statement of nonchalance towards the poor. Instead, what if we viewed it as a call out against fake rage that disguises selfishness, greed, and oppression.
Calling out Judas
I think we all have noticed examples of faux outrage-especially on social media. And what I mean by faux outrage is outrage that claims to be rooted in righteousness and anger against injustice but is really rooted in oppression, violence or just plain ole’ selfishness. For example, it seems like every other week the Christian far-right demonstrates outrage over some attempt by "evil" liberals to “brainwash” children. This anger has been channeled against Critical Race Theory (which, no one is teaching below the graduate level let alone at the k-12 level).
This anger has also been used to justify horrific legislation that target trans kids. But for proponents of those who seek to “ban” Critical Race Theory, or deny trans kids access to medical support, they claim they are simply seeking to “protect” children.
In regards to Critical Race Theory, they claim to want to protect white children from being told that being white is inherently wrong. In the case of legislation that target trans kids, they claim they are trying to protect kids from undergoing medical procedures that could be difficult to reverse and could cause these children psychological and physical harm.
But like Judas’ faux outrage, their justifications fall apart upon closer scrutiny. Judas, described as a thief in John who often stole from the common purse, is outraged that Mary is anointing Jesus’s feet with perfume that costs 300 denarii, about a year’s wage instead of spending it on the poor. But is he really outraged that Mary isn’t giving to the poor, or is he trying to disguise his own greed? Is he trying to cover up his own frequent acts of deception and theft?
In a similar way, the right-wing outrage and claims to want to protect children quickly fall apart and what is left is their desire to create a society based on their own skewed values. They want to ban any and all discussion of race and racism, not because they want to protect the fragile self-esteem of white children, but because they want to maintain the racist, white supremacist status quo. No one is teaching k-12 students about Critical Race Theory. That is simply a red herring for extreme right wingers want to do: they want to stifle any discussion about racism and rewrite American history.
In regards to the numerous ant-trans legislation, again the idea of protecting children is false. Instead, the purpose of anti-trans legislation is to reinforce the extreme right wing's rigid binary gender norms. G \
ender norms that dictate that men and women have certain societal roles and anyone who dares deny these roles are to punished.
Right wingers, like Judas, are disguising their selfishness, greed, and oppression as righteous indignation against marginalized groups. In John, Jesus calls out this fake outrage. He sees right through Judas. He knows Judas is a thief and steals from the common purse. I can imagine him saying the line, “You will also have the poor with you,” as sort of a challenge: “like yes, Mary spent a lot of money on this perfume to anoint me in preparation for my burial. And yes, there are people who could have benefited. But the poor will always be with you. What are you doing to help them?”
In a similar way, I can imagine Jesus looking at the fake outrage manufactured by some Christians and calling them out. The calls for protecting children ring hollow when these are the same people that refuse to expand our social safety net to ensure poor families aren’t struggling to eat or stay housed. Or when they endorse policies that separate migrant children from their families and leave them in horrific detention centers where they are exposed to disease, assault, and unsanitary conditions.
onclusion
John 12:1-8, shouldn’t be interpreted as Jesus’s demonstrating a nonchalant attitude toward the poor. Rather, Jesus calls out the selfishness that Judas tried to disguise as righteous indignation. In a similar way, this passage seeks to call us out. I spent a lot of time in this blog post focusing on Christian right-wingers, but all of us could probably use this reality check. Are we bringing up issues of injustice for their own sake, in order to advocate for a better world, or are we engaging in faux outrage to either make ourselves look good, or to protect a status quo that benefits us while oppressing others?
