“Imagine there’s no heaven,
it’s easy if you try,
No hell below us, above us only sky,
Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”
-John Lennon
Have we lost our imagination today? Do we no longer have the ability to think
about eschatology in hopeful, positive terms? Has the well of religion run
dry and left us sucking dust? Do we long to be fed at God’s table or
do we prefer our own bloody altars?
What are we giving our congregations?
Do we dispense the water of ritual and prohibition? Or the wine of spirituality?
Do we preach the Christian myth or the Christian gospel?
Christianity is at a crossroads. It can
either recognize its accommodation to the generative mimetic scapegoating
mechanism and repent, or it can remain another religion of the world. We have
choices on every level.
May God open the eyes our hearts, the
ears of our minds and clear a path for our feet so that we may walk confidently
in the transforming presence of Jesus.
What happens when you put the new wine
of the Spirit into the old wineskins of religion?
Deconstruction is a term associated with
the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. We find reading Derrida difficult
but illuminating. For clergy interested in deconstruction and mimetic theory
Andrew McKenna has written the brilliant Violence and Difference. Andrew is
able to demonstrate that both Girard and Derrida find the origin of language
in the victim, for Girard it is the scapegoat, for Derrida the extruded differ(a)nce.
Our story today is about the beginning
of the deconstruction of religion. Commentators frequently observe that the
wine Jesus creates is made from water found in jars for ritual purification.
Some see a supercessionism here. Some suggest that the Fourth Gospel is saying
that Jesus replaces Judaism. There is no replacement here. There is something
added, namely that which was extruded and this addition will change everything.
The juxtaposition of this narrative at
Cana with that of the Temple in Jerusalem brings together two components:
deconstruction and transformation. The miracle at Cana is about the transformation
of religion by spirituality, that is, by the Spirit that is given in the cross
(7:37-39). It is no surprise that some see eucharistic illusions here (e.g.,
Cullmann). In our discussion of Johannine passages in Year B we saw the many
layered textuality of the Fourth Gospel. More importantly we saw that a theology
of the cross and all of its implications permeates both the Synoptic and Johannine
narrating of the story of Jesus. It is in the cross of Jesus, the extruded
victim, that God reveals his glory. John’s ironic use of the verbs doxazo
and upsao are evidence of this.
The addition of the cross to the mechanism
of religion is the single most transforming reality that can occur. For in
the cross of Jesus, the Creator abba is revealed as non-retributive. It is
non-retribution or forgiveness that empowers the Christian faith. The transformation
of religion into spirituality occurs when we are oriented to the lifestyle
of the cross of Jesus, that is, to a lifestyle that ventures to live the forgiveness
of God in Christ. As long as we restrict forgiveness to our personal relationship
with God, we will remain within the sacrificial realm of religion and find
ourselves spending way too much time trying to appease an angry God.
Bonhoeffer had already asked some 60
years ago whether or not Christianity, had run its course. He speculated we
were moving to a religionless time. Christianity had its bright lights during
Bonhoeffer’s lifetime but for the most part Christianity had more to
do with the problem than with the solution. The same question can be raised
about American Christianity today. People hunger for spirituality and to have
their deepest longing met. They seek peace and want to be loved. But they
are fed from tables of sacrifice, they are given water from stone jars instead
of wine. There is fundamentally little difference between much Protestant
Christianity in America and American civil religion.
What is missed is what is revealed in
the Fourth Gospel, namely the transforming power of the cross. The cross deconstructs
Christian religion. But it does more than that. Where it is central to faith
it transforms and empowers. It reveals the inadequacy of religion grounded
in victimage and power. The cross of Jesus exposes the powerlessness of ritual
and prohibition and calls for repentance where we have succumbed to both the
Romantic lie of ‘the individual self’ as well as the lies we perpetuate
as part of the mythmaking crowds. Wherever Christians or churches are creating
scapegoats they are not listening to the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
So while we can talk about the deconstruction
of Christianity, we can also talk about its transformation. Recalling Walter
Wink’s thesis in The Powers (the powers are good, the powers are fallen,
the powers will be redeemed), the deconstruction of our faith and our theology
is, while painful, ultimately healing and restorative, but deconstruction
must remain penultimate. God is finally all about the transformation of all
life, the overcoming of death and new creation. This is the good news of the
Fourth Gospel and the gospel of Jesus.
Perhaps, if we give our stone hearts
to our abba, we may just find ourselves changed.
In Year B we observed the possibility that
the Fourth Gospel’s placement of the Temple episode at the forefront of
Jesus’ ministry has as much to commend it as does the Synoptists placing
of the story at the end. Either possibility makes good historical sense and
it cannot be said that either placement is 100%. On the presumption, then, that
the episode in the Temple occurred at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry
we can still recognize the theological correlation scholars have noted the author
makes between events in Cana and Jerusalem.
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)
Is 62:1-5
Ps 36:5-10
1 Cor 12:1-11
Jn 2:1-11
(Isaiah 62:1-5)
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not
rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like
a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings
your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD
will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal
diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and
your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight
Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land
shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your
builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall
your God rejoice over you.
(1 Corinthians 12:1-11)
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to
be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led
astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that
no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!"
and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit. Now
there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties
of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but
it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given
the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through
the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge
according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another
gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to
another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various
kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are
activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually
just as the Spirit chooses.
(John 2:1-11)
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of
Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no
wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you
and to me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants,
"Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water
jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.
Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled
them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it
to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water
that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants
who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said
to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine
after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until
now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and
revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
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
