Evil Betrayer or Distraught Zealot

Zeal for your house has consumed the psalmist in the texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today. Isaiah writes of the suffering servant who accepts the help of the Divine with the humiliation which has been heaped upon him for the unpopular message of peace and unity which he is bringing in accordance with the will of God. Matthew writes of Judas. He is, traditionally, the Great Betrayer. The zeal of the psalmist may have been the zeal of Judas. Some writers have seen him as the ideas man. He was zealous for the promise he understood that Jesus was brining to Israel. His vision was not of the suffering servant about to give His Life for love and forgiveness. Israel needed more? A King? An end to the Roman domination! How we are too often guilty of imposing our will and our zeal on others. We need to consider the reed that we will not break.