So What?
Well, the rubber meets the road. Will
we continue to prattle on about Christian unity seeking some sort of doctrinal
basis for all of our agreements or will finally recognize that the gospel
is not about metaphysics but about concrete human realities? Will we continue
to scapegoat others and find our unity against others or will we finally come
to terms with the prosecutorial roles we play in our personal, ecclesial and
familial relationships? Will we hear Jesus’ Abba and experience Trinitarian
unity or will we obey sin, death and the father of lies, the Satan, the Prosecuting
persecutor, the ultimate mythologizer? Who will the churches follow? This
is the question for Christianity today and it is an urgent question given
the state of conflict that exists in our world
Some Sermon Thoughts…
A professor of mine in seminary once
said something that has stuck with me ever since. It went something like this:
“You know, when church groups get
together for meetings, they spend a lot of time at the beginning “building
community” because that’s what all the “group facilitation”
books tell them to do. This is a waste of time, because we don’t ever
“build community.” To believe that is an act of arrogance. We
have community by virtue of our oneness in Christ. What we need to do when
we get together is “recognize” our community, not try to “build”
something as though it didn’t exist.”
An amazing statement, one that rings
loudly of truth.
I’d say, as preachers, that we
have a rather “Socratic” job before us when it comes to the unity
of the Church. The unity exists. Our only difficulty comes in our failure
to recognize it. Perhaps if we accepted the reality of our union in Christ
before beginning our conversations, we’d accomplish more as we try to
show our unity rather than create it. As preachers, we declare that unity,
we may decry the apparent dis-unity, but only for the way that it hinders
our ministry to the world, not as if it were something real.
John 17:20-26
Anthropological Reading
We begin today with (an apocryphal) story
we have heard with apologies to all of our friends in the Churches of Christ.
Sometime at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a Church of Christ
in Lubbock, Texas. When people came to church, dressed in their Sunday best,
the men would have to keep their hats with them in the pews, so someone suggested
that they build a hatrack and place it in the narthex where hats could be
hung. This led to division in the church for some people did not want a hatrack
in the narthex. The church ultimately split and it is said that there is now
the Hatrack Church of Christ and the Non-Hatrack Church of Christ.
This story, while probably not true (although
in America anything is possible) illustrates the degree to which we have taken
so-called religious freedom. In America, churches split over the silliest
things. There are hundreds of thousands of different churches registered with
the federal government as non-profit organizations. In the course of my life
I have had the privilege of attending many different types of churches all
over the country. One thing I have consistently noticed is that churches often
take their identity by asserting what they are not, that is, they are not
this or that. If they hold to a symbolic view of the sacraments, they do so
in opposition to those who hold a sacramental view. If they sprinkle with
water at baptism, they do in opposition to those who dunk. If they perceive
church leadership in terms of pastors, they do so in opposition to those who
have priests. If one group doesn’t ordain homosexuals they do so in
opposition those who do. If one group accepts inerrancy they do so in opposition
to those who don’t. And the list could go on ad infinitum (or ad nauseum
as the case may be).
Christian unity is no longer a reality.
While we may confess that ‘we believe in one church’ we do not
live it in practice, it has become for us an ideal to be pursued but not realized.
The twentieth century has seen all kinds of ecumenical conferences and conversations
and the establishment of the World Council of Churches which some have not
joined in opposition to liberalism. And so we continue to splinter further
and further apart so that we create confusion as to who is the true church.
We are holy, they are not. We are saved, they are not. We are righteous, they
are worldly. We are God’s children, they are doomed to hell. And so
on and so forth.
We might ask what kind of message this
sends to the world. Suppose you were not a Christian but desired to study
the Christian faith, where would you begin? Which branch of Christianity would
you say is the ‘true people of God?’ Catholic? Episcopal? Lutheran?
Reformed? Baptist? Holiness? Pentecostal? Nazarene? Church of Christ? Check
out the Yellow Pages for any major city and note all the varieties of Christianity
represented. Which is the right place to begin? Which has any claim to be
‘historic Christianity? Does longevity give this right? Does doctrinal
purity give this right? Does morality give this right? Who is the true example
of Jesus in the world today?
If all of this does not turn your stomach
it should at least turn your head, for what we are up against is what occurs
when churches have allowed mimetic rivalry to dominate instead of the Lordship
of Jesus. If you are a pastor, you are more than well aware of how mimetic
rivalry can afflict a church. Just look to your last board, council or consistory
meeting. How many times have you had to defuse conflicts between parishioners
over the most trivial of problems? How many times have you had to mediate
between power hungry people who in genuine piety believe that what they assert
is God’s will? Maybe you yourself have struggled with this in relation
to another pastor in your locality.
The relevance of Christianity was a theme
for the twentieth century, but as we have passed into the twenty first century
it must be asked whether or not we have passed this time and whether or not
we have become totally irrelevant because our messages, whether conservative
or liberal, Catholic or Protestant all represent varieties of the same religious
paradigm: that of mimetic violence. Is the God that we proclaim any different
than that found anywhere else on the planet? We have sought to demonstrate
that Christian theology, particularly in its more popular forms is in reality
no different than ancient myths. The Christian faith today might just as well
be called the Christian myth, for in it’s structure it is sacrificial,
in its message it lies. It lies about God and it lies about Jesus. In too
many ways it makes God out to be a persecutor, a judge who will demand recompense.
It has failed to articulate clearly the love which God has for the world,
conditioning this love with law and obligating it to violence. Bonhoeffer
was absolutely correct, Christianity, today, no longer tastes, feels, smells
or seems like Jesus.
Christian unity within congregations
and within denominations can easily be seen to be unity against. Like political
or familial unity , church unity often depends on a scapegoat, someone extruded,
discounted, marginalized and all too frequently demonized. We are not like
this group or that one. It is the false unity found in random victimage (see
the Introductory Article on The Scapegoat). The unity created by victimage
will always have as a marker an anti-alterity (an against-the-otherness).
In contrast to this, the unity found in the gospel is a unity that also begins
with a victim, but it is a unity that stands with the victim. In short, the
church is the community who stands by Jesus, and consequently, all victims.
Or as Bonhoeffer put it in his poem ‘Christians and Pagans, ‘Christians
stand by God in his hour of suffering.’
Our text for today indicates that Christian
unity is the unity found by accepting God’s verdict that we are all
persecutors and that we stand under the love shown to us in the cross of Christ.
This is indicated in two ways, first in the use of ‘doxazo’ (to
glorify) which we have seen refers to the glory revealed in Jesus’ suffering
and second in the phrase ‘katabole kosmou’ (vs 24). This is a
phrase worth exploring. It has two potential meanings which are not mutually
exclusive. ‘Katabole kosmou’ can mean from the ‘creation/foundation
of the world’ (= the created reality or nature) or from the ‘false
creation of the world’ (the foundation of human culture). The phrase
occurs in Matthew 13.35 (as a LXX quote from Psalm 78.2), and again in Mt
25.34, Lk 11.50, Jn 17.24, Eph 1.4, Heb. 4.3 and 9.26, I Peter 1.20, Rev 13.8
and 17.8. It is foreign only to the genuine Pauline letters. The translation
of ‘katabole kosmou’ will depend upon whether or not we see the
‘kosmou’ as referring to the created order or to the ‘order’
which we have created in victimage. In most cases, the ‘katabole kosmou’
refers to the founding myth of Genesis 3-4, although occasionally it refers
to the saga of Genesis 1-2. There are two foundings, the founding or creation
of God and the founding of human culture. The Johannine use of ‘kosmos’
seems to us to indicate that it is the origins of the sacrificial mechanism
that is in view, particularly when we take into account the use of ‘doxazo.’
As ‘the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world’ Jesus is the archetype of all victims, this is particularly
true of Matt 25.34 and Luke 11.50 in the Synoptic tradition as well as Eph
1.4, I Peter 1.20 and the references in Revelation. There is no unity apart
from the victim, the only question is whether that unity is unity against
or with the victim. In the Johannine prayer of John 17, the unity that obtains
between the Jesus and the Father is the unity given to the believers, to those
who have ‘believed Jesus ‘logos’ (message). The purpose
of this unity is so that the ‘kosmos’ might believe that the Father
has sent the Son (17.21). Somewhere it is has been pointed out that on the
road to Damascus, Jesus does not ask the apostle Paul, ‘Saul, Saul,
why don’t you believe in me?’ but rather ‘Saul, Saul, why
do you persecute me?’ It is our persecutorial or retaliatory tendency
(our ‘original sin’) that is queried. Faith arises when we recognize
our place as persecutors, as those who unjustly victimize and repent and take
the side of the victim, thus breaking the false unity of the victimage mechanism.
As long as those in Rome or Geneva or Plano, Texas insist on marginalizing
others in the name of Jesus they will not bear witness to the Lamb slain from
the ‘katabole kosmou’ but to the sacrificial myth and thus will
never experience the unity found in the Trinity.
Historical/Cultural
The commentaries tend to miss what we
have noted regarding the distinction between divine henosis and the unity
of victimage by not contexting the phrase ‘katabole kosmou’ with
the glorification = crucifixion of Jesus.
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) |
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
here to read more about it.
New Song! Visit the "Songs"
page to hear a new piece from Michael's album, "A Sense of Clue."
This one is entitled, "Cain's Lament."
Acts 16:16-34
Ps 97
Rv 22:12-14,16-17,20-21
Jn 17:20-26
(Acts 16:16-34)
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who
had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by
fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, "These
men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation."
She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and
said to the spirit, "I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come
out of her." And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw
that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged
them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them
before the magistrates, they said, "These men are disturbing our city;
they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans
to adopt or observe." The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates
had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and
ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he
put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners
were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that
the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were
opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and
saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself,
since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud
voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." The jailer called
for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you
and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all
who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed
their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He
brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire
household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
(Revelation 22:12-14)
"See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's
work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning
and the end." Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will
have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
(Revelation 22:16-17)
"It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the
churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star."
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let everyone who hears
say, "Come." And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who
wishes take the water of life as a gift.
(Revelation 22:20-21)
The one who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.
Amen.
(John 17:20-26)
"I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will
believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father,
are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe
that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them,
so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they
may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me
and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those
also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory,
which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the
world. "Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you;
and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and
I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be
in them, and I in them."
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
