Ritual is one of the three pillars of culture. It functions as the event by which groups stabilize themselves. Groups that are becoming out of control with mimetic conflicts use and are used by ritual in order to achieve a state of balance, a stasis.

Like Prohibition and Myth, Ritual (which is human anti-mimetic attempt at control) channels our mimesis. While Prohibition only defines scapegoats, points them out as potential, by differentiating them, Ritual actualizes this by channeling mimesis into a socially controlled activity which eventuates in the death(s) of a victim(s). Ritual has been and will always be tied to death. Ritual channels the death mechanism. Or as Walter Wink might say, ritual is a fallen power.

Ritual’s origins in victimage, it’s strategic role in cultural formation and its tremendous capacity to channel the power of death all point to the fallen character of ritual.

We have commented on Jesus’ (and Matthew’s) strategic use of a love hermeneutic (the Love Commandment). Because there can never be a law against love, there will never be a love that has limits. Jesus’ command to live a Torah centered life takes the command, that is the religious imperative, the law, and makes it an imperative to love. Law is redeemed in Jesus for Love is the Law (“there’s a new sheriff in town”).

The story of the feeding of the multitudes has many important elements that are important to focus on in our interpretation. There are the allusive references to the messianic banquet of Isaiah 25; there is as well, the universality of the eschatological banquet, it is given to ‘the crowds’, the masses, given to all without discrimination. These are observations with important social and political implications and it is necessary not to run by them too quickly.

But the feeding of the crowds also says something important about ritual and the redemption of ritual. In our story today Jesus utterly deprives ritual of its power through a ritual. We would not be amiss here to see allusions to the Last Supper because of the familiar formula ‘took, blest, broke, gave.’ This Ritual claims ritual as its own thus transforming ritual, giving ritual a new power, the power of life, of life over death.

Just like all ritual, it is a series of specific acts, done in a specific sequence. Like all ritual, everyone participates, everyone in the community is important. In order for ritual to be effective the collective of interdividuals that make up the group must enact it. So it is here in our story today. The connection between the ritual that Jesus enacts here, and again in the Last Meal suggests that this four-fold action of Jesus’ was a repetitive activity (repetition is an important dimension of mimesis). In this repetition we remember him and we remember ourselves. This “re-membering” is an actual putting the pieces of our lives, our members, so to speak back together again. As we remember we are remembered both individually and collectively (interdividually) each time the act is repeated.

What constitutes this repetition? To take one’s life, bless it, break it and give it away to others. No one can take your life from you if you are already giving it away. Jesus’ ritual is about giving life. Giving your life away. Or as we have said, this can also be called positive mimesis. It is the type of life lived by those who share the messianic banquet in the kingdom of God. It is thus a truly celebratory ritual, to be able to engage the redemption of ritual every time we gather to break bread in Jesus’ name. And thus empowered we can then enact this ritual repetition in all of our daily relationships. Take, bless, break, give.

For the political dimension, the problem of kingship that will eventuate as a result of this miracle we refer our readers to our previous observations on the feeding of the multitudes in the gospel of John. See Year B Proper 12

Matthew’s redaction of the story of the feeding of the multitudes tends to follow his usual tendencies. For redaction critical comments we recommend R.H. Gundry Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982).

We Christians have truly been blessed to be able to see the Jesus we worship. In Him, we are given such vision, such sight. He alone is the one human model that is trustworthy to follow. Each of us and all of us are invited to follow, to take and eat of His life, of his love, of his forgiveness.

In the Eucharist we are given the opportunity to not only recall our own negative mimesis as persecutors, we are also invited to join, to all share, in the act of a truly redemptive ritual. Together we practice that which we will live when we part. We practice taking a life, Jesus’ life, and then we go home and give our life away until we gather again to practice some more. We learn how to ‘take’ by not grasping; how to ‘bless’ with words of love. We learn how to ‘break’ through surrendering; we learn how to ‘give’ freely to all we encounter. Jesus gives us himself to practice with when we break bread together. In this four-fold act of taking, blessing, breaking and giving we are engaging his ritual of the Sacred Life.

Some Sermon Thoughts

The connection here between the feeding of the crowd and the Last Meal connects us right back to the Eucharist, of course. It makes an easy Eucharistic sermon, which will be more than enough for many of us.

But it may be that we need to make a clearer connection to the re-formation of ritual for our congregations, and this is much more challenging.

Depending on our traditions, we are more and less burdened with certain sacrificial interpretations of the Eucharistic Meal, many of which may be enshrined in our formal liturgies. This is no reason to cast aside our Eucharistic liturgies altogether, but is good reason to struggle toward a liturgy consonant with Jesus' self-giving in the context of meal that intentionally omits the violence of the sacrificial system. There are two "four-fold" outlines to which we have easy reference. Take, bless, break, give is the one represented in this week's readings and the telling of the Last Meal. Eucharistic liturgy usually makes reference to "oblation, anamnesis, institution, and epiclesis." In neither of these outlines are the re-enactment of a substitutionary sacrifice present. That the church has re-introduced the sacrificial tone ("Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us!") sets up the possibility of real teaching sermon. We have in our liturgy a real struggle between sacrificial and non-sacrificial ritual.

In the same way that we have in the Hebrew Scriptures texts in which God reveals not only God's work of reconciliation but also our own capacity for violence attributed to the divine, we have also in our liturgy the same dual revelation. Alleluia! Jesus IS sacrificed for us, but we are the instigators of the sacrifice, not Jesus' Father, not God. God redeems our sacrifice, by entering into it. We can use the remnants of sacrifice in our liturgy as teaching material, or we can move toward truly non-sacrificial liturgy.

(We'll be offering more on liturgy in the future.)