The Judas in us: though we may see ourselves in scripture's moral cowards, we have a second chance. (testaments).

The Passion of Jesus: Matthew 26-27; John 18-19.

THE MAN IN THE DIRTY CLOTHES HAD BEEN trailing me for half a block. It was after dark, and even though I knew these streets pretty well, I was uncomfortable being followed so closely. Nine times out of 10 in situations like these, my feelings amount to pure paranoia. People in dirty clothes generally want no more than a little spare change from a passerby. I am in the privileged position of always having change to spare. It's a match made in heaven, one could say. Folks like me and folks like him, we belong together.

But being a woman complicates the matter a little. No matter how familiar or well-lit the streets may be, a woman followed by an unknown man is a formula for tension, if not trouble. It's not a question of being brave, but of being safe. I've made it a rule that I don't break: No stopping for strangers after dark. No exceptions, even for folks with broken legs or starving animals. That's why God made the police force and why taxpayers like me keep them in uniform. Or so I told myself as I walked faster, feeling vaguely like the Levite in the parable who passed up a wounded man in a ditch. I'm a better Samaritan in the middle of the afternoon, I mentally argued, but don't ask for my help after sundown. I've got rights, and my right to be safe is just as real as your right to be helped. All the while, I was sincerely hoping his leg was not broken and his dog was not starving, but I was not about to turn around to find out.

Finally, realizing I was ignoring him and that I meant to continue ignoring him, the man raised his voice and spoke to my retreating back. "For the love of Jesus," he said softly. I quickened my pace and disappeared around the corner, but I was in agony. His words were a knife plunged into my back, and though my intent was to be safe, I was never more at risk than then, as I eluded this stranger altogether. For the love of Jesus, was all he said. A simple plea for Christian compassion--and I said no. Not even for the love of Jesus will I stop for you. The horror of that choice is with me still.

So I know a little of what Saint Peter experienced in the chilling moment when he denied his Lord. Of course, Jesus warned that it was coming, and Peter refused to consider himself capable of such ignominy. "Though all may have their faith in you shaken, mine will never be!" he assures Jesus. His certainty is of course his downfall. The Rock--as he was nicknamed--never faltered, at least in his imagination. Peter was obstinate, single-minded, as loyal a friend as you might find. But he was blind to the limits of his courage, ignorant of his own capacity for sinfulness. He believed he was better than he was. This belief is the predecessor to all truly great sins.

So Jesus presses a little further, describing the very moment when the denial would come, numbering the times for him. And Peter repeats his boast: "Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you!" And we who know the story wince, because it's already been written, the crowing of the cock and the three deadly denials, the horror at a shameful prophecy fulfilled, and the bitterness of his tears. We ache with Peter because we have known this shame and have wept those tears ourselves.

What makes the story of Jesus' Passion so intensely involving for the whole church is that we cannot be bystanders in the reading of it. We have denied our Lord, we have slept through his agony, we have been paid coin for our betrayals, and we have deserted when the hour of our discipleship required the most of us.

But for the moment, Peter still believes in his own righteousness, and so do the other disciples. All except one, that is, though perhaps even Judas tries to kid himself that what he is doing has a motive higher than silver. The group pushes away from the table, singing hymns on their way to the garden where Jesus liked to pray and they preferred to nap. Jesus makes a special effort this night to get Peter, James, and John to pray with him, taking them aside personally and asking for their support. But soon they are dozing, and Jesus is alone in his anguish.

ONCE I, TOO, CLOSED MY EYES WHEN A FRIEND ASKED ME TO keep vigil with him. He was a coworker going through a difficult divorce. His sense of loss was catastrophic, and he was fearful of a future without his wife. I knew the couple for many years and liked both of them. I felt divided about their marriage and who might bear the blame for its dissolution. I did not know how involved I wanted to be in their private pain and the messiness of taking sides and declaring allegiances. After all, it was none of my business, really. Divorce, like marriage, is between two people. It had nothing to do with me. I closed my eyes, so I did not have to watch a man drowning.

At least, one might argue, sleeping past someone's anguish is not the same as outright betrayal. What Judas did, we like to think, is the worst thing a person can do. Jesus once said no greater love is there than this: that someone should lay down life for a friend. Surely to turn a friend over to death is the reversal of this great charity and deserves our entire loathing. We may be moral cowards from time to time, but traitors? That, we want to believe, is beyond us. We would not betray anyone, least of all a friend, someone who had reason to count on our confidence and loyalty.

We set an immutable distinction between what Peter did and what Judas did during Jesus' Passion. Peter simply lied. It was a child's denial, uttered out of fear and the instinct for self-preservation. But what Judas did was motivated by something much darker. Was it greed or pride or power that seduced him into running to the religious leaders that night? Were his religious sensibilities offended by Jesus' liberal stance toward sinners? Was he impatient with Jesus' politics or just tired of being on what had to be the losing side, when the powers of Jerusalem eventually asserted themselves? Whatever his motivation might have been, we find it much easier to forgive Peter's fearful indiscretion than Judas' poison kiss.

But in fact, the two are on a spectrum of moral evil that differs mostly by degree. I can still see the injury on the face of a woman I once betrayed. She was a self-made businesswoman who had started out as a single parent waiting on tables at night to make ends meet. She had known the hunger and loneliness of want, and without the education or credentials to make it to the top, she had managed to make it to the middle on sheer strength of will and infallible instincts. My admiration for her was enormous, and we became close friends.

Until the day her business landed her a seat on a parish commission with me. We found ourselves the only two women in a roomful of clergy and men in gray suits. The suits all had MBAs. The clergy wrote my paychecks. The two of us felt outnumbered and outgunned on the commission, but we shared a mutual set of values and goals that we agreed to communicate as a voting block.

When it came time to make her presentation, my friend stood and began with great courage. But I could see at once that the suits and collars were unanimously unimpressed by her assessment. I couldn't say whether it was simply a matter of principle or if her lack of professional credentials factored in to make the room so frigid during her presentation. I don't want to think it was mere sexism, but certainly one could suspect that, too.

The truth was, her plan was simple, could save the parish lots of money, and would accomplish our goals more quickly than what the businessmen were proposing. But because their companies were the ones who stood to make the profit, they wouldn't be inclined to support a different approach. The longer my friend spoke, the colder the room got. Finally someone made a sarcastic remark at her expense, and the room broke into unkind laughter. It was apparent the rest of the commission found her plan ridiculous and were not about to consider it.

One of the associate pastors took this opportunity to lean over and advise me quietly: "Don't make a fool of yourself. Learn to be a political player, for once." I froze. Suddenly my desire to defend my friend's proposal was staggered by my desire to appear credible and sensible to my bosses. In my heart I believed my friend's proposal was better. But it was also apparent that it was already defeated. Did it make any sense to sacrifice myself "politically" for a dead platform?

I voted against her. The men clapped me on the back and celebrated the decision. The woman stood, pained and shocked. Later, when she confronted me about it, she said, "It wasn't your vote that hurt me. It was how you valued the approval of those priests over your love for me."

Since that day, I have wondered about Judas and his intentions. I have wondered what may have been whispered in his ear to make him cold enough, even for an instant, to betray a friend. And I have learned that the only real way to make a fool of oneself is to be a political player.

MORAL COWARDICE MAY HAVE DRIVEN PETER TO LIE, Judas to betray, and the disciples to sleep while Jesus sweat blood in the garden. It also drove the bulk of the disciples into hiding from the time of Jesus' arrest until Pentecost. I could tell stories of my various desertions: The times I was not with my family when they needed me. The sick I did not visit in the hospitals. The prayers I promised to say and did not follow through on. The phone calls I did not return.

The reading of the Passion narrative every Holy Week compels me to a confessional litany of my denials and betrayals, my slumber and my hiding. The purpose of such reflection is not hopeless breast-beating but the purposeful examen of the classic Confession. The end result of Confession is not to feel bad about oneself but to know the liberating joy of God's forgiveness. Because these moral cowards of scripture are offered the same thing we are: the chance to redeem themselves.

Peter the liar becomes the head of the church. Those who slept through the agony in the garden would one day face their own martyrdom with great courage. The pack who ran away on Thursday night would soon be the bearers of the Pentecost fire. Only the one who refused to turn and be forgiven remained lost in the dark.

Because of this, I confess my sins and trust in God's mercy. And I have hopes that the next time someone in need whispers to me, "For the love of Jesus," I will be a sufficiently redeemed disciple to answer, "Yes!"

ALICE CAMILLE, author of Seven Last Words, a meditation on the final sayings of Jesus from the cross, and Invitation to Catholicism, both available from ACTA Publications.