The road from Galilee down to Jerusalem isn’t long, about twenty-eight miles or so. On one particular day, John’s gospel tells us, a group had traveled that road and detoured to Bethany which is less than two miles east of Jerusalem.

They were there for a happy occasion.  A dinner was being given for Jesus at the home of Lazarus. Perhaps because Lazarus and his sisters were pretty thankful that Jesus had been able to bring Lazarus alive out of a tomb where he had been three days dead.

When you get a group of people together it’s hard to know if all your guests are compatible.  At the dinner for Jesus two guests got into it. Mary poured a jar of expensive perfumed on Jesus’s feet. Judas was angered at the waste, and perhaps disgusted at such an intimate act between Jesus and Mary. Things got ugly and Jesus, the guest of honor, had to intervene.

John leaves no doubt in our minds about who was in the right and who was in the wrong. In this little dinner, it is all about who is the faithful disciple. Mary does everything right.

She pours out a costly gift upon Jesus – the only disciple ever to do such a thing.  She shows her commitment to service by wiping his feet with her hair much as Jesus later cleanses the feet of his disciples.  She does it right before his entry into Jerusalem and subsequent passion, and so prepares him for his burial.

Judas does everything wrong. His character is suspect already. Five times in this gospel John writes that Judas will betray Jesus.

John also tells us plainly that Judas was a thief, taking money from the disciples’ shared purse meant to help the poor. Judas’s comment that the money spent on the oil could have been used for the poor is a double indictment suggesting that not only did he demean Mary’s gift, but also that he intended to take the money for himself. Judas is so clearly the unfaithful disciple.

So if you want, you can take this point and go home satisfied that you have understood today’s gospel. It is about degrees of discipleship. But then again, maybe there’s more to it.

The road from Galilee down to Jerusalem is about twenty-eight miles or so.  It’s the road the disciples traveled as they moved with Jesus from the place of his teaching and healing to the place of his passion. Judas traveled that road just like all the rest of them – the eleven others plus the women disciples and whoever else was following Jesus. But Judas didn’t quite end up at the same place as the others.

If you are one degree off a compass point, for every one mile you travel, you will get ninety-two feet further off course. Traveling twenty-eight miles, or about the distance from Galilee to Jerusalem, you will miss your destination by more than a half mile.

Just so, sin, if you remember is described as missing the mark. And the farther go on the slightly wrong path, the further you get from your intended destination.

John makes a strong case for how depraved Judas was as both thief and betrayer.  But it’s not that simple. No other gospel suggests that Judas was a thief, even if he did accept money for his act of betrayal. And Judas remained with Jesus as a fellow traveler, even as his spirit was going another way.

What should haunt us about Judas is how things went so badly when he started out so well.  Evidence suggests that Judas thought his act of betrayal was for God’s good. His discipleship was not in question, but his aim was off.

This is a story we know all too well.  It isn’t so much large and obvious sin that destroys us and betrays the way of Jesus. It is the path we take, beginning straight but veering just enough off course that we eventually lose our way completely.

In the imagination of our hearts we resemble Mary in the degree of our commitment to discipleship. In genuine love for others whether neighbor or stranger. In serving wherever there is need. In gracious generosity. Yet examined in the greater light of righteousness we might discover ourselves looking more like Judas, supposing that what serves us, serves God.

When Paul speaks of his own wandering path he hopes that he might still attain Christ’s promised resurrection.  He is aware that his error is insurmountable by his own efforts. He knows firsthand however that God is able to accomplish the impossible and inconceivable.

Paul knows that Jesus died for the righteous and the unrighteous. For Judas every bit as much as for Mary. And what gave Paul hope should give us hope. Not only for ourselves, but also for the larger community around us which also can lose sight of a noble and good destination, and veer toward pain, destruction, and loss.

Isaiah actually gives us the good news today. God is always doing a new and unexpected thing. It’s rivers in the desert and paths in the wilderness. Sometimes it’s a gentle nudge, sometimes an earthquake that re-routs us.

It’s about twenty-eight miles from Galilee to Jerusalem. There are a lot of ways to lose the path along the way. But going with others helps. And having a map is good. Especially if that map is the way of Jesus well marked with signs of service and acts of compassion toward all.