So What?
It is sometimes said that this chapter
leads to an exclusivism that does not recognize other faith traditions. While
understandable, this is not the case. What the Gospels recognize in Jesus
is a distinctive, not unique, revelation of God.
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers
through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last
days he has spoken to us by his Son.” Hebrews 1.1-2
Acknowledging such, we are then free to appreciate all of the wisdom that
has come through the lives of others who have also sought the true Creator
and who saw the failure of the gods of “religion”. Any person
who bears witness to the reconciliatory forgiveness of God is worth hearing.
Recalling that “religion”
is one of the founding pillars of human culture (Again, in the mimetic theory
sense of the phrase), the enactment of victimage each Sunday in the Eucharist
has become a paradigm of our ecclesial life. Girard has shown us that our
ritual shapes our world views, rather than the other way around, so congregations
that live through liturgies heavy with sacrifice and substitution have no
choice but to live the victimage mechanism in their lives. Imitation of God’s
suffering and self-giving in Jesus are the central images our liturgies need
to try to hold up.
2006:
I especially have to concur with Jeff’s
final observations. If, week by week, we lead our people in worship, it is
important to see the entirety of the Christian gathering in terms of gospel,
and this includes our singing, our prayers, our readings, our preaching, in
short, everything said and done when we are gathered in the name of Jesus.
And our emphasis should be on Jesus
when we gather. When my wife and I attend different churches we intentionally
observe and ask “how long in the service before the name of Jesus is
invoked (apart from published prayers)?” We have gone through services
where God is mentioned scores of times, Jesus only once or twice. How can
this be? ‘God’ is a vacuous word which can be filled with anything
we choose; Jesus is a term that can only be filled by the Gospels.
Our Christian worship has been accommodated
to human culture and implicit and explicit affirmations of victimage run through
it. If we take the time to examine our liturgies and our prayers, our readings
and our preaching, we can also see where our religious rituals are beholden
to mimetic victimage. If we transform our ritual in the light of the gospel,
we change the tone, health and tenor of our faith communities. People will
act Monday through Saturday like they are taught on Sunday.
Are we teaching our congregations how
to be inclusive and hospitable? Are we inclusive and hospitable? Are we modeling
for our congregations a peacemaking orientation or are we participating in
mimetic rivalries? Do our prayers reflect love for those we can’t stand?
Do we forgive our enemies, those who make our life miserable? Do we teach
others that Jesus did and so we too are called?
Liturgy is spirituality, liturgy is
theology. And theology is doxological. May our gathered communities give praise
and thanks to God for being so generous, gracious and caring about in Jesus.
We are so wonderfully loved. May our worship, our adoration of this great
and magnificent God, reflect the openness of our hearts in Christ Jesus.
Anthropological Reading
The season of Epiphany in Year B is all
about the in-breaking of the healing power of peace in a world of death. This
coming of peace begins in today’s lesson from the Fourth Gospel and
then continues in the opening chapters of Mark. The redemption of mimesis
is what will be occurring in this week’s text. This is important. Sometimes
it seems as though we can only see the ‘bent’ mimesis (as C.S.
Lewis might call it). Girard and Girardians have been accused of focusing
on negative mimesis. Is it so difficult for us to see that not only can mimesis
lead to violence, but that, as a result of the redemption of our humanness
in Jesus, we can be imitators of God (“good mimesis”) just as
He was?
The Gospels show us how we humans who
are children of God are called to follow Jesus in discipleship. The Synoptic
tradition is loaded with teaching to the disciples as well as teaching about
discipleship. The Fourth Gospel, however, sees in the event of Jesus Christ
(his whole person, his whole life), the revelation of the One true Creator
whom we are called to mimic. If in the Synoptics the focus is on modeling,
in the Fourth Gospel the focus is on the Model. This is where the congruency
of the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel.
In the Fourth Gospel, it is the Father-Son
relationship that demonstrates just how mimesis is redeemed. The Word becomes
flesh and only listens to the Father, only does the Father’s will, so
much so that it can be said that He is the Living and True Way. The Father
hears every single one of his prayers; Jesus and the Father are not different
at all. He is the perfect representation, image, and likeness of the Father,
the Creator of heaven and earth.
Imitation of the Father is ‘in
spirit and in truth.’ In this man from Nazareth, God put on a human
face for us. The Christology of the Fourth Gospel reflects on every page the
nature of this relationship. It says clearly that Jesus imitated the Creator,
and experienced the Creator as ‘abba.’ In short, the implicit
redemption of mimesis and the possibility of our imitation of the Creator,
and not each other, are opened up.
The Synoptics give us the outer side
of this imitation in Jesus’ discipleship teaching to the Galileans;
the Fourth Gospel gives us the inner side of this relationship where Love
transforms mimesis into something beautiful, '‘the right to become children
of God.”
Christian preachers have too often placed
Jesus’ spirituality on the back burner. Scholars took it off the stove
a long time ago! Perhaps because of the inner dynamic expressed in the Father-Son
relationship, biblical scholarship relegated the Fourth Gospel to the realm
of Hellenistic fantasy. Doing so ignores the tremendous insight the Fourth
Gospel brings to the nature of the positive mimesis of the Son as He imitated
the One He knew as the Creator Abba. A Hellenistic reading makes this imitation
a fanciful creation ungrounded in the concrete spirituality of Jesus, and
removes from the rest of us the possibility of doing the same.
The value of this way of seeing is that
a positive contribution emerges on several levels for Christian use of mimetic
theory. First, is the value of the Johannine theory of imitation and differentiation
for trinitarian dialogue. Second, is the value of the Johannine gospel for
positive christology. Third, the Fourth Gospel is a textual authorization
for us to explore the spirituality of Jesus and its implications for those
of us baptized in his Spirit. Finally, we are given a clear path to imitation
of the Creator. Rather than constrict us at this point we are enjoined to
discern the Spirits, for others too have heard the voice of the Creator. The
One who is The Child of God has given us the right to become Children of God
as well.
Historical Cultural
The Son of Man sayings in the Fourth
Gospel have posed a peculiar problem for scholars. Things are said in connection
with the Son of Man that are said in similar ways in the Synoptics, yet differently.
For example, the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man, probably
a reference to the Jacob at Bethel story, cannot be found in the Synoptics.
However, before the Sanhedrin Jesus will say, “You shall see the Son
of Man sitting at the right hand of the Almighty and coming with the clouds
of heaven.” Close…The Danielic vision referred to in the Synoptics
and the Bethel story both have God present in form recognizable to humans
as human. Regarding the Son of Man, scholars tend to come down in one of three
camps (with all sorts of minor variations):
1. Son of Man as a direct reference
to the Daniel 7 vision (see also I Enoch)
2. Son of Man as a colloquial idiom that translated from the Aramaic is
a circumlocution for “I”
3. Son of Man as a figure of ‘corporate personality.’
It seems to us that the choices are
not mutually exclusive. In mimetic theory, just as in the notion of corporate
personality, there are no autonomous egos. Because we are “interdividuals”,
we are all one. The one can stand for the many. For Jesus to have referred
to himself as Son of Man may indicate his awareness of the nuances of the
title and the social implications of such a title for his ministry. There
is an implicit social world implied in the term Son of Man that can be appreciated
when the ‘interdividual’ concept is applied, as opposed to the
Son of Man functioning in a purely representative (= substitutionary) way
for a collection of autonomous egos. What is accomplished in His life, in
his humanness, is accomplished in and for each one of us. In some texts, the
“I” nuance may be dominant, in others the corporate figure of
the Son of Man, in still others, an eschatological development. In no case
need they be mutually exclusive.
For the Johannine author, the perfect
union of the Father and the Son can be seen already in Jesus’ ministry.
Heaven is wide open to this one. He is in full communication with the Father;
the Father ‘hears his prayers.’ The reference to ‘angels
ascending and descending’ is an open shot across the bow of idolatry.
It limits all our speculation about God and declares that Jesus is the center-point
of heaven and earth and that revelation is occurring in this life.
Throughout the entire first chapter,
christological titles have come our way: Logos, God, life and light, only
Begotten, (the) Son, the lamb of God, the Son of God, the elect of God (some
MSS), the Messiah, the King of Israel and the Son of Man. These titles are
all honorific and exalted. To claim so much for one human being must have
seemed absurd. But as the author begins to narrate the story of the ‘great’
signs of Jesus, it is clear that previously held beliefs about the Creator
would be called to question.
More importantly, Jesus is not a “religious”
(in the sense intended by mimetic theory) figure at all. The titles used in
this chapter, while loaded with religious significance, are transformed by
contact with his person. His imitation of the Creator does not extend to participation
in the scapegoating process. If he had, Jesus would have been nothing more
than the founder of another religion. But since he does not participate in
the underlying mimesis that haunts the background of many of these titles,
they can be and have been transformed by application to his person.
For the writer of the Fourth Gospel,
the call to discipleship is in part a call to discern the identity of Jesus.
From the beginning of this gospel a crescendo has been building toward the
beginning of the Book of Signs. Few other christological ‘titles’
will be added later in this gospel. Right from the get-go the author wants
us to be very clear about the breadth and depth of Jesus of Nazareth and his
relation to the people of God.
Either this page has not yet been completed, or we have not found any significant textual issues in the lectionary texts for this Sunday.
Introductory Articles
We will add articles as we are able,
or as users of the site request them, so if you have suggestions for additional
pieces, please write to us!
"Introduction
to Mimetic Theory"
"Mimesis"
"The
Scapegoat"
"The
Pillars of Culture"
"Jesus"
"The
Four Gospels"
A Brief Introduction
to Luke
What's New:
What's New? on Preaching Peace. (Hover your mouse over to pause cycling) |
1 Sm 3:1-10, (11-20)
Ps 139:1-6,13-18
1 Cor 6:12-20
Jn 1:43-51
(1 Samuel 3:1-10)
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the
LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli,
whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down
in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down
in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called,
"Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to
Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I
did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The LORD called
again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here
I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son;
lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of
the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a
third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for
you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy.
Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you
shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went
and lay down in his place. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before,
"Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant
is listening."
(1 Samuel 3:11-20)
Then the LORD said to Samuel, "See, I am about to do something in Israel
that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will
fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning
to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for
the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did
not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity
of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever."
Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the
LORD. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and
said, "Samuel, my son." He said, "Here I am." Eli said,
"What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so
to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you."
So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, "It
is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him." As Samuel grew up, the
LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel
from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.
(1 Corinthians 6:12-20)
"All things are lawful for me," but not all things arebeneficial.
"All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything.
"Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God
will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will
also raise us by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of
Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members
of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute
becomes one body with her? For it is said, "The two shall be one flesh."
But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication!
Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins
against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not
your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your
body.
(John 1:43-51)
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him,
"Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and
Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about
whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from
Nazareth." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of
Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." When Jesus saw
Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite
in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael asked him, "Where did you
get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before
Philip called you." Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of
God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered, "Do you believe
because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater
things than these." And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man."
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
Is the Apocalypse Inevitable?: Native American Prophecy and the Mimetic Theory presented to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion 2008
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 to Rene Girard and the Recovery of Early Christian Perspectives (Brethren Life and Thought)
Essay on Mimesis and Dominion to The Dynamics of Violence and the Imitation of Christ in maximus Confessor (St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly)
"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
"Jesus and the Gibeonites: Reading the Bible from the Perspective of the Hidden Victim" by James Warren.
Mark Heim's "No More of This" - A hymn on Nonviolent Atonement
Kate Layzer's "No More of This" - A hymn on Nonviolent Atonement (and inspiration for Mark Heim's hymn!)
Alan Cork, "Transformation" in L'Arche: A Mimetic Account presented to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion 2008
"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
