So What?
This isn’t Good Friday. The Anthropological
section of this week’s reflection on the Gospel sounds more like something
you’d preach in Holy Week!
Still, we do well not to leave the whole
of this shift for one day on the calendar. The impacts of this shift in atonement
thinking is so vast, and the way that our old, sacrificial theologies have
insinuated themselves so systemic, that we need to take every opportunity
to preach an alternative when we can.
This week, the part of this shift that
seems most accessible is the naming of our old, violent, atonement thinking.
I think that if we do a good job of painting the picture of the God of the
Violent Atonement, we can convinced our congregations to expel him from our
churches with relative ease. The “good news” of this sermon is,
“God isn’t like that.”
Of course, that will leave the question,
“Then pastor, what is God like?”
We may even want to name that question
without trying to answer it. We have a short Epiphany season this year, and
Lent is not far off. Leaving this empty place for them to ponder for a bit
might not be a bad thing. That gives us several weeks in Lent within which
to begin to fill in those blanks, to lead them to Good Friday, to the hammer,
to the nails.
Paul
Neuchterlein, on his site, “Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary”
has a wonderful page on this text from the fourth Gospel, dealing with the notion
of the “Lamb of God,” and what it means to “take away the
sin of the world.” (Much of it by Gil Bailey.) We
strongly recommend it. Paul also gives an excellent summary of the function
of “meno” in John, variously translated as “abide” or
“remain.” No matter how it’s translated, it is a very important
element of John’s understanding of the human’s response to God.
In the quotes from Gil Bailey, Paul helps
us see the way that we have systematically misunderstood what it means for
Jesus to be the “Lamb of God.” We have done this largely by failing
to attribute the demand for blood to the correct party, us. In the now-overused
words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” Jesus’
sacrifice was designed to expose our bloodthirstiness, our enslavement to
the sacrificial mechanism, not to satisfy a God who sits on the throne demanding
yet another scapegoat. By making our sacrificial system and its falseness
visible, Jesus takes away our “sin,” our “missing-of-the-mark”
and leaves us without a viable victim. (Of course, we continue to seek out
a victim whose death will satisfy, but in the end we always fail.)
The question that all of this discussion
leaves unasked, though, goes something like this, “Well, if God wasn’t
satisfying God’s wrath, or righteousness, or honor in the death of Jesus,
if Jesus wasn’t the lamb offered to God, then how is atonement achieved?”
This question needs to be asked outright,
and answered in a straightforward manner if we are to deal with/preach to
our congregations meaningfully. They have lived most of their lives with the
vicious, transactional God whose punishment Jesus had to bear in one sense
or another. We can surely show them that this is not so, that Jesus died to
satisfy our demand for blood, but that isn’t enough.
The most powerful, life changing moment
in any Christian’s life is the moment of catharsis. Mimetic theory treats
catharsis as a culturally bound phenomenon, of a piece with the murder of
the scapegoat, and therefore, something to be treated with suspicion at best.
Yet, without this experience of catharsis, of a peace that washes away our
anger and fear, the Christian message is little more than another call be
a “do gooder.” Or, in this case, a non-do-badder (one who merely
eschews sacrifice). It does not account for the overwhelming capacity for
love and reconciliation that most Christians feel in the wake of this catharsis,
nor does it give a theological groundwork within which to channel this incredibly
positive energy. Christians know that the atonement brings this catharsis,
and they hunger for it. To reject catharsis wholesale because it has been
a part of the false sacrificial system that has crept into Christianity is
to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
What we must re-claim, if our proclamation
is to be anything but dry to most of Christianity, is the powerful moment
wherein the individual recognizes her/his reconciliation to God by virtue
of some act of God’s. To do this apart from traditional sacrificial
thinking will be difficult, but it can be done.
To put it bluntly, we need to lead our
people to the Cross, help them experience their own violence as they hammer
home the nails, and in the same moment, hear Jesus’ words of forgiveness.
Without the violence, this time directed at God, the moment will forever lack
power. Catharsis demands violence. If we shy away from that demand, our Gospel
will remain a mental construct that lacks the power to change hearts. We must
preserve the violence, and at the same time, claim it as our own. Then, as
we rail in frustration because our mimetic desires cannot ever be satisfied,
and at the same time weep for the murder we are committing of an innocent
victim, Jesus can offer us a new way out of the trap, that of limitless forgiveness.
When we have taken full ownership of
our own violence, and know ourselves even then to be fully loved and forgiven,
there will be nothing we cannot forgive, no wound that can stand in the way
of love.
But we resist this path with all our
might. Even those of us who preach peace, perhaps we most of all, refuse to
see our own murderous natures and the deadly results they yield. We want to
think of ourselves as having emerged from that web of sin, and in that desire,
we entangle ourselves even more deeply, driving our mimesis, our scapegoating
further into the unconscious. And the violence we store there in the dark
bubbles up in the most dangerous ways, ultimately robbing our proclamation
of any validity.
“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes
away your scapegoat! Go, and hang him on a Cross, that you might finally be
truly reconciled!”
Historical Cultural
There aren’t any significant historical/cultural
issues that aren’t adequately dealt with elsewhere.
Either
this page has not yet been completed, or we have not found any significant textual
issues in the lectionary texts for this Sunday.
|
What's New: |
|
|
| (Put your mouse over the story to stop cycling) |
Isaiah 49:1-7
Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The LORD called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother's womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, "You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified."
But I said, "I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the LORD,
and my reward with my God."
And now the LORD says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength--
he says,
"It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
Thus says the LORD,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
"Kings shall see and stand up,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the LORD, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ
Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ
Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call
on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you
because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in
every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every
kind-- just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you-- so
that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that
you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful;
by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
John 1:29-42
John saw Jesus coming toward him and
declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
This is he of whom I said, `After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because
he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water
for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel." And John testified,
"I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained
on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with
water said to me, `He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the
one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified
that this is the Son of God."
The next day John again was standing
with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed,
"Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say
this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he
said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi"
(which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said
to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying,
and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.
One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found
the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus,
who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be
called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).
Occasional Articles
As with the Introductory Articles, we
will add other articles as time permits or as our readers request. If you
have a suggestion for anything, please let us know.
Michael Hardin
Michael's Essay for a Celebration Volume honoring Rene Girard
Michael's Response to Willard Swartley's Covenent of Peace at the November Colloquium and Violence Meeting
Does
Peace Make A Difference? - Michael's essay in response to Rick
Warren's P.E.A.C.E. plan (which somehow never mentions peace).
An Analysis of Rick Warren - Michael's response to "The Purpose Driven Life."
"The
God of Pat Robertson" - a response to Pat Robertson's words
to the people of Dover, PA.
"A
response to Charles Stanley's "A Nation at War"
"Must
God be violent? A Diagnosis and Prescription for Modern Christianity"
The
Scapegoat: Christologies in Conflict - A Study in Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Biblical
Testaments as a Marriage of Convenience: Rene Girard and Biblical Interpretation
Finding
Our Way Home: A Brief Note On The Authority and Interpretation of Scripture
"Does
The Passion of the Christ Preach the Gospel?"
A
sermon for the holiday devoted to Dr. Martin Luther King. (requires
Adobe Acrobat Reader.)
GRASPING
GOD: Philippians 2: 1-11 in the Light of Mimetic Theory
Essay on Brethren Life & Thought
Essay on Mimesis and Dominion
"EcoSpirituality"
Or What Happens When You Sit Down With A French Literary Critic
Jeff Krantz
Mighty
One or Crucified Messiah? Competing Christologies and the Chiastic
Structure of Mark's Gospel
There's
No Such Thing as the Rapture - A sermon preached at the Church
of the Advent, Westbury (requires Acrobat Reader)
Holy
Scripture and the Consecration of Gene Robinson - a response
to the request of the Windsor Report for a Scriptural rationale. (requires
Adobe's Acrobat Reader)
Worship - The Redemption of Desire by Jeff Krantz
Myth
and Film - a piece written for the City of Angels Film Festival
The Stations of the Cross - Rewritten by Jeff Krantz
A Dramatic Presentation of the Stations of the Cross for Youth by Barb Fabijan-Waddell
Escaping
the Power of "My" - A NonViolent Approach to Stewardship
Preaching
Peace in Hollywood: The Theologies of Terminator, Lord of the Rings, and the
Matrix
V
for Vendetta - The Name Says It All A review of the movie.
Essays, Sermons and Liturgical Pieces by Friends of Preaching Peace
"The Wisdom of God's Peace" a sermon by Jim Amstutz, co-pastor of Michael's church.
Girard's Christology - Per Bjornar Grande
Violence, Anarchy and Scripture: Jacques Ellul and Rene Girard - Matthew Patillo
Comparing
Plato's Understanding of Mimesis to Girard's - Per Bjorner Grande
C. Frank Terhune, an Easter Sermon: "God's Big But" (no kidding!)
Gerald Biesecker-Mast's paper from Theologia Pacis on Pacifist Gospel Epstimology.
An essay by the Rev. John Hill on Mimetic Theory and Catechesis
