Dissed!

 

"10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the leading priests to arrange to betray Jesus to them.  11 The leading priests were delighted when they heard why he had come, and the promised him a reward.  So he began looking for the right time and place to betray Jesus." Mark 14:10-11 (New Living Translation).

 

This past Sunday, 47-year-old Kathy Allen came out to her car in St. Augustine, Florida after doing some shopping and got into her SUV to leave when a golf ball struck her car.  As it turns out, two teenagers where bouncing the ball in the parking lot.  They came over and apologized and turned to leave.  Kathy also began to leave, but as she started to drive off she suddenly made a U-turn, jumped a median, hit both boys wounding them (one critically), and then knocked down a light pole.  She then turned her SUV to chase after a third teenager that was allegedly there, but did not hit him.  Finally, she got out of her car and lit up a cigarette.  She has been charged with three counts of attempted murder!

 

I'd say Kathy suffered from an acute case of "dis-itis".  It is a disease that inflicts most of us at various times during our lives.  Some one "disses" (short for "disrespects") us and we react in an emotional way that does a lot of damage.  Then, often like Kathy, we calmly light a cigarette or in some way show that we feel justified in what we did.  The truth is that we have fallen into the same trap that Judas fell into.  

 

Did you know that the Son of God was betrayed by Judas as a result of Judas feeling that he had been "dissed?"

 

It's true.  Look at the verses immediately preceding our scripture (above), and you will find that Judas has just been confronted and publicly rebuked by Jesus for bracing Mary over her use of expensive perfume to anoint Jesus' head and feet (See John's version of the story in John 12:1-7).  Judas' felt dissed and was driven to revenge.  Of course, Judas deserved the rebuke Jesus gave him, but that didn't matter to him.  In his mind, he had been publicly humiliated and it was time for payback. No doubt greed for money also played a part, but clearly the context shows that Judas was likely driven by anger at having been corrected by Jesus.

 

The implications of this truth are staggering.  Some of the worst betrayals have come about simply because a person felt disrespected by someone.  And, they reacted to the perceived "dis" in a Judas-like way - impulsively and emotionally. 

 

I remember a boss I once had who I'll call Bob.  Bob was an easygoing boss, but he didn't like his authority challenged.  One day one of my coworkers who had been recently hired, corrected Bob in front of me and other workers.  Bob reacted nicely and said little at the time.  But later, he was fuming!  He actively sought ways to make my coworker's life miserable.  He gave him all the dirtiest jobs each day and made him miserable in every way he could for weeks.  I know this is true because Bob told me he was doing it.  "I'll show him not to 'dis' me." Bob raged.

 

Being corrected or confronted is never pleasant.  No one likes it.  We usually don't like it even if we're wrong - at least not at first.  We don't like being made to look like a fool or small in other's eyes.  Our first impulse, especially if we feel we're in the right, is to lash back or stew or fume.  After the incident has had time to bake in the oven of our minds we may even seek revenge in subtle or obvious ways.

 

Refusal to talk to someone; avoiding a coworker; taking verbal jabs at the person; withdrawal of financial support; angry outbursts at or shunning of the person; name-calling; betraying confidences; trying to make the person who confronted us look bad to the boss or coach or teacher or team or customer - - on and on the list goes of ways in which we may seek payback.  We may never seek someone's death as Judas did, but we kill the person nonetheless in a thousand smaller ways.

 

The truth is that we may be in the wrong, just like Judas was.  I often wonder what would have happened if Judas had taken time to think the matter through and go talk to Jesus about it.  Perhaps his name would not be synonymous today with betrayal.  

 

As followers of Jesus we must be careful about our reactions to being "dissed."  We may be in the right or we may be wrong, but one thing is for sure: an emotional, impulsive reaction of payback to being "dissed" should be resisted.  It will very likely lead to disaster as it did with Judas.

 

Now this can be hard, because much of the time the person who disrespected us deserves rebuke or punishment.  And perhaps that will happen as time goes on.  Leave that to God.  But at the same time consider that your case might be the same as Judas'.  Perhaps, like him, you have something you need to learn or change about yourself.  Judas should have listened to Jesus.  But he didn't.  The result was that he betrayed an innocent man and ended up hanging himself because he couldn't live with what he'd done.

 

You don't want to hang yourself, do you?