Judas in the Upper Room—Michael Stalcup

"Incessantly, the water poured and poured over my calloused feet."

Michael Stalcup is a missionary and poet living in Bangkok, Thailand. His poems have been published in Biola University's 2023 Lent Project, Commonweal Magazine, Cultivating, Ekstasis Magazine, First Things, and Sojourners Magazine. He co-teaches Spirit & Scribe, a workshop integrating spiritual formation and writing craft (which several Rabbits have attended). You can find more of his work at michaelstalcup.com.

“He sends rain on the just and the unjust.” — Matthew 5:45

Judas in the Upper Room

by Michael Stalcup

Incessantly, the water poured and poured
over my calloused feet. The dappled silence
stretched long and dead like trees across a gorge,
the fallout of some rot or hidden violence.
 
Then Jesus took my feet and our eyes met.
He stared at me, I feared, as if to say
he knew the paths my feet had walked, the debt
I owed—but no: he smiled. I looked away
 
and felt: the working of a servant’s rag—
his promised revolution’s timid thorns—
the thirty silver daggers in my bag—
the man that could have been—my patience worn
 
until the task was done. He set me free
and welcomed me to join him at his feast.

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