Scripture In Depth
33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Novemeber 15, 2015
Reading I: Daniel 12:1-3
Responsorial Psalm 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11
Reading II: Hebrews 10:11-14, 18
Gospel: Mark 13:24-32
In those days, I Daniel, heard this word of the Lord:
"At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, guardian of your people;
it shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time.
At that time your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book.
“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake;
some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.
“But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament,
and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever."
Brothers and sisters:
Every priest stands daily at his ministry,
offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins.
But this one offered one sacrifice for sins,
and took his seat forever at the right hand of God;
now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool.
For by one offering
he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin.
Jesus said to his disciples: "In those days after that tribulation
the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
"And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds'
with great power and glory,
and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds,
from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.
"Learn a lesson from the fig tree.
When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves,
you know that summer is near.
In the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that he is near, at the gates.
Amen, I say to you,
this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
"But of that day or hour, no one knows,
neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
"And then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in the clouds'
I often wonder why the gospels give so much space to the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. The one is over and done with, the other never seems to come about in spite of christians gathering on mountain tops for the Rapture. Talk about repeating the obvious ad nauseam. The fig tree coming into leaf is scarcely revolutionary stuff. And in an age of anxiety and anti-depressant medication I'm not sure that a healthy spirituality should be stirring up tension.
But this citation from Daniel about the Son of man coming in the clouds is worth looking into because in the mind of the High Priest it was the ultimate blasphemy that sealed his fate:
Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said, "I am; and you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven." And the high priest tore his garments, and said, "Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?" And they all condemned him as deserving death. (Mk 14, 61-64)
But it is very illusive - hard to get a grip on, the significance of this prophecy . For some reason John omits this key statement in his account of the trial: for him the conviction was the work of the Roman governor on grounds of sedition, while for the others the condemnation was declared by the high priest on grounds of blasphemy. John however makes more of Peter's betrayal.
Recently we have read some of the ideas of Rene Girard LINK http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=178076 which for me, at a glance, shine a new light on the meaning of Jesus' death and what we call the mystery of redemption. Girard points out that Peter had actually gone across to the other side in joining them around the fire, the side of those who wanted him killed. The implications of this insight are very disturbing.
(I am not familiar with Girard's writings, and have only had a glimpse of them this past week, but I feel it is worth having a go at teasing out his meaning. Perhaps others will have more to offer.)
Why did they want him killed? Why did the Sanhedrin declare he deserved to die? Did Peter want him killed? Do we all? According to Girard it is all about sacrificing a scapegoat. Not only religions but civilisation itself is built on the idea that evil done can be put right if our guilt is loaded onto a scapegoat. We are quite adept at finding scapegoats to blame, and then to kill, and in killing them we have a certain kind of satisfaction. The turmoil subsides and we settle into a kind of peace.
Every time we blame someone else, or something, for our own doing wrong, we are scapegoating. From Adam saying, 'The woman gave it to me...', to Cain killing Abel out of jealousy, to David killing his best general whose wife he had stolen, to the Nazi's killing the Jews to fix Europe's problems, to former Prime Ministers blaming the refugees for threatening our security, to the priest blaming the altar boy for leading him into sin... We all want the innocent one killed to take our guilt away with him, leaving us in peace. But that is the big lie, exposed when the Innocent One that we kill does not take on our guilt but remains innocent and is vindicated, coming on the clouds of heaven.
Take the case of our current resistance to refugees. It goes further than fabricating a threat in order to stir up patriotism. We want to keep our island continent all to ourselves, even while millions live in crowded refugee camps, without water, without work, without hygiene, without a homeland, without a life, and we assuage our guilt by damning those who reach our shores as intruders, illegals threatening to breach our borders. We isolate them in torture prisons to prove how bad they are. We scapegoat them and we sacrifice their freedom, their hope, their mental health and even their children. Then, our guilt removed, we proudly proclaim that we have a safe country and our people live in freedom.
We did the same to the aboriginals early on. When they would not keep to the bushland we had allocated to them, but came out into the grazing lands to steal our sheep, we blamed them for intruding on our rights and we trapped them, poisoned them or shot them down in bloody massacres, because they deserved it! And then we had peace.
Girard says that all civilised society depends on this lie, that the scapegoat deserves to die because he is guilty, and in killing him we tell ourselves our guilt goes with him and we are left in peace. This may seem to be a subtle point, but it strikes me as true, especially when Girard says that the significance of the sacrificing of Jesus lies in the fact that the story itself proclaims his innocence. He is not guilty of anything so he cannot be a scapegoat. Guilt will not stick to him. It runs off like water off a duck's back. The lie rebounds on the chief priest and the Sanhedrin, the leaders of the people. On Pilate too, for he only needed a scapegoat to kill to settle the restless city into its usual pattern of submissive peace.
It may help if we read a little more of Hebrews 10. The author is struggling to make sense of the sacrificing of Jesus just as we are still today. He is sure of one thing: ritual sacrifice that involves the murder of somebody or destruction of something - scapegoat sacrifice - is finished. Killing the sacrificial victim, the scapegoat never did bring peace. It was all a lie. Now the only thing that matters is our willingness to do 'your will' [read: what is right and true]. The time of self-deception, of lying to ourselves, is over. The great lie, that killing a scapegoat can resolve our problems, is finished. Jesus offered 'one sacrifice for sins', but his was not a guilt offering. He refused to be a scapegoat, taking on the guilt of sin. He lived and died innocent of sin. So his was a willing surrender of himself into the hands of the Father. This is the ultimate metanoia, the change of heart that does away with the lie and restores right order.
First he says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.” These are offered according to the law. Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. By this “will,” we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated. The holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying:
“This is the covenant I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord:
‘I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them upon their minds,’”
“Their sins and their evildoing I will remember no more.”
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin. (Heb 10: 8-18)
Girard speaks of the ignorance of earlier generations who were innocent of the falsehood involved in sacrifice. They genuinely believed t hat 's how it works. The scapegoat actually carried their guilt and their sin died with the dying of the victim. But since 'things hidden since the foundation of the world' (Mt 13:35 ) have been revealed in the death of Jesus, namely that the Innocent One does not take on our guilt but guilt is only removed by forgiveness, we are no longer innocent. And so it happens that while violence increases it is ever less satisfying. We know it doesn't work. Designating scapegoats, loading blame upon those who can't defend themselves, then destroying them, does nothing for our peace of mind or heart. There is nothing left for us but to acknowledge our own guilt, recognise that there is nothing we can do to fix it, and genuinely ask for forgiveness. The gospel works like a leaven gradually changing humankind at a level far beyond our normal reach.
In The Sunday Age there's a little corner called Meme of the Week:
Bindi walks in to find Tarquin the tabby trawling through the intestines of a sparrow. After the initial shock and a stiff drink, Bindi tells herself: "It's just his nature". No, Bindi, it's your fault. It all started with that ball of wool. That's when Tarquin got the taste for stringy things. Own it.
In particular, Girard was interested in the causes of conflict and violence and the role of imitation in human behavior. Our desires, he wrote, are not our own; we want what others want. These duplicated desires lead to rivalry and violence. He argued that human conflict was not caused by our differences, but rather by our sameness. Individuals and societies offload blame and culpability onto an outsider, a scapegoat, whose elimination reconciles antagonists and restores unity. Cynthia Haven in Stanford News)
The image of Satan—“a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44)—also expresses this opposition between the mythical obscuring and the evangelical revealing of victimization. The Crucifixion as a defeat for Satan, Jesus’ prediction that Satan “is coming to an end” (Mark 3:26), implies less an orderly world than one in which Satan is on the loose. Instead of concluding with the reassuring harmony of myths, the New Testament opens up apocalyptic perspectives, in the synoptic Gospels equally with the Book of Revelation. To reach “the peace that surpasseth all understanding,” humanity must give up its old, partial peace founded on victimization—and a great deal of turmoil can be expected. The apocalyptic dimension is not an alien element that should be purged from the New Testament in order to “improve” Christianity, it is an integral part of revelation.
Jesus’ death is a source of grace not because the Father is “avenged” by it, but because Jesus lived and died in the manner that, if adopted by all, would do away with scandals and the victimization that follows from scandals. Jesus lived as all men should live in order to be united with a God whose true nature he reveals.
Obeying perfectly the anti-mimetic prescriptions he recommends, Jesus has not the slightest tendency toward mimetic rivalry and victimization. And he dies, paradoxically, because of this perfect innocence. He becomes a victim of the process from which he will liberate mankind. When one man alone follows the prescriptions of the kingdom of God it seems an intolerable provocation to all those who do not, and this man automatically designates himself as the victim of all men. This paradox fully reveals “the sin of the world,” the inability of man to free himself from his violent ways.
The true Resurrection is based not on the mythical lie of the guilty victim who deserves to die, but on the rectification of that lie, which comes from the true God and which reopens channels of communication mankind itself had closed through self-imprisonment in its own violent cultures. Divine grace alone can explain why, after the Resurrection, the disciples could become a dissenting minority in an ocean of victimization—could understand then what they had misunderstood earlier: the innocence not of Jesus alone but of all victims of all Passion-like murders since the foundation of the world.
(http://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/04/002-are-the-gospels-mythical)