1 Kings 19:9-18
Resources
1. James Alison, "Theology Amidst the Dust and Stones" (excerpt), ch. 2 in Faith Beyond Resentment. The opening section gives a moving account of Elijah's ministry coming to grips with sacred violence.
2. Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled, also has an excellent section on Elijah, "Elijah: Anti-sacrificial Sacrifice" (excerpt), pp. 169-173. Bailie's notion of "anti-sacrificial sacrifice" has become central to me, similar to Sandor Goodhart's "idolatry of anti-idolatry." I think it characterizes much of the history of the church: in taking up the noble cause of stamping out sacrifice, we have carried out our cause performing our own bloody sacrifices. We slaughter Aztecs, for example, in the name of being anti-sacrificial. A good deal of modern liberation theology can also come under this banner. Our human efforts at liberation are often bloody and destructive. Finally, anti-sacrificial sacrifice represents that sacred violence most resistant to our seeing it as sacred violence since it seems to be the ultimate just cause. It relates to the Romans 9-11 passages, as I reflected on last week: the Christ event had to happen among the Jews because they were God's people chosen for the revelation of idolatry. They are anti-idolatrous, which can so easily turn into anti-idolatrous idolatry -- as evidenced by a long, bloody history of the church doing precisely that.
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-36
Resources
1. René Girard, with this passage begins a several week serial reading through the Joseph saga in the Revised Common Lectionary. The Joseph saga is one of Girard's prime examples of the Hebrew scriptures beginning the process of revealing the perspective of the victim. He first wrote on it in Things Hidden, "Joseph" (excerpt), pp. 149-154. More recently, he came back to it in I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, pp. 106-112; Girard compares the Joseph saga to the Oedipus myth as a central illustration of the Bible's uniqueness in demythologizing the mythological viewpoint. Link to an excerpt of "Girard on the Joseph Story vs. the Oedipus Myth."
2. For a complete bibliography on this important saga within Girardian literature, see next week (Proper 15A).
3. In 1996 I had merged the Peter on the lake story (the Gospel text below) with the Joseph saga in talking about faith as keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus through the stormy violence of the cross to the new life at Easter -- a sermon entitled "Keeping Your Eyes on the Lord."
Romans 10:5-15
Resources
1. Gil Bailie, "Paul's Letter to the Romans" audio tape series, tape #5. Bailie has some valuable reflections on the necessary role of the rejecters. Was it necessary for our salvation that someone play the role of rejecting Jesus? St. Paul is wrestling with this question of why it had to be his own people who play the role of the persecutors of Jesus. Gil contends that St. Paul never comes up with a completely satisfactory answer. He shifts around trying many possible answers over chapters 9-11 but finally ends with the doxology, a pointing to the mystery of God's ways.
One thing that Paul is clear about: their rejection of Jesus does not cancel their election as God's people. Jesus himself is of the chosen people, and so are the first witnesses of the resurrection who do accept Jesus' message and mission. But so are many of those who rejected Jesus. Does their chosenness actually imply that they were chosen to play the necessary role of rejecter? That's the mystery.
Reflections and Questions
1. See the resources and reflections last week (Proper 13A) regarding Romans 9-11 as a whole.
2. In last week's reflections I shared the insights that have come to me since the 2002 COV&R conference around Sandor Goodhart's notion of the "idolatry of anti-idolatry." In 1999 I offered the following reflections on Romans 9-11, perhaps a pre-cursor to where I'm at since 2002:
Does Girard's anthropology shed at least a little light on this mystery of being God's chosen, even chosen for the necessary and a paradoxical role of rejecting the Messiah, God's chosen among the chosen? The SIN that needed to be revealed and forgiven in the cross was our founding of human culture in rejection or expulsion of the minority. It was necessary that Jesus be rejected in order that this mechanism be revealed and forgiven. Someone had to play the role of rejecter. The fact that those who rejected Jesus were also part of the chosen people makes it more difficult for the first followers to make a hard and fast distinction between themselves and the rest of their fellow Jews. St. Paul is having this trouble precisely in these chapters of Romans. He is refusing to draw a sharp line between himself and his fellow Jews who have rejected Jesus. He will not turn around and scapegoat them, but holds steadfast to their chosenness. Too bad these chapters have largely been ignored by subsequent Gentile Christians who have relented and drawn that line between themselves and Jews, so often using it as an excuse for scapegoating them.
Matthew 14:22-33
Reflections and Questions
1. Psalm 69 is a classic psalm of the scapegoat crying out for help. Its main image is that of sinking down into the water. Here are the first several verses:
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; many are those who would destroy me, my enemies who accuse me falsely. What I did not steal must I now restore?Is this an image that lends meaning to Peter's sinking down in the water? And of Christ's rising above it until his appointed time?
2. Another way of conceiving sinking down into the water is to become caught up in the swirling of scandal around the scapegoat, to get caught up in the flood of violence. Peter and all the disciples will get caught up in this flood that kills Jesus. Jesus will die because of the flood, but he alone is not swept up in it. This is the image of Noah and the great flood. All people on earth get swept up in a flood of violence except Noah and his family. Jesus dies during a flood of such violence; but, in another sense, he his kept free of its ultimate effects by not returning violence for violence. Instead, held in the ark of the tomb, he rises on the third day as forgiveness, not vengeance. In this sense, he has willingly succumbed to the violence but not gotten swept up in it as a perpetrator of it.
This is my reading since 2001 of the Noah story in preaching on the passage from Matthew 24:
For as in the days of Noah..., they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. (Matt. 24:37a, 39-41)See the reflections from Advent 1A and the sermon "Left Behind: Surviving the Floods of Violence." Jesus is like Noah in being left behind when everyone else is swept up and sinks down in the flood of violence. Could this image also apply here? Peter will try not to get swept up in that tide of violence when it swarms around Jesus, but he will fail around the courtyard fire when accusations come his way.
3. The most common mythological depiction of the chaos is a turbulent sea (cf., Gen. 1:1): There existed a chaos of waters in the beginning, and the gods somehow order it into creation.
Girard's anthropology helps us to see that the common mythological image of turbulent waters is a cover-up for the human chaos of mimetic rivalry that exists before the order of human culture created through scapegoating violence. It is a chaos that comes about due to the swirl of desires created by keeping our eyes fixed upon one another.
Jesus comes walking right over that swirl of desires with the loving desire from God that can help us rise above the effects of that chaos. Peter can sustain that same protection in the midst of chaos only for the few moments that he keeps his eyes trained on Jesus. As soon as he looks back to the swirling waters and takes notice, he begins to sink again.
What are the swirling waters of desires that seek to pull us under in our day? Can keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus still help us to walk on those waters?
4. A key verse for me is verse 31: "Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, 'You of little faith, why did you doubt?'" How different is it that Jesus "immediately" reaches out to save Peter, and then chides him about his faith, as opposed to the other way around, chiding him about his faith and then finally reaching out -- reluctantly? -- to save him? The loving forgiveness which reaches out to save precedes the realistic assessment of what's wrong.
5. In 2002 this text sparked for me a series of sermons on faith, beginning with "Faith Is Rising above the Stormy Seas of Violence." I take the more important test of faith as that which faces the disciples at the arrest of Jesus. There, they will face a rising storm of violence against Jesus. Will Peter be able to rise above that? He fails even more miserably in denying Jesus three times. Not until Jesus exemplifies this faith -- on the cross and in the forgiveness of Easter morning -- of not giving in to the violence will such a faith be established on earth as a permanent fixture. It is post-Easter that disciples have a real chance to catch the Spirit of that faith.
6. The series on faith in 2002 continued the following week with "Faith Is Not Being Scandalized," when talking about Jesus' encounter with the Canaanite woman and the Joseph saga. In 1996 I had merged the Peter on the lake story with the Joseph saga in talking about faith as keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus through the stormy violence of the cross to the new life at Easter -- a sermon entitled "Keeping Your Eyes on the Lord."
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