So What?
We have suggested that we must re-examine
our theological views of Jesus’ so-called divinity since we have so
closely assimilated Jesus to the gods of victimage, the gods of violence.
This is perhaps no more true today than in America which ostensibly claims
to be a Christian nation. If we are so Christian we would do well to ask why
it is that we do not seem to manifest in our lives, individually and corporately,
the character of Jesus the Christ.
Further we might ask to which Father
we are praying. This was brought out most powerfully to us in the recent (April
21st, 2004) interview conducted by PBS’ Gwen Ifill with Bob Woodward
on his book Plan of Attack. Woodward had asked President Bush if he had spoken
with his father, former President Bush about his decision to go to war with
Iraq. Bush noted that he had not but had spoken ‘to a higher Father.’
Could this have been the Father that Jesus reveals or another father (John
8:44)? The Father of Jesus has never authorized or justified violence in any
way shape or form. Violence as a social solution can only come from the One
who, from the beginning, extrudes, excludes, violates and kills.
It would appear that President Bush has
a Maccabean Messianic view of Jesus and does not follow the Jesus of the Gospels,
the Jesus who is one with the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. The
President’s ‘evangelical’ theology as well as that of his
soulmate (so Woodward) Condaleeza Rice underpins his political rhetoric and
decision making. We must in a gentle fashion say that not only is this not
so but it is in substance a denial of the Nicene Creed and is therefore not
orthodox in any fashion.
The churches in America have come to
a critical point: will they bear witness to Jesus as he is revealed in the
Gospels or will they continue to propound their false violent Messiah, the
Christian anti-Christ?
Anthropological Reading
There are fewer greater problems attending
Christianity than that of the relation of Jesus to God. The entire theological
history of the early church is one great discourse on this subject. Not even
counting the New Testament witness, from the early second century through
the great councils of the sixth century, the question looms, how is Jesus
related to God?
If we were to make the leap to the twenty
first century and ask the average American Christian, “How is Jesus
related to God?,” we would find that while most of them would wish to
affirm that which is articulated in the Nicene Creed, on a functional level
they would not, indeed, they could not actually affirm the ‘homoousias’
of that council. The reason this is so is because modern Christianity has
leveled the revelation of God into a flat doctrine of biblical inspiration
which asserts the identity of Jesus’ Father with the God of the Hebrew
Scriptures without taking into consideration that the Hebrew Scriptures are,
as Girard puts it, ‘texts in travail”, that is, they contain an
internal inconsistency with regard to God-talk. The average modern American
Christian uses the Hebrew Scriptures to gain a definition of God (the Father)
and then comes to the New Testament and attempts to fit Jesus in with that
portrait gleaned from the Hebrew Scriptures.
As we have sought to say time and again
on preachingpeace.org, we cannot come to a knowledge of God apart from Jesus.
This is exactly what the text for today is asserting. Furthermore, many contemporaries
of Jesus’ had a similar ‘flat’ view of the Hebrew Scriptures
and could not figure out how Jesus’ could be related to the God who
had delivered Israel. It must be acknowledged straightaway that Jesus’
did not simply take over the Hebrew Scriptures wholesale; he applied a very
specific hermeneutic when reading ‘his Bible.’ We have explored
this in the Occasional Article on ‘The Authority and Inspiration of
Scripture, which we encourage the reader to consult as an addendum, indeed
a preface, for today’s preaching, particularly as it illumines the following
text John 10:34-39.
In our text today, Jesus points out that
it is the miracles that he has done in ‘his Father’s name’
which bear witness to his character and spirituality. He could not have done
these miracles apart from the power of the Father and indeed, he has yet to
raise Lazarus from the dead. The Fourth Gospel does not call the miracles
‘dynamis’ but ‘semeia’, signs that effectively point
to something else in their power. In today’s text, it is the word ‘ergon’
that is used, which here is a synonym for signs produced. Jesus’ miracles
or works are the ushering in of a different order, a new reality. Some scholars
have observed that the seven ‘semeia’ of the Fourth Gospel have
a potential literary allusion to the seven ‘semeia’ of the Wisdom
of Solomon, where the mighty acts of God under Moses are focused in seven
miracles. The last miracle in the Wisdom of Solomon is that of the death angel,
the Passover, in the Fourth Gospel, it is the destruction of death itself
in the ‘final semeia’ the cross of Jesus (“when I am lifted
up…the prince of this world will be cast out.”). From the beginning
sign of Cana (on which see our comments In Year C Lent) to the final sign
of the cross, the same theme is being articulated, namely, ‘the old
has passed away, behold the new has come.’
Jesus’ does not meet his contemporaries’
expectations of who ‘Messiah’ should or indeed could be, he does
not come with armies or political might, he does not seek to violently overthrow
the political/social establishment. Rather, he heals those who have been victims
of the system.
At stake in our text is the behavior
of Jesus. From the early church to Bultmann this text has been understood
as a ‘Hellenistic’ affirmation of some sort of ontological identity
of being. This is not exactly incorrect but if taken as a purely metaphysical
equation, it misses the fundamental hermeneutical implication: namely that
Jesus’ behaves as God behaves. It is Jesus’ behavior that causes
him problems with his contemporaries for in his behavior he exhibits a different
character than that typically associated with ‘God.’ He does not
come with power, he comes serving, he does not come with judgement, he comes
with healing, he does not come with vengeance, he comes with forgiveness.
In short, he does not come and fit our expectations of God.
The Christology of the Fourth Gospel
bears eloquent witness to this (John 5:36). We must, therefore, re-open the
question that so engaged the early church: what is the relation of the Son
to the Father? But we must now turn it on its head, because we think we know
who God is and what God is like. And as we have pointed out over and over,
the modern, popular Christian God is fundamentally no different than the gods
of the victimage mechanism. Today we must ask: Is God like Jesus? This is
what our text does and in so doing asks us to reconsider who we think God
is and what God is like.
When we do so, we can authentically affirm
the christological ‘homoousias’ of the Nicene creed that will
have a new power and urgency and indeed will inform our mission as Jesus’
sheep, those who follow him. If we dare to recite this creed on Sunday mornings,
it will either bear witness to us or it will bear witness against us. Are
we those who acknowledge the identity of Jesus with the Creator abba? Or are
we those who only see similarities (as perhaps the Arians did)?
Historical Cultural
Brown (commentary)
points out that the text has traditional elements similar to those of the
Synoptics about the confusion created by Jesus. “The two questions implied
in vss 24 and 33 about Jesus being Messiah and God (or Son of God) are exactly
the questions that the Synoptic Gospels set in the framework of the trial
of Jesus before the Sanhedrin…We have suggested that in scattering these
charges throughout a longer final ministry in Jerusalem, John may be giving
a truer picture.”
Schnackenburg (Commentary
Vol 2) observes ‘that Jesus did not in fact reveal himself as ‘openly’
as is suggested by the revelatory discourses in the Johannine Gospel.”
This is correct. But neither Brown nor Schnackenburg note the crucial hermeneutic
that the Fourth Gospel gives us, namely that this discourse occurs at the
Feast of Dedication (Channakah), a time that celebrated the violent Maccabean
revolt. There is an explicit contrast between the type of leader/Messiah that
openly asserts and indeed demands violence as a social solution and that of
Jesus’ ministry in our text. Jesus himself has an explicit anti-Maccabean
posture as we have pointed out in his use of Psalm 110 (The
Biblical Testaments as a Marriage of Convenience). A mimetic theoretical
reading of this passage yields an interpretation that is at once both orthodox
(inasmuch as it can affirm the positive mimesis of Jesus with the Father)
as well as a radical thrust (inasmuch as it points to the negative mimetic
reaction of his contemporaries who will stone, i.e., scapegoat him).
We can therefore follow J.N. Sanders
(The
Gospel According to St John) who says, “That the Father and Son
are one is not offered as a proposition in metaphysics, but simply as the
explanation why an attack on the Son is also an attack on the Father, and
so bound to fail. But the complete unity of Son and Father, which has already
been expressed in other terms in 1.1 and 5.17, forms the basis and justification
for the later orthodox affirmation of the unity of the substance between the
divine persons.”
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: (Hover your mouse over to pause cycling)
We need your help! Michael's
been invited to speak on "The Violent God" at the International School
of Theology in The Netherlands. We're trying to raise the money to make that
possible. Please click
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Acts 9:36-43
Ps 23
Rv 7:9-17
Jn 10:22-30
(Acts 9:36-43)
Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is
Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she
became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs.
Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there,
sent two men to him with the request, "Please come to us without delay."
So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to
the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics
and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put
all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body
and said, "Tabitha, get up." Then she opened her eyes, and seeing
Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the
saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout
Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some
time with a certain Simon, a tanner.
(Revelation 7:9-17)
After this I looked, and there was a
great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud
voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!" And all the angels stood around the throne and around
the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before
the throne and worshiped God, singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and
wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever
and ever! Amen." Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who
are
these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him,
"Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These
are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before
the throne of God, and worship him day and night withhin his temple, and the
one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more,
and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will
guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear
from their eyes."
(John 10:22-30)
At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was
winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So
the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep
us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." Jesus answered,
"I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's
name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my
sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them
eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my
hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can
snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."
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
Rene Girard and the Recovery of Early Christian Perspectives (Brethren Life and Thought)
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
