‘Because it is the price of blood’

 

“And the chief priests took the silver piece, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.” (Mt 27,6)

This decision reveals a sense of that certain deeds should be separated from the life of the community. There are decisions and morally questionable acts which, if not separate, remain infectious. The point is that a morally questionable solution (political, cultural, local decision) should be reflected upon. The above biblical scene of Judas’ betrayal when he returns the sign of his betrayal is such an attempt. The arrest, trial, and planned execution of Jesus, from the part of the Jewish religious leaders, was a corporate decision. It was morally wrong; also with dubious motives in the background when they handed him over to the Roman authorities in order to kill him. The recognized need for this ‘separation’ by the Jewish leaders, however unfinished their solution remained, offers an important moral to our present.

Our age, our Western culture, our particular political culture, tends to forget that wrong acts need to be mourned. ‘The price of blood’ remains invisible and mingled with the life of the community. The way in which the prime minister (D.C.) finds a solution to sell weapons to Ukraine, via a ‘third party’, an Arabic country, is the apex of hubris and hypocrisy. Christians, in all circumstances, should give voice to the ‘innocent blood’, on behalf of the victims. If we Christians do not cry out for peace and reconciliation, who else would? In a global world, burdened with endless conflicts, every deed should contribute to stopping violence and the threat of war. Biblical gestures, far deeper than that of the chief priests in our passage, should be performed. As gestures of reconciliation, common sense, and profound desire for peace. Why is it, that the acts of justice, rooted in love and self examination, do unmask whenever and wherever ‘there is a price of blood’? Through prayer, surely, we will recognize any collective act, which contributes to violence, should be recognized and removed from the life of the community. However painful they might be as the signs of our betrayal of ‘the innocent blood.’

 

26 February