Jan 31, Sunday: "The Gospel According to Judas Iscariot" | Ron Reed, Michael Kopsa

Snappy title, eh?

Tomorrow morning at 10:00 and again at 11:30, I'll be a guest at Holy Trinity Anglican Church (just upstairs from Pacific Theatre). Holy Trinity is the amazing church that built a theatre for us back in the mid-nineties, when our company was on the ropes: in 1992 we came to the point where we had to cancel our mainstage season, I laid myself off from the theatre I had founded, in 1993 our touring ended, and that was the end of that. Except that in 1994 we opened a brand new theatre, given to us by the people of Holy Trinity. (So how could I not believe in resurrection? And how could I refuse when they invite me to do something for them - like, for example, preach once or twice on a Sunday morning?)

When I spoke at HT a couple years back, I reflected on what God was doing in me through the process of playing Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. When I saw that the gospel text this time around just happened to be the calling of Saint Peter, I flashed on Michael Kopsa's beautiful embodiment of that story last fall in THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, and it was immediately clear what I needed to talk about.


So tomorrow morning, my buddy Michael is joining me (as Peter, not Satan - don't worry, it's a church, not a theatre). I'll bring Matthew, and reflect on what Judas Iscariot (and Isaiah the prophet, Stephen Adley Guirgis, J.D. Salinger, James Martin SJ ("A Jesuit Off-Broadway"), C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald and Butch Honeywell) might have to say about the Gospel.

Holy Trinity Vancouver
1440 West 12th Avenue
Contemporary service: 10:00
Traditional service: 11:30


Last word to J.D. Salinger, who died this week...

Holden Caulfield: "In the first place, I'm sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don't care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down. I like almost anybody in the Bible better than the Disciples. If you want to know the truth, the guy I like best in the Bible, next to Jesus, was that lunatic and all, that lived in the tombs and kept cutting himself with stones. I like him ten times as much as the Disciples, that poor bastard. . . . I'd bet a thousand bucks that Jesus never sent old Judas to Hell. I still would, too, if I had a thousand bucks. I think any one of the Disciples would've sent him to Hell and all — and fast, too — but I'll bet anything Jesus didn't do it." Catcher In The Rye, Chapter 14