Maundy Thursday

 Love in a profit-driven system

We call today Maundy Thursday because we focus on Jesus’s last evening with his disciples when he washed their feet after supper and then gave them the commandment — the mandatum — to love one another.

Our Maundy Thursday Gospel (John 13:1-17, 31b-35) also tells us that before the Last Supper had begun, Judas had decided to betray Jesus. Matthew (Matthew 26:15) says that Judas had agreed to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. 

Hearing the story of Judas’s betrayal alongside the biblical account of Jesus’s last evening with his disciples, including the commandment to love one another, makes me wonder how Judas could have valued Jesus’s life so little. How could Judas betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? How can any of us place a price on the life of another person? When we have a choice between loving one another or getting some money, why do we so often choose money? 

The most blatant examples in our modern world of selling out someone’s life for a profit aren’t a temptation for most of us. We would never think of trafficking another person for a handful of money or hiring ourselves out as hitmen. However, we are tempted to tolerate, and sometimes even advocate for, policies that put a price on human life.

Not very far into the Covid pandemic, as vaccinations were just becoming available, there was some discussion about whether older Americans should be willing to sacrifice our lives for the sake of the economy. This rested on the premise that the main reason for businesses shutting down and for workers and students being told to stay home was to protect the people most vulnerable to dying from Covid — the elderly and people with certain underlying medical conditions. Those advocating sacrificing us for the sake of the economy were engaged in a more sophisticated form of placing a price on the lives of other people. Even now, with vaccinations available to everyone age 5 and above, economic concerns are driving decisions that set aside practices that decrease the spread of Covid even though our youngest children remain unvaccinated and adults with certain medical conditions are similarly vulnerable. We are placing a price on the lives of our little ones, choosing money instead of love.

Similarly, our willingness to choose short-term profit over life itself underlies the political and economic policies that have brought us to such an urgent place in the work of keeping our planet habitable. (See UN climate report: It’s ‘now or never’ to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.) A 2019 study found a shocking loss in bird populations in North America; we have lost 1 in 4 birds in the past fifty years. Climate change coupled with habitat loss and other environmental stressors has us in the midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with accelerated loss of both plant and animal species. Our lives, of course, are intertwined with the lives of all other living things. We are placing a price on the lives of all living things — ourselves included — choosing money instead of love.

In the Gospel account, Judas realizes too late the reality of what he has done. He had allowed the lure of an immediate profit to take his focus from what he knew deep down was the right and loving way to live. It was too late for Judas. While the distortion of our priorities has resulted in much permanent loss, it’s not too late for us to change course and give love priority over immediate profit. In the long run, societies that value the welfare of all living things will be better off than societies where some people make big profits while others, both human and non-human, suffer. 

We can create new systems that prioritize life over short-term economic gain. We can love one another.