Christian clergy have a hermeneutical obligation
to find ways this text can be understood and utilized without resorting to scapegoating
the Pharisees. Those that do otherwise may as well not even preach at all.
We know it is difficult for clergy to
stay on top of all of the on-going research in the history, literature and
life and the ancient world, especially Judaism. But there are conclusions
we must draw today that are different from those we drew just 50 years ago.
We must be careful in our use of theological tools that may reflect an anti-Semitic
bias. We think of Charlotte Klein'’s work on Kittel (Theological Dictionary
of the New Testament.). If we are not careful, our exegesis will, from the
start, be a scapegoating exegesis. We are saying that we must be hermeneutically
sensitive always discerning whether or not there are scapegoats in the literature
we read. If we are not careful we will make the sad mistake of preaching myth
(the covering of the victim) instead of gospel (the uncovering of the victim).
The preacher in the story of Little Tree was remything the congregation, he
was not proclaiming the gospel. Church going Christians around the world will
be remythed this Sunday when preachers bad mouth and castigate the Pharisees.
Preachers will think they are announcing the gospel in their sermons because
they use the Bible and mention Jesus. Instead they will be preaching an antichrist
while the principalities and powers howl with laughter.
Congregations are either ‘evangelized’
or remythed every Sunday, there are no other options. What do we mean by remythed?
In the sense that Girard understands myth: as the lie concerning the cover-up
of the random (innocent) victim. The Eucharist is the opposite of this. In
celebrating the Eucharist, we are ‘evangelized’ (‘gospelized’)
precisely in the same place as we would be in myth, viz., we are around a
victim.
In celebrating the gospel however, we
do not cover up the victim, we do not recreate scapegoats or make new ones.
We effectively instead, announce our own complicity in the victimage mechanism
and also hear the word of forgiveness. Thanks be to God.
If, when we preach this text, we make the
Pharisees out to be the bad guys without exploring the ways in which we also
think as they thought and act as they acted, we will miss the point of the text
altogether. We will have set up straw men in order to knock them down.
When we hear Christian preachers preach
on these texts, we cringe. We have taken our reflections for today from Forrest
Carter, The
Education of Little Tree. In this absolutely delightful book, Forrest
revisits his childhood when, as a young orphaned Cherokee in the 1930’s,
he was sent to the mountains of Tennessee to live with his Native American
grandparents. Although most of the book focuses on what and how he learned
native skills from his grandparents, still they walk down from the mountains
into the town each Sunday and go to church. We would love to just quote the
entire chapter, but we’ll give you a little taste before we get to the
point.
“Granpa said that preachers got
so taken up with theirselves that they got the notion they personal held the
door handle on the pearly gates and wouldn’t let nobody in without their
say-so. Grandpa figgered the preachers thought God didn’t have nothing
atall to do with it.”
“All the Baptists believed in baptizing,
that is, getting total sunk under the waters in a creek. They said you could
not be saved without it. The Methodists said that was wrong; that sprinkling
on the top of the head with water done the trick. They would each one whip
out their Bibles there in the churchyard to prove out what they said. It ‘peared
like the Bible told it both ways; but each time it told it, it cautioned you
had better not do it the other way or you would go to hell. Or that’s
what they said it said. I determined that I was not going to have anything
atall to do with water around religion.”
“The preacher was a skinny man.
He wore the same black suit every Sunday. His hair stuck out on all sides
and he had the appearance of being nervous all the time. Which he was.
He never said anything interesting about
water, which was disappointin’. I was interested in finding out the
way you had better not use it. But he laid it heavy on the Pharisees. He would
get to working up on the Pharisees and come down the pulpit and run up the
aisle toward us. Sometimes he might near lose his breath, he got so mad at
them.
One time he was giving the Pharisees
hell and had come down the aisle. He would holler about them and suck in his
breath so hard his throat would rattle. He run down close to where we was
setting, and pointed his finger at me and Grandpa and said, “You know
what they was up to…” It ‘peared like he was accusing me
and Grandpa of having something to do with the Pharisees. Willow John looked
toward him and Grandma held his arm. The preacher turned off to pointing at
someone else.
Grandpa said he had never knowed any
Pharisees and was not going to have any son of a bitch accusing him of having
knowledge of nothing they had done. Grandpa said the preacher had better commence
to point his finger some’eres else. Which after that he did. I reckined
he saw the look in Grandpa’s eye. Willow John said the preacher was
crazy and would bear close watching. Willow John always carried a long knife.
The preacher also had a total disliking
for Philistines. He was continually raking them up one side and down the other.
He said they was, more or less, as low-down as Pharisees.
Grandpa got tired of hearing the preacher
raking somebody over all the time. He said he didn’t see any earthly
reason for gittin’ the Pharisees and the Philistines stirred up; there
was enough trouble as it was.”
We hope you have enjoyed this brief edited
vignette. Unfortunately, it is going to be far too common when this text is
preached this Sunday. We challenge you to do otherwise.
In Mark 7 we are dealing with a very important
text for many reasons. It illumines both the situation of the early church as
well as that of Jesus. It may well be an indicator of the dominance of the Pauline
view in the proximity Mark was written (another reason we favor Rome). But we
must still ask, why was this narrative remembered? Because the problem of kosher
did not just go away. Jewish Christians worshipped side by side with Gentile
Christians in virtually every major city. These little house gatherings had
to deal with the question of kosher if Jewish Christians were present. After
all, it is a ‘supper’ they celebrated; there was at a minimum bread
and wine.
It is a problem as far back as the first
missionary movement of the Greek speaking Jewish Christians. It is reflected
in Paul’s letters to the Romans and Corinthians. It is layered throughout
the Synoptic tradition and is apparently no longer an issue thirty years after
the ‘council of Jamnia.’ In short, the problem of kosher was a
problem from the get go for the early church and lasted until the separation
of Judaism and Christianity in the early second century.
It must also be observed that since the
1970’s scholars have reframed much of their understanding of Ancient
Judaism. Judaism is now seen as a much more pluralistic and dynamic faith
tradition than was heretofore believed. The influence of Hellenism on Judaism
and Judaism’s influence on Greek culture have been more carefully traced.
Groups like the Pharisees have undergone rigorous investigation and our perception
of the origins, development, practice and belief of the Pharisees has changed.
E.P. Sanders and Jacob Neusner have loudly called our attention to the fact
that the Pharisees were not a works-righteousness self-justifying bunch.
The early church never did manage to
convince all the Jewish Christians to abandon kosher. The tragic split between
Judaism and Christianity is also reflected in the split that occurs at the
same time between Jewish and non-Jewish Christianity. And the development
of Jewish Christianity during this time lays the blame squarely on Paul.
Since then, Paul has been often seen
as the bad guy, as the innovator of a new religion, a Hellenized form that
is now ‘the Christ myth.’ Paul had been a Pharisee. But he abandoned
an essential identity marker, namely kosher. Paul, too, is asking about Jewish
identity, but he is asking his question in the light of his reflections on
the death and resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Spirit.
Now, while recognizing that the early
church passed on the tradition regarding Jesus’ conflicts with the Pharisees,
we can also recognize something ‘historical’ here. All four Gospels
begin with Jesus’ conflict with the group of men who had chosen to be
Pharisees (the usual estimate given around 4,000 Pharisees at Jesus’
time). The Jesus tradition is remarkably full of clues that give us an insight
into Jesus’ views as he comes into conflict with the Pharisees. First,
there are the conflicts themselves over a broad range of issues, kosher, divorce,
taxes, etc. Second, there are the parables that explore Jesus’ eating
with sinners or other parables that deal with Jesus behavior that was perceived
as outside the law by the Pharisees. Third, there is in Jesus’ message
the element of jubilation, or the theme of jubilee, forgiveness, shalom. We
see this especially in Luke but it is by no means absent from the other gospels.
Fourth, Jesus was not a dummy. He would have been aware of the debates and
discussions of the rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai. Jesus lack of formal
education doesn’t mean he was unaware. Fifth, there is the trans-valuation
of societal norms in Jesus prophetic reading of Torah (e.g., cf. the Sermon
on the Mount). And there is more.
Of course he was in conflict with the
religious authorities. He was drawing crowds and he thought outside the box.
That’s a very dangerous combination. Especially when he was teaching
people about how to live their faith and that teaching conflicted with those
in power. Many clergy and bishops know this experience all too well.
We highly recommend Hamerton Kelly on
Mark (The
Gospel and the Sacred). We will be following its general theses as we
continue to explore Mark this Year B. If you don’t own it you will want
to purchase Ched Myers Binding
the Strong Man. It is a true model of what a commentary should be.
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) |
Song 2:8-13 or * Dt 4:1-2,6-9
Ps 45:1-2,6-9 * Ps 15
Jas 1:17-27
Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
(Solomon 2:8-13)
The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding
over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there
he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.
My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come
away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear
on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are
in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come
away.
* (Deuteronomy 4:1-2)
So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching
you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the
LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You must neither add anything
to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments
of the LORD your God with which I am charging you.
* (Deuteronomy 4:6-9)
You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment
to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, "Surely
this great nation is a wise and discerning people!" For what other great
nation has a god so near to it
as the LORD our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation
has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before
you today? But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget
the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all
the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's
children--
(James 1:17-27)
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming
down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow
due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word
of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow
to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.
Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness,
and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your
souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.
For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who
look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going
away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the
perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget
but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they
are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their
religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the
Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to
keep oneself unstained by the world.
(Mark 7:1-8)
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with
defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all
the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing
the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market
unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe,
the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. ) So the Pharisees and the
scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition
of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" He said to them, "Isaiah
prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors
me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship
me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' You abandon the commandment of
God and hold to human tradition."
(Mark 7:14-15)
Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all
of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in
can defile, but the things that come out are
what defile."
(Mark 7:21-23)
For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication,
theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy,
slander, pride, folly. All these
evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright
1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches
of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
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
