Movement 134

How does this happen? A key to understanding
can be found in the works of Ren6
Girard, who points out that human beings are
born imitators (how else would we ever learn
how to live?). And we also tend to imitate when
it comes to wanting things we see
-
what other
people desire and desire it too (how else would
the advertising industry survive?). So far so
good: this is how we become good disciples, and
plug in to church communities. When we set out
to imitate someone we like and admire, however,
envy can set in very quickly we want the same
things they have got. This -
was precisely Jesus'
problem: 'it was out of envy that they delivered
him': even Pilate could see this
(Mt 27:18).
We miSS the
obvious: that o,J;:H iil?::"ri-in,?T:::
God is not tife- 3:#,';xl,T:Ti:::ff'"":il"1
destroying, but ffi*:::'j:il'J,*i'j**.i1,,*:
I ife-c reati ng. ilJ,?"' .ffi;|i:: ;:::.ff:I
the church today. 'I think,' said
an Anglican priest, 'for most church people Jesus
was the last sort of person they would want to
welcome in to the church'.
This would have been bad enough if Jesus
were just another prophet, but he also claimed
to be the Son of God, and this was really intolerable
for the powers that be. What they could not
see was that he was not just another religious
teacher in competition with the others: he was
beyond rivalry. He had no need to cling on to
power, or to rival or envy his disciples as they
began to take on board what he was telling them.
He could simply rejoice that as they grew, so did
the presence of God in the world. Being fully God
as well as fullyhuman he knew there was enough
to go around. For the authorities, however, Jesus
became a problem.
So they did what any of us do when our
understanding of the world is disturbed: we try
to restore order. We join in with those who have
apparently identified what 'the problem' is and
therefore know how to put things right -
and
there is hardly anything so bonding as a common
enemy. Caught up in communal condemnation
of almost anything we feel restored to ourselves,
and this is often what we do as church. We read
a'feel-good factor' into the Gospels: we are going
to be all right, and everyone else, the nuisance
people, will be cast out. A church that is for
everyone becomes 'my church'.
In the same way, if we are not careful, we get
drawn into the idea that the crucifixion itself was
a setting aright of this kind: God became angry,
Jesus endured the punishment for our sins, God
was appeased, and is on our side again so long
-
as we know what's what and behave ourselves.
So much Christian teaching is based on this
fundamental misunderstanding. We tend to
miss the obvious: that God is not life-destroying
but life-creating. God does not set out to make
life unpleasant for us: he sees that life is hard in
a fallen world, and enters into it, sharing all the
consequences. God did not want Jesus dead: he
wants all of us alive and since we are incapable
-
of overcoming death, the only way to achieve this
was to become one of us and to go through the
whole process not calling -
on angels or divine
power to wipe out the enemy, but going through
the middle of it.
St Bernard tells us that we need to learn to
love ourselves for God's sake. We need, then, to
move from a 'law court' model of atonement -
that we were so wicked someone had to die to
appease God -
to an understanding of at-onement.
God entered the created world, in history,
as an act of solidarity: to heal the division that
had opened up between himself and creation -
including us.
The implication for the church community,
then, is perhaps not to try to make everything
squeaky clean. It is perhaps to acknowledge that
the body is wounded and fragmented while still
remembering the core message of love. That way
we can maybe begin to ask ourselves what makes
us a church community, rather than just another
dysfunctional group of people.
Jessica Roce ls
author ofChurch
on Trial, now available
from Darton
Longman and Todd,
priced 814.95
Movement 17