Three times in the last day, I have thought of something in particular, so I think that means I need to write about it. This is not my typical weekly message but I think it is important.
René Girard is a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is also one of the 40 Immorteles of the French Academy. His field is not simple. He has crossed all sorts of boundaries of disciplines in the creation of what he calls mimetic theory. Simply put is that humans learn by imitating one another. Simple, you may say. Of course, we all know that. For Girard however this is the beginning of all culture from the smallest early village to much larger societies. And also, it was also what converted Girard from an atheist to become a Christ-follower.
Please bear with me--I know that I am over-simplifying. Life in the village goes at its own pace until one day there is a disturbance in the air. It affects everyone. It's all against all, until someone points at a person and says "It's their fault!" Suddenly, it becomes all against one, and that one becomes the scapegoat for the community. The scapegoat is either shunned, banished or sacrificed. Order is restored, almost magically it seems. Thus the event is remembered with an aura of mana or power. The next time there is a "disturbance" in the force, the memory is brought forth; in some way it is re-enacted. If order is restored, all is well, but sometimes more than the reenactment is needed, and this leads to a new scapegoat, a new sacrifice. If this does not work, more sacrifices are required, or one of a higher status. Eventually, the ultimate role of a king is to be the sacrifice when needed. All of the victims have a degree of innocence, and yet also of culpability.
This brings us to Jesus--the incarnation of the triune God who is always creating, redeeming, sustaining. Knowing humankind full well including our proclivities towards imitation, scapegoating and violence, the latter two of which are far from creating, redeeming and sustaining, our triune God chose to become one of us in order to draw us closer into the communion of the threefold embrace. I say knowing full well deliberately because I believe that God could foresee the path we were likely to take, but that did not deter God. The path we took was the one we had always taken. When the disturbance came, we turned and pointed, demanding a sacrifice. God did not demand the sacrifice; we did. And this sacrifice upon the cross of the One truly innocent victim, with no culpability, broke the power of sacrifice--forever. Oh, we still try, but it cannot bring peace and order ever again. Just look at what we do in the world when we go our own way.
God's atonement--accepting our demand for sacrifice of Jesus as the scapegoat--was to open God's "arms" wide to embrace us with the love that was from before creation, that comes into our midst, and that calls us forward into full communion with God.
Each time we remember this act, especially when we are at the Table, we are not re-enacting a sacrifice from long ago. We are participating in the open embrace of God's atonement, of the grace and mercy that accepts us where we are with our human proclivities--to point, to scapegoat--and loves us into being the incarnation, the Body of Christ to carry this embrace into the world.
I understand why an atheist became a Christ-follower who has to stand in awe as he receives the embrace of Christ's arms spread wide.
Ephesians 2:15a-16
That he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.
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