Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Spirals, Circles, and Cones
Over the past year or so I have been working on and with a metaphor for how I read the Bible, understand the message of Jesus, and embody out my spirituality.
This metaphor may well be established somewhere already and I would greatly appreciate any one to point me in that direction. This metaphor is built off of my understanding of the work of Rene Girard as well as Charles Bellinger and James Alison; all three of which had some of the greatest impact on my seminary experience.
The following posts are going to outline, briefly, this metaphor in hopes that I might begin to receive feedback. It is my hope (dream) one day to have this put into a format for others to share or add to.
Without getting into the entire Girardian lens, I will say perhaps the dominate issue I struggle with in spirituality is dealing with violence. How do we resolve violence in the world? Is violence good? Is violence bad? What does Jesus or the Bible reveal to us about the human condition and the role of violence within that condition?
Basically, I desire to share with others something that has changed my life over the next several posts.
This metaphor may well be established somewhere already and I would greatly appreciate any one to point me in that direction. This metaphor is built off of my understanding of the work of Rene Girard as well as Charles Bellinger and James Alison; all three of which had some of the greatest impact on my seminary experience.
The following posts are going to outline, briefly, this metaphor in hopes that I might begin to receive feedback. It is my hope (dream) one day to have this put into a format for others to share or add to.
Without getting into the entire Girardian lens, I will say perhaps the dominate issue I struggle with in spirituality is dealing with violence. How do we resolve violence in the world? Is violence good? Is violence bad? What does Jesus or the Bible reveal to us about the human condition and the role of violence within that condition?
Basically, I desire to share with others something that has changed my life over the next several posts.
Wine as a metaphor for destruction of violence?
I am doing some research for a new study Nancy and I are working on called "Wine and Dine through the Bible". This is just a basic Bible study that focuses on the wine, food and festivals in the Bible. There is a lot of this sort of stuff throughout the Bible and it all has so many meanings.
One of the common metaphors I discovered is the act of "pouring out wine" in the bible. This metaphor is often used to describe God pouring out anger and destruction toward a people. Thinking about this for just a moment got me thinking about when Jesus 'poured out' a cup of wine for the disciples at the Last Supper.
Often interpreted as Jesus' blood being poured out in love, but what if Jesus is using a common and rich Biblical metaphor of wine being poured out in anger and destruction?
It seems to run counter to our image of Jesus, but as I further reflect on this and apply the lens of Rene Girard, it seems to make perfect sense.
Is Jesus reminding us we need to be angry and destroy cycles of violence? As the one who willing became a scapegoat in order to reveal the single victim mechanism humanity is duped into believing as the only way to resolve societal scandals. This cycle of blaming and finding scapegoats is so powerful that we can become drunk on it so much so that we cannot even walk straight (Psalms 60:3).
Perhaps in the Last Supper Jesus turns to his disciples and reminds them that God does not stand for the cycles of violence in the world and that God's anger will be poured out and that cycle will be destroyed.
But what makes God in Jesus radical is that God's destruction of the cycle of violence is not by violence. Rather God destroys the cycle of scapegoating by resurrection of the Christ.
This needs to be further developed and refined in order to make greater sense to those outside my own mind. Additionally, this needs to be developed as further evidence to add to the claim that Jesus did not die as a substitution for sin.
One of the common metaphors I discovered is the act of "pouring out wine" in the bible. This metaphor is often used to describe God pouring out anger and destruction toward a people. Thinking about this for just a moment got me thinking about when Jesus 'poured out' a cup of wine for the disciples at the Last Supper.
Often interpreted as Jesus' blood being poured out in love, but what if Jesus is using a common and rich Biblical metaphor of wine being poured out in anger and destruction?
It seems to run counter to our image of Jesus, but as I further reflect on this and apply the lens of Rene Girard, it seems to make perfect sense.
Is Jesus reminding us we need to be angry and destroy cycles of violence? As the one who willing became a scapegoat in order to reveal the single victim mechanism humanity is duped into believing as the only way to resolve societal scandals. This cycle of blaming and finding scapegoats is so powerful that we can become drunk on it so much so that we cannot even walk straight (Psalms 60:3).
Perhaps in the Last Supper Jesus turns to his disciples and reminds them that God does not stand for the cycles of violence in the world and that God's anger will be poured out and that cycle will be destroyed.
But what makes God in Jesus radical is that God's destruction of the cycle of violence is not by violence. Rather God destroys the cycle of scapegoating by resurrection of the Christ.
This needs to be further developed and refined in order to make greater sense to those outside my own mind. Additionally, this needs to be developed as further evidence to add to the claim that Jesus did not die as a substitution for sin.
Alter the Altar
At AHUMC we do not call it the communion table. We do not call it the communion rail. Rather we fall into a historical theological position when we reference these things however, because we call them the altar and the altar rail.
As I read the publications from the UMC, I understand this is 'altar' language is incorrect language for those areas. I for one agree.
Catholics celebrate the Eucharist and in that ritual Christ is sacrificed again (as I come to understand it), thus to call it the altar is correct. However, the UMC does not affirm this theology and instead affirms the Communion as a symbolic ritual of remembrance. Therefore communion table is the correct label.
But this seems like semantics.
However, for those Christians out there who do not affirm that Christ died as a substitutionary atonement for sin, to call it an altar can be troubling at best. The UMC has room for you who do not affirm this theology of the atonement.
Thank God it does because then I am not sure where I would be.
Rather my atonement theology is not so much Anselm as it is Girard. While Girard does not address the atonement much at all himself, his disciples have. In fact my wife did just that.
In her research in the class we shared, it became evident to each of us that Girard might fall more in line with 'Ransom' theory of atonement (which is the first atonement theory the church put forth).
This theory states that humanity was set free by God by paying a ransom to the Satan. This ransom was Jesus.
This sounds very archaic and fundamentally conservative. However, Girard's lens on this statement would in fact allow liberals and conservatives alike to claim this statement. While some of the terms need to be defined for a fuller understanding (such as Satan and ransom), Girard is one who is able to bring the left and right together.
Such a rare gift indeed.
So to all my UMC friends out there. Let us not continue in a tradition we do not understand by refereeing to the communion table as an altar.
Alter our language and we might just be able to alter the current course of the church.
As I read the publications from the UMC, I understand this is 'altar' language is incorrect language for those areas. I for one agree.
Catholics celebrate the Eucharist and in that ritual Christ is sacrificed again (as I come to understand it), thus to call it the altar is correct. However, the UMC does not affirm this theology and instead affirms the Communion as a symbolic ritual of remembrance. Therefore communion table is the correct label.
But this seems like semantics.
However, for those Christians out there who do not affirm that Christ died as a substitutionary atonement for sin, to call it an altar can be troubling at best. The UMC has room for you who do not affirm this theology of the atonement.
Thank God it does because then I am not sure where I would be.
Rather my atonement theology is not so much Anselm as it is Girard. While Girard does not address the atonement much at all himself, his disciples have. In fact my wife did just that.
In her research in the class we shared, it became evident to each of us that Girard might fall more in line with 'Ransom' theory of atonement (which is the first atonement theory the church put forth).
This theory states that humanity was set free by God by paying a ransom to the Satan. This ransom was Jesus.
This sounds very archaic and fundamentally conservative. However, Girard's lens on this statement would in fact allow liberals and conservatives alike to claim this statement. While some of the terms need to be defined for a fuller understanding (such as Satan and ransom), Girard is one who is able to bring the left and right together.
Such a rare gift indeed.
So to all my UMC friends out there. Let us not continue in a tradition we do not understand by refereeing to the communion table as an altar.
Alter our language and we might just be able to alter the current course of the church.