THINGS WHICH ENDURE
James 3: 13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37
Renč Girard refers to it as “mimetic desire” and while few might
recognize the terminology, I think we all recognize the phenomenon.
Picture, if you will, a day care center, an early childhood Sunday
School room, a nursery. The first child has arrived, perhaps a
bit early. The care giver has the little one comfortably at play
with an assortment of toys at hand. In a normal childhood manner,
a toy is handled, played with, laid aside as interest changes to
another. With several available, the child is uninterested in
some of them. Another child arrives and settles into the play
area. She picks up one of the toys already discarded by the first
tot. Almost immediately he notices that she is playing with a toy
and, with equal immediacy, feels the urge to play with that same toy,
leading to... Well, there is just something about seeing what
another has that creates a desire for that very thing, even when there
was no prior interest.
That is what Girard refers to as mimetic desire. It is the
"original sin" and the root of jealousy and greed. It leads to
competition and a perception of scarcity even in the midst of
abundance. It ultimately leads to anger, manipulation, and
blame. Read "bitter envy and selfish ambition" to use the words
of James.
It goes well beyond a theory in sociology or human psychology, beyond
our method of relating to one another as individuals or groups.
It lies at the heart of our alienation from self, from family, from
community, and ultimately from God. The problem is told in the
ancient stories of Adam and Eve and comes to fruition in that of Cain
and Abel. It plays out over and over through history; the stream
of interpersonal enmity, jealousy, scapegoating, and shedding of
innocent blood flows through Calvary where Jesus, through his
resurrection, destroys forever the idea that scapegoating, sacrificing
the innocent, resolves any problem.
I find it hard to fault the disciples in today's Gospel lesson. I
know I don't like to hear threatening news, to be afraid for the
future. And that is exactly what they are hearing. It sure
sounds ominous to hear the Teacher talking about being betrayed and
killed — and then some craziness about being raised after three days?
Let's think about it. They have followed Jesus through the
countryside. At first, things seemed so promising. Crowds
gathered to hear the teacher, to receive his blessing. And
blessing he could give — like no other! Feeding crowds and
healing; not just healing but restoring sight to the blind, hearing to
the deaf, life to the dead! Sure he challenged the religious and
political leaders but he never threatened them. He could make
Torah dance in the mind as he told his parables — though they sometimes
seemed hard to grasp. But then, then he turned toward the big
city, Jerusalem, the holy mount. And suddenly the teaching got
really hard — what could he mean about suffering and taking up crosses
and laying down one's life?
Little wonder they could not quite make sense of it all but it sounded
so ominous, so frightening. And they were afraid to ask. We
must also notice that in the sequence of readings through the Gospel
according to St. Mark, we have leap-frogged over an important
event. Today's pericope picks up the journey to Jerusalem, to
Calvary, just after the Transfiguration. Think about the mixed
signals the disciples have received — from witnessing the revelation of
the transfigured Christ to talk of rejection, suffering, death, and
resurrection — all played out against their own expectations of a
political kingdom, a restored Davidic empire in Palestine.
Under those circumstances, it was surely easier to argue about
hierarchy in the new kingdom than deal with the fear and uncertainty of
something that was beyond understanding, beyond the imagination.
I think we all become fearful at some level when change is in the
works. We wonder where we will fit in. We seek stability — for thing that endure — and there are few.
With a stroke of poetic imagery and power packed words, Mark tells how
Jesus addresses the problem. I am awed by Jesus' method of
teaching — his power to convey a message with such economy of
words. I wonder why I even try. Then I remember that I do
it because I am called; I must and do it to my ability, not his.
I'm not so arrogant or ignorant so as to fail to recognize Jesus is the
master teacher, the Rabbi of the ages.
They come into Capernaum, a village that serves as the major center in
that time situated on the northern end of the Sea of Galilee.
Think Springfield; it is a resource center for folks from a hundred
miles or more around. They enter a house in Capernaum. The
house becomes the center of ministry; church is where Christ is, after
all. Then, by inference, the disciples and onlookers are gathered
in a circle around Jesus as he sits to teach. Taking a little
child into his arms; well, Robert Hammerton-Kelly says it well in his
book, The Gospel and the Sacred:
The poetics of place locate this act of inclusion
at the center of space — in the town, in the house, in the circle, in
the arms of Jesus. At the center … sits Jesus with a child in his
arms. The place at the center of the circle is the place of the victim
during a stoning. Jesus and the child take that place. The
gesture of taking the little one into his arms reverses the order of
the Sacred. It dramatizes the inclusiveness of the new community
by embracing rather than stoning or expelling the powerless one.
By means of this symbol and these poetics of space, the
Gospel tells us that the new community replaces the conspiracy of the
Sacred by neutralizing the power of envy. In the conspiracy of the
sacred mob, envy binds the members to one another in the scandalous
bonds of rivalry and desire. No one can be found caring for the
victim or siding with the weak, because that would be surrendering in
the battle for prestige. The Gospel declares that such defeat is
not loss but real preeminence in the order of the new community.
The pericope of the child at the center is the summary symbol of the
church as the nonsacrificial community.
It is mimetic desire which leads to envy and breaks down
community and lies at the heart of anger, hatred, and violence.
Jesus' teachings sound rather Zen-like as he calls us to account over
our self-interest and self-promotion:
Those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the
gospel, will save it…
Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.
Truly, these ARE hard teachings. But if you think Jesus is hard at times, listen again to his brother's words:
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do
they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at
war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you
commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so
you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because
you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask
wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
This is not intended to make us feel shame or inordinate
guilt. The good news outweighs the bad. Rather we are to recognize the source of our feelings of
anger, of envy, of judgment toward others, of rejecting or, perhaps
worse, not seeing. Our confession is not in vain when we are
willing, as James says, to:
Submit [ourselves] to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
In the verse just before that, one omitted by the RCL, James
quotes Proverbs 3:34 as he writes, "God opposes the proud, but gives
grace to the humble." It is exactly that image Jesus
preaches in the circle of his disciples in the house in the little town
of Capernaum as they turn toward Jerusalem and face the cross from the
dark side.
The message in the symbol of the child is that
preeminent dignity in the kingdom goes to the one who is “last of all
and the servant of all” (9:35). Jesus' dramatic gesture of taking a
child into his arms says that the greatest in the kingdom is the one
who can receive those who have no power or prestige as if they were
Jesus himself (9:37). This humility is clearly an antidote to the
mimetic rivalry present in the disciples’ argument about who among them
is the greatest. - Robert Hammerton-Kelly, The Gospel and the Sacred
What will endure? The love of Christ Jesus.
It brings peace and comfort in place of our fear, strength in place of our
weakness, hope for our despair, life in our
death.
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to
love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things
that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.
Amen.
John Dryden Burton
September 20, 2009
St. James'
Springfield, Missouri