mimetic theory

For the second Sunday in Easter, Lindsey and Adam read John 20:19-31. “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

With these words, Jesus breathes new life into his disciples.

Shut up within that room, frightened after seeing their leader murdered and having their ambitions crushed, they are probably in a state of utter defeat. But suddenly, Love bursts through the walls.

With the assurance, “Peace be with you,” Jesus calms the storm of confusion and fear must have raged within the disciples in the instant they saw him. Jesus is not there to rebuke those who ran away at his hour of death, but to comfort them and reinvigorate them.

Jesus tells the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This may sound like Jesus is giving followers – believers – the power to bless or curse. But with the Holy Spirit guiding them from within, there is only one real path they can take. Why, then, does Jesus mention retaining sins?

Thomas is not with the disciples when Jesus first encounters them. He is skeptical of the account the disciples give – and who can blame him?

The story of “Doubting Thomas” has been used to shame people into better, stronger belief. That tactic never works.

Jesus doesn’t shame Thomas. He gives his skeptical disciple what he needs to believe. But he does say 
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

All of us have seen something, but none of us have seen everything. All around us, there is evidence of new life springing from the well of compassion and mercy that God opened to us by suffering with us and forgiving us for the suffering we have caused. But none of us have yet seen the fullness of the world living into perfect love. That is the Kingdom of God.

To believe is to trust God’s Kingdom is possible and coming into being, so that we can live into vocations as reflections of God and do our part to usher it in. That is the blessing that Jesus gives to his disciples and all of us in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

For the 5th Sunday of Lent, Lindsey and Adam discuss the story of Lazarus in John 11:1-45. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” But shortly after Jesus says this, he begins to weep.

Why does Jesus weep?

Just before raising Lazarus from the dead, tears spill from Jesus’s eyes. Why, when he alone knows the unprecedented joy that is about to ensue? Why, when he can probably see in his mind’s the incredible reunion mere moments away?

There is so much within this story: family, friendship, doubt, faith, death, life. And there’s so much within Jesus: sorrow, grief, wisdom, love, hope… fear? Perfect Love casts out fear… was Jesus perfecting his own love, and discovering the infinite possibilities within himself, in this moment?

Looking closely at this story, we see patterns of accusation and a world caught up in violence. Jesus’s disciples point out that, in going to Lazarus, Jesus would be returning to a place where people had tried to stone him. Mary and Martha’s loss of their brother is particularly devastating in a patriarchal culture where women without male relatives were physically and economically vulnerable. Jesus sees the patterns of humanity’s violence and its consequences distilled in this scene and compounded by personal grief.

So Jesus weeps in compassion, in the shared sorrow and love for his friend and the hole that his absence has left. And beneath that surface, he weeps for a world caught up in the pain and grief of violence and disease and death. His sadness echoes through the ages, goes to the heart of the broken world’s malady.

But there is also hope in his tears, hope and faith that there is a power stronger than death. In all of Mary and Martha’s pain, they still feel hope, believing that Jesus can still make things better. Perhaps their faith reinforces his just as his reinforces theirs. That’s what being human is all about.

What is the tomb that Jesus is calling you to emerge from? What binds you, and how can faith and love set you free?

For the 4th Sunday of Lent, Adam and Lindsey discuss the John 9:1-41. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” What a horrible question!

This is what the disciples – not the crowds or the Pharisees, but Jesus’s closest followers – ask. It is a victim-blaming mentality that sees misfortune and terrible circumstances as punishment for sin. It is cruel, and it perpetuates misery by hindering compassion and further marginalizing those most in need.

Jesus answers that neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that this man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. There may be a temptation to interpret this as God making a man blind in order to provide the occasion for a miracle so that Jesus can prove his power. But God doesn’t make people blind in order to show off!

Any time someone takes the opportunity to show love and compassion, God’s works are revealed. The new vision we all need is to see that God is Love, and that God empowers us to love one another beyond all the barriers we create to keep us apart.

Our worst blinders are blame, accusation, and resignation. Our worst blinders are those that keep us from reaching out to others because of fear or hate, or an understanding that “they” are not “us.”

Sometimes, our worldview can become so clouded with cynicism and enmity that it needs to be shut down completely. Sometimes we need a “road to Damascus” moment, when we have to be blinded by Light and Love in order to see.

For the 3rd Sunday of Lent, Lindsey and Adam do a dramatic reading of John 4:5 – 42. “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” What is this living water for which we all thirst?

A Samaritan woman goes to a well in the heat of the day. Jesus breaks all the rules of propriety to talk to her – a woman, a non-Jew, and an outcast. How do we know she’s an outcast? Anyone who goes for water alone, in the heat of the day, is avoiding, or being avoided, by her society? Why?

Well, Jesus reveals that this woman has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. In a patriarchal culture, where women had little power and depended on the care of their husbands, fathers, or brothers, this poor woman has become a pariah through no fault of her own. Men have left her – by death or divorce, we can’t know – and now she is ostracized.

How she must thirst for acceptance and love! How she must yearn for belonging!

The woman at the well is a scapegoat, a pariah against which her community measures their own worthiness. She is also a badass woman of scripture, and a messenger of love. Find out the rest of her story in this week’s Jesus Unmasked!

For the 1st Sunday of Lent, Lindsey and Adam read Matthew 4:1-11. “The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the son of God…’"

Stop right there!

What a sneaky, vicious little word, “If.”

The last thing Jesus hears before setting off into the desert is the proclamation that he is God’s Son, the Beloved, “with whom I am well pleased.” It is security in the knowledge that he is loved that gives Jesus the strength and stamina to spend 40 days and nights in the desert. Who is this “tempter” to sow seeds of doubt?

It looks like there are three temptations here, but there are really 4… or, only 1, depending on how you look at it. The first and perhaps only temptation is to give in to the word “If.” When we doubt the unconditional love of God, we forget who God is and who we are. God is Love. We are reflections, outpourings, of Love. Everything goes wrong when that truth slips from our grasp.

How does Jesus face up to the temptations that press on us daily? We are tempted to lose sight of the fact that we are unconditionally loved. Then we compete for resources that we perceive to be scarce, we try to show off our abilities, and we seek power – or even the means of attaining justice – over and against rather than with and for others.

Lindsey and Adam explore each of these temptations and also seek to understand why Jesus goes to be tempted in the first place. Maybe it is because life is a constant temptation to see ourselves narrowly and forget that we are all connected in Love. Maybe that temptation always surrounds us, and only when we face it head on, as Jesus did, can we recognize and overcome it.

Epiphany 7A: Transfiguration (Shiny Jesus Leads the Way)

The last Sunday of Epiphany is Transfiguration Sunday. Our eyes have adjusted to the light that guided shepherds and sages from afar to the amazing discovery of God born among us. Now they drink in the full brilliance of God’s manifestation in the illuminated Christ. Lindsey and Adam explore Matthew 17:1-9.

Jesus takes Peter and James up the mountain, where he is suddenly transfigured before their eyes, standing with Moses and Elijah and dazzling like the sun. Awed, Peter asks to build a dwelling place for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, but God interrupts him with a cloud of light and a booming voice. The words spoken at Jesus’s baptism are repeated: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” Him, not them. When the cloud recedes, Jesus is the last man standing; Moses and Elijah are gone.

Jesus stands with the law and the prophets that Moses and Elijah represent. But they are absorbed into Jesus, who fulfills rather than abolishes. The best of the law and the prophets, all that is good and true, shines in Jesus. What fades away is the human misunderstanding that has led to violence and the notion that God can only be on our side at the expense of others.

The stories of both Moses and Elijah show leaders who gradually grew in their relationship with God. Their understanding of divine liberation was mingled with their conviction that God destroys enemies; yet they both came to a revelation of God’s glory apart from violence. Adam and Lindsey briefly explore their stories.

Ultimately, the transfiguration is the story of the transformation of our understanding of God. And that story continues. Peter and James cannot fully grasp what has happened. Jesus warns them to speak to no one until “after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Maybe this is because a partial understanding of God can lead to self-righteousness and destruction.

To fully understand who God is and who we are meant to be, we must come down from the mountain and follow Jesus into the pain and tears of humanity. We can only dare to travel into the shadows of sin and suffering with the transfigured Christ, a glimpse of God’s light eclipsing all violence, as our guide. We will take that journey during the Lenten season, and emerge in the radiance of Love’s triumph over death.

Politics and religion are intimately intertwined. Politics is about humanity’s relationship with one another and with power, and the Christian faith is about God becoming human and subverting and reorienting our understanding of power.

Jesus goes to Galilee, the land of Gentiles or “others,” to subvert our understanding of “otherness.” This is fully within the Jewish tradition, in the blessing of Israel to be a blessing to the world.

Jesus goes to a land of “death and darkness…” and beckons us to follow Him! Christianity is not about avoiding death or hell, but about going there to bring hope and love.

Jesus calls fishermen – among the most marginalized and despised of people. Literally pushed off the land and forced to make a living on the sea, the “realm of chaos,” fishermen were not accustomed to being wanted… except for their labor. There’s an eagerness to follow Jesus because he sees their humanity. But there’s also a risk, because Rome was keeping track of their productivity, and would possibly punish them for leaving their posts. This is an example of nonviolent civil disobedience.

What do we make of the way the disciples leave their father, Zebedee, behind?

Jesus gives free universal healthcare!

In times of war, the poor and the sick are often neglected. War exacerbates health problems and erodes compassion. But Jesus puts the sick, the poor, the broken and the injured FIRST. Changing the world isn’t about marching out with a powerful army but meeting the powerless where they are and healing them.

We have to change our entire outlook on what saves us. This is what repentance is all about.

Change your mind about the fisherman. They are worthy and loved and called by Jesus.

Change your mind about who the “others” are. Love your neighbors and your enemies.

Change your mind about violence. The world will be saved through healing hands, not slashing swords.

Change your mind about who God is. God is not the one who demands sacrifice or death. God is Love.

Repentance doesn’t mean wallow in guilt. It doesn’t mean revel in self-righteousness.

Repentance means you are perfectly loved, just as your enemies are perfectly loved. When we see that Perfect Love loves us all perfectly, how does that reorient our lives?

Blaming God for our own violence and failings is as old as humanity. But how authentic is this? And so how helpful is this?

Suzanne Ross has dedicated her career to helping people understand that human violence is not divine. She runs The Raven Foundation, which is dedicated to helping people understand the root causes of our violence, shaming, and blaming. It is based in Mimetic Theory, which can help us understand things as basic as why our best friends can turn into our worst enemies.

In this episode Suzanne helps us understand how this theory holds true in history, our lives, and the Bible. Her presentations include: Defining Myth and Scripture, Mimetic Theory, Myth: Romulus and Remus, Scripture: Cain and Abel