Traitors Welcomed as Crew

Have you ever been tricked or deceived by somebody? To me it’s typically only happened as a joke, there was the time Billy put my favorite coffee mug in Jello this summer, it was only on Monday that my older brother called me. His wife is pregnant and they had their first ultrasound appointment Monday morning. He called to tell me there were two heart beats…I fell for it like an idiot, getting excited for the prospect of twins and he simply laughed and said, just kidding, only one. He then proceeded to call my mom to try the same line on her.

Being deceived is no fun, even when it’s a joke. Yes it can be funny, but for the most part, it leaves us as the deceived feeling gullible, silly and just plain stupid. What happens when the stakes are higher?

The story of Judas betraying Jesus is well known to many of us. Judas, for 30 pieces of silver, hands Jesus over to be arrested, put on trial, beaten and eventually die via crucifixion. Judas however, did not see such things. He hanged himself when he realized what he’d done.

Hopefully in our lives, we won’t be faced with life or death situations of betrayal.

A brief explanation of the clip you're about to see. Firefly is a show that follows around the crew of Serenity, a spaceship of the Firefly class. They are a group of smugglers, thieves and other interesting professions. Two of the more interesting characters are Simon and River Tamm, a brother and sister. Simon is, well was a doctor, and a very good one. River was held captive by the government because of her amazing brain powers. Simon’s job throughout the entirety of the series is to try and cure River and keep her safe. They are fugitives with quite a hefty reward for their capture. Tempted by the reward money, Jayne Cobb, the ship’s muscle man, attempts to betray Simon and River for the payoff.

Jayne’s attempt doesn’t quite work. All three of them are captured Jayne has to help Simon and River escape and the ship’s captain, Malcolm Reynolds helps to save them as well. Through all of this, nobody knows Jayne’s act of betrayal. He thinks he’s gotten away with it scot-free, but well, you’ll see what happens.

Clip...(It would help to watch the entire Firefly episode of Ariel.)

Jayne betrays Simon and River and isn’t honest about it, but we as the viewer (if we’d seen the whole episode) know what he did, even if none of the other crew members do. Simon in fact thinks Jayne was the hero of the day, and tells everyone so.

Mal, however realizes what happened and turns the screws on Jayne. This scene is one of the most defining for Mal. We know from previous episodes that he takes care of his crew no matter what, but we see perhaps a glimpse of why in this scene. As the conversation goes:

Jayne: “What are you taking this so personal for? It ain't like I ratted you out to the feds.”
Mal: “But you did. You turn on any of my crew, you turn on me. But since that’s a concept you can’t seem to wrap your head around, you got no place here. You did it to me Jayne and that’s a fact.”

It’s very similar to Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:31-46, especially verses 44 and 45.

Jesus takes all of us in as his crew, even the least of us. We are valuable to him, valuable enough to die for. We don’t know why he loves us so, but we know that he does. This love is reflected in Mal for his crew. No it is not a perfect love. It is not Godly love. But we see how he takes ownership of his crew and when they feel pain, he feels pain. When they rejoice, he rejoices. When they are betrayed, he is betrayed.

Thanks be to God that Christ has taken ownership of us.

We don’t choose our own crew. We may not even like our crew, but they are our crew and so we watch their back and we love them. Our crew is the Body of Christ.

It is unclear to me if Mal was planning on actually letting Jayne die.

Or if Jayne’s repentance may have moved Mal to let him live.

Or I suppose it is possible that Mal knew the repentance was coming and was just waiting for it…

In this scene, Mal once again lives out his own words from an earlier episode Shindig “Mercy is the mark of a great man.” Jayne deserved to be treated like a traitor, but Mal treats him like crew.

It is the same with us and Jesus. We deserve to be treated like traitors, like sinners. We have done nothing to deserve God’s love. We’ve only done things to deserve his wrath, hatred and punishment. But God treats us like his crew, like his children, like his friends because of Jesus death and resurrection.

Jesus takes that punishment we deserve and is treated like a sinner, like a betrayer, so that we God’s creation might be treated like Sons and Daughters of the Heavenly Father.

That is indeed how we are treated, being gifted with eternal life in death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

This clip reveals a certain beautiful balance of Law and Gospel. Mal lets Jayne know the truth: that Jayne’s actions are unacceptable and are worthy of death. That is the Law at its best. But it doesn’t end with Law. It ends with Life, with a second chance, with forgiveness, with precious Gospel.

All Saints Day vs. All Sinners Day

Disclaimer: At Concordia University Saint Paul, in celebration of All Saints Day, we decorate the chapel with thousands of stars, many with names of those who have died in the faith from our community and throughout history. When I reference stars, that is what I'm referring to.

It is a very comforting thing, to think that every single person, whose name is written on one of these stars around us was a believer in Jesus Christ, that they lived their lives of faith and were granted eternal life. As Revelation 2:10 says:

“Be Faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

It however may not a very comforting thing to know that all of these people who have their names written on a star were sinners. As Romans 3:23 says

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

We don’t like to think about that do we? How those who have passed on were sinners. We focus so much more on how great they were, how much we’ll miss them and rightly so I believe. Because we know that they were unconditionally loved by God, even if we were not able to love them unconditionally while they were here on earth. As Romans 8:38-39 says.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

While we hear that passage in life, it is a great comfort to us, but it is also a great comfort as we think about those who have died in the faith, knowing that death cannot separate our loved ones from God’s love. Death is a hindrance to our loving and being loved by those who have passed on, but it is not a hindrance for our Heavenly Father, who conquered death by sending His Son Jesus to die for the sins of the whole world and then raised him to life again.

All of us undoubtedly have friends or family who have been called from this earth to their heavenly home with God. While we miss them, we take comfort in the fact that they are in Good Hands.

But what about us? We are saints too are we not? If we died today we’d be assured of our resurrection from the dead to eternal life with our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, right? But yet we still sin. We still suffer. We still struggle. We still cry. We still hurt. How can we be forgiven and still hurt?

As Romans 7:15-20 says

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

That passage reminds me of this clip from The Fellowship of the Ring...

Watch Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition disc 2) from 21:14-23:47.

Gandalf’s words about Gollum are very relatable to us here on earth. “He hates and loves the Ring, much as he hates and loves himself.” Gollum has forgotten who he is. He is not Gollum, he is Smeagol, a gentle creature who loved to fish and relax on the water. But the ring poisoned his mind and turned him into something else, it turned him into Gollum. And throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy he struggles to understand who he is, what he is.

It is just as we struggle with who we are. Am I (insert your name here) the Sinner or am I (insert your name here) the Saint? We hate the sinner inside of us and love the saint inside of us. We wish we could be only saint, but we can’t. As Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 26:41 as they struggle to stay awake in Gethsemane.

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

We desire nothing more than to be rid of our flesh and its weakness. And we struggle with the fact that this will not occur on this side of heaven.

As the scene from the clip you’ve just seen continues, Gandalf lectures Frodo on his immediate judgment of Gollum. As he says, “Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them Frodo?”

In our world, that line would be tweaked to say “All that live deserve death, and the ONE deserved life, died.” That One is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who took what we deserved and gave us what only He deserved: eternal life with our Heavenly Father in Paradise.

May we find peace in that our God loved us with that deep of a love, to make us His children. As 1 John 3:1-3 says:

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."

Amen.