Here's the talk I gave this lunchtime at Billericay Methodist Church's Holy Week Midday Meditation Service:
Isaiah speaks of new things declared before they spring forth (Isaiah 42:1-9). They involve God’s servant on whom God’s Spirit is put and who will faithfully bring forth justice. God’s servant is given as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners who sit in darkness in the dungeon. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth. Although originally spoken about Israel and its divine commission to be a light to the nations, Christians have often seen parallels with the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, who saw his mission as that of fulfilling the commission originally given to Israel.
At the beginning of Holy Week, I hope to provide a big picture view of what it was that Jesus was doing as he walked towards the cross and the empty tomb. I want to suggest that the insights of the French anthropologist René Girard explain how Jesus achieves the things mentioned in Isaiah’s prophecy and then suggest a way of responding to all that Jesus has done, through our reading from John’s Gospel (John 12:1-11).
Girard suggested that, as human beings, we all act on the basis of mimetic desire leading to conflict and violence which we resolve by the expulsion or sacrifice of scapegoats [R. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening (NY: Orbis Books, 2001)]. Mimetic desire is basically a kind of jealousy, but with a twist as we learn what is desirable by observing what others find desirable. Having ‘caught’ our desires from others in a context of scarcity where everyone wants what only some can have (i.e. the survival of the fittest), this results in a struggle to obtain what we want. This, in turn, produces a generalised antagonism towards the individual or group that seems to be responsible for this disappointment. That person or group become our victim as the vicious riddance of the victim has the potential to reduce our eagerness for violence. The removal of the victim or victims – the lambs to the slaughter - gives a temporary re-assurance of the crisis disappearing, and the sensation of renewed possibility. This is a description of cheap solidarity and cheap hope.
Girard claims that, as a result, societies and cultures are originally based on founding murders where this victim or scapegoating mechanism is in operation. He points to Cain’s murder of Abel as being the Biblical story which reveals this basis to human culture: “What has happened since the foundation of the world, that is, since the violent foundations of the first culture, is a series of murders like the Crucifixion. These are murders founded on violent contagion, and consequently they are murders occurring because of the collective error regarding the victim, a misunderstanding caused by violent contagion” [R. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening (NY: Orbis Books, 2001), pp. 85 & 86].
The story of Cain and Abel reveals the way in which we consistently act, as human beings. We desire something that is possessed by someone else and become disturbed through our longing for what we don’t have. We resolve our disturbance by creating a scapegoat of the person or people who appear to have or prevent us from having what it is we desire. When the scapegoat is killed, we can gain what we desire and also release the sense of disturbance that we feel. Over time, Girard argues, this mimetic process is disciplined by ritual into sacrificial systems which repeat the founding murder. So, this pattern becomes expressed in religions involving human sacrifices as scapegoats to appease their gods. It is out of such religions that Abraham was called to form a people who do not sacrifice other human beings, but instead use animals as their scapegoats and sacrifices.
After the Fall, God wished to communicate his love to us, human beings intent on personal or group survival. As he had given us free will, he had to communicate in and through the social and cultural structures which we had now created (i.e. sacrificial systems Girard writes about) but, in order to reveal his loving self, had to do so in a way that engaged in an internal dialogue and critique of these same systems. Accordingly, he gave his chosen people, who had recent and personal experience of being scapegoats and victims, a founding story - the story of the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22. 1-19) - in which human sacrifice is emphatically rejected in favour of animal sacrifice.
The legacy of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, Girard suggests, is that Israel developed a system of animal sacrifice that continued until shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was later born into this people who had subverted the existing practice of scapegoating and he further subverts this practice because, as he is crucified, God becomes the scapegoat that is killed. Jesus’ crucifixion, Girard suggests, was both about God identifying himself with all victims – the scapegoats – who have been sacrificed down through the centuries and also, because in Jesus God himself was scapegoated and sacrificed, the ultimate demonstration of the reality that, as Hosea first stated and Jesus then repeated, God requires mercy, not sacrifice.
As a result, Girard traces a movement away from the dynamic of scapegoating through the Old into the New Testaments. This was something he identified through his anthropological and literary analysis of scapegoating in Judeo-Christian texts and it was this that contributed to his own conversion to the Christian faith. His analysis of the Bible led him to conclude that: Jesus is the final scapegoat; the New Testament is on the side of Jesus, the scapegoat; the scapegoat in the Gospels refuses to let death be the final word and rises again triumphant; and the followers of the scapegoat re-enact the seizing of the scapegoat and the scapegoat’s triumph over death in Eucharistic celebration.
The Gospels are unusual as literature because they encourage people to see the world through the eyes of the scapegoat. The Bible can then be seen as the record of a conversation between God and a human race which has, as a whole, rejected this conversation but which, in a remnant (mainly Israel and the Church), continues to oscillate between dialogue and independent rejection.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is so decisive, Girard writes, because “Jesus’ ‘strategy’ as the ambassador from a loving, non-violent Father is to expose and render ineffective the scapegoat process so that the true face of God may be known … in the scapegoat, or Lamb of God, not the face of a persecuting deity.” So, at the Last Supper, Christ calls us to follow him in serving others, while his Crucifixion reveals the foolishness of scapegoating others and the necessity of concern for all who are victims.
The crucifixion is also the logical outcome of the incarnation. Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, has explored in his book ‘The Nazareth Manifesto’ that God is not simply 'for' victims. Instead, God is 'with' victims, because God is a victim. God is not simply 'for' the excluded. God is 'with' the excluded, because God is excluded. God is not simply 'for' those who are scapegoated. God is 'with' scapegoats, because God is a scapegoat. When God is scapegoated, there is no longer any god to appease and the necessity for scapegoating at all is superseded, subverted and eradicated.
This is the reality into which Christianity calls us to live; a world beyond scapegoating, beyond victimisation and beyond exclusion. A world in which the mechanisms for justifying and acting out our violent desires has been dismantled and rendered null and void. A world, as Barbara Brown Taylor has said, in which we ‘keep deciding not to hate the haters, … keep risking the fatal wound of love and teaching others to do the same — because that is how we prepare the ground around us to receive the seeds of heaven when they come.’
Girard has described this radical reversal in terms of God first taking the side of the victim and then, in Christ, becoming the victim: “The desire that lives through imitation almost always leads to conflict, and this conflict frequently leads to violence. The Bible unveils this process of imitative desire leading to conflict, and its distinctive narratives reveal at the same time that God takes the part of victims. In the Gospels the process of unveiling or revelation is radicalized: God himself, the Word become flesh in Jesus, becomes the victim … The New Testament Gospels are the starting point for a new science or knowledge of humanity. This new knowledge begins with faith in Christ the innocent victim, and it becomes the leaven that will work itself out and expand to the point that the concern for victims becomes the absolute value in all societies moulded or affected by the spread of Christianity” (J. G. Williams, ‘Foreword’ in R. Girard, I see Satan fall like lightning, Orbis Books, 2001).
So, "Girard brings our attention to three facts without which we will never make sense of our lives, our world or our faith, namely: the role violence has played in cultural life, the role mimesis plays in psychological and social life, and the role the Bible plays in revealing both of these things and showing us how to deal with them." Girard reveals how the developing dialogue and narrative of scripture can critique, deconstruct and expose societal norms such as the scapegoat mechanism. In this way, Girard's thesis gives us an understanding of the way in which the narrative of scripture can speak to our world today.
How should we respond to God’s dismantling of the scapegoating mechanism by taking the side of victims and by becoming a victim for us? I want to suggest that we should respond as Mary did in our Gospel reading. Mary poured ointment over Jesus’ feet and dried his feet with her hair. Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.
Her gift to Jesus was also a response to the love that Jesus had shown towards her. She gave because Jesus had first given extravagantly and generously to her. That is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which is summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.” God so loved, that he gave. Love is the reason for giving; not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.
‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and is why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. Jesus then astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels: “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’
In reflecting on this story, the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, “there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of the Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.” May that be our prayer this day and throughout our lives.
The crucifixion is also the logical outcome of the incarnation. Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, has explored in his book ‘The Nazareth Manifesto’ that God is not simply 'for' victims. Instead, God is 'with' victims, because God is a victim. God is not simply 'for' the excluded. God is 'with' the excluded, because God is excluded. God is not simply 'for' those who are scapegoated. God is 'with' scapegoats, because God is a scapegoat. When God is scapegoated, there is no longer any god to appease and the necessity for scapegoating at all is superseded, subverted and eradicated.
This is the reality into which Christianity calls us to live; a world beyond scapegoating, beyond victimisation and beyond exclusion. A world in which the mechanisms for justifying and acting out our violent desires has been dismantled and rendered null and void. A world, as Barbara Brown Taylor has said, in which we ‘keep deciding not to hate the haters, … keep risking the fatal wound of love and teaching others to do the same — because that is how we prepare the ground around us to receive the seeds of heaven when they come.’
Girard has described this radical reversal in terms of God first taking the side of the victim and then, in Christ, becoming the victim: “The desire that lives through imitation almost always leads to conflict, and this conflict frequently leads to violence. The Bible unveils this process of imitative desire leading to conflict, and its distinctive narratives reveal at the same time that God takes the part of victims. In the Gospels the process of unveiling or revelation is radicalized: God himself, the Word become flesh in Jesus, becomes the victim … The New Testament Gospels are the starting point for a new science or knowledge of humanity. This new knowledge begins with faith in Christ the innocent victim, and it becomes the leaven that will work itself out and expand to the point that the concern for victims becomes the absolute value in all societies moulded or affected by the spread of Christianity” (J. G. Williams, ‘Foreword’ in R. Girard, I see Satan fall like lightning, Orbis Books, 2001).
So, "Girard brings our attention to three facts without which we will never make sense of our lives, our world or our faith, namely: the role violence has played in cultural life, the role mimesis plays in psychological and social life, and the role the Bible plays in revealing both of these things and showing us how to deal with them." Girard reveals how the developing dialogue and narrative of scripture can critique, deconstruct and expose societal norms such as the scapegoat mechanism. In this way, Girard's thesis gives us an understanding of the way in which the narrative of scripture can speak to our world today.
How should we respond to God’s dismantling of the scapegoating mechanism by taking the side of victims and by becoming a victim for us? I want to suggest that we should respond as Mary did in our Gospel reading. Mary poured ointment over Jesus’ feet and dried his feet with her hair. Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.
Her gift to Jesus was also a response to the love that Jesus had shown towards her. She gave because Jesus had first given extravagantly and generously to her. That is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which is summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.” God so loved, that he gave. Love is the reason for giving; not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.
‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and is why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. Jesus then astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels: “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’
In reflecting on this story, the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, “there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of the Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.” May that be our prayer this day and throughout our lives.
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Julie Miller - How Could You Say No.
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