Image credit: The Sacificial Lamb (detail), by Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
"Jesus as Scapegoat"
"Summary: Sunday, April 30-Friday, May 5, 2017"
Forgiveness demands three new simultaneous “seeings”: I must see God in the other; I must access God in myself; and I must see God in a new way that is larger than an “Enforcer.” (Sunday)
Jesus showed us how to hold the pain and let it transform us, rather than pass it on to the others around us. (Monday)
We are all tempted to project our problem on someone or something else rather than dealing with it in ourselves. (Tuesday)
An utterly new attitude (Spirit) has been released in history; it’s a spirit of love, compassion, and forgiveness. As Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” (Wednesday)
Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. (Thursday)
The cross moves us from the rather universal myth of redemptive violence to a new scenario of transformative suffering. (Friday)
"Practice: Standing at the Cross"
Picture yourself before the crucified Jesus; recognize that he became what you fear: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability, and failure. He became sin to free you from sin. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21.) He became what we do to one another in order to free us from the lie of punishing and scapegoating each other. He became the crucified so we would stop crucifying. He refused to transmit his pain onto others.
In your imagination, receive these words as Jesus’ invitation to you from the cross:
My beloved, I am your self. I am your beauty. I am your goodness, which you are destroying. I am what you do to what you should love. I am what you are afraid of: your deepest and best and most naked self—your soul. Your sin largely consists in what you do to harm goodness—your own and others’. You are afraid of the good; you are afraid of me. You kill what you should love; you hate what could transform you. I am Jesus crucified. I am yourself, and I am all of humanity.
And now respond to Jesus on the cross, hanging at the center of human history, turning history around:
Jesus, Crucified, you are my life and you are also my death. You are my beauty, you are my possibility, and you are my full self. You are everything I want, and you are everything I am afraid of. You are everything I desire, and you are everything I deny. You are my outrageously ignored and neglected soul.
Jesus, your love is what I most fear. I can’t let anybody love me for nothing. Intimacy with you or anyone terrifies me.
I am beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of what is happening everywhere, and I want it to stop today. I want to stop the violence toward myself, toward the world, toward you. I don’t need ever again to create any victim, even in my mind.
You alone, Jesus, refused to be crucifier, even at the cost of being crucified. You never asked for sympathy. You never played the victim or asked for vengeance. You breathed forgiveness.
We humans mistrust, murder, attack. Now I see that it is not you that humanity hates. We hate ourselves, but we mistakenly kill you. I must stop crucifying your blessed flesh on this earth and in my brothers and sisters.
Now I see that you live in me and I live in you. You are inviting me out of this endless cycle of illusion and violence. You are Jesus crucified. You are saving me. In your perfect love, you have chosen to enter into union with me, and I am slowly learning to trust that this could be true.
Gateway to Silence: Father, forgive them.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior,” Richard Rohr on Transformation, Collected Talks, Vol. 1, disc 1 (Franciscan Media: 1997).
For Further Study:
Richard Rohr, CONSPIRE 2016: Everything Belongs (CAC: 2016), MP4 video download
Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press: 2001)
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008)
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Richard Rohr's Meditation for Friday, 5 May 2017: "Cross as Agenda" Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Image credit: The Sacificial Lamb (detail), by Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
"Jesus as Scapegoat"
"Cross as Agenda"
Friday, May 5, 2017
In terms of healing and symbolism, everything hinges on the cross. The cross is about how to fight and not become a casualty yourself. The cross is about being the victory instead of just winning a victory. The cross is about refusing the simplistic win-lose scenario and holding out for a possible win-win scenario.
The cross clearly says that evil is to be opposed but we must first hold the tension, ambiguity, and pain of it. “Resist evil and overcome it with good,” as Paul says (Romans 12:21). The cross moves us from the rather universal myth of redemptive violence to a new scenario of transformative suffering.
On the cross of life, we accept our own complicity and cooperation with evil, instead of imagining ourselves on some pedestal of moral superiority. As Paul taught: “everyone has sinned” (Romans 5:12) and Jesus the Lamb of God had the humility to “become sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21) with us.
The mystery of the cross teaches us how to stand against hate without becoming hate, how to oppose evil without becoming evil ourselves. Can you feel yourself stretching in both directions—toward God’s goodness and also toward recognition of your own complicity in evil? If you look at yourself at that moment, you will feel crucified. You hang in between, without resolution, your very life a paradox, held in hope by God (see Romans 8:23-25).
The goal of God's work is always healing reconciliation, not retributive justice. And like Jesus, we must invest ourselves in this work of reconciliation that “the two might become one” (see Ephesians 2:13-18).
Human existence is neither perfectly consistent, nor is it total chaos, but it has a "cruciform" shape of cross purposes, always needing to be reconciled in us. To hold the contradictions with God, with Jesus, is to participate in the redemption of the world (Colossians 1:24). We all must forgive reality for being what it is. We can’t do this alone, but only by a deep identification with the Crucified One and with crucified humanity. Christ then "carries" us across!
The risen, victorious Jesus gives us a history and hopeful future that moves beyond predictable violence. He destroys death and sin not by canceling it out; but by making a trophy of it. Think about that for a long time until it cracks you open. And it will!
Gateway to Silence: Father, forgive them.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 203-205.
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Thursday, 4 May 2017: "Love, Not Atonement" Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Image credit: The Sacificial Lamb (detail), by Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
"Jesus as Scapegoat"
"Love, Not Atonement"
Thursday, May 4, 2017
All the great religions of the world talk a lot about death, so there must be an essential lesson to be learned here. But throughout much of religious history our emphasis has been on killing the wrong thing and avoiding the truth: it’s you who has to die, or rather, who you think you are—your false self. It's never someone else!
Historically we moved from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to various modes of seeming self-sacrifice, usually involving the body. For many religions, including immature Christianity, God was distant and scary, an angry deity who must be placated. God was not someone with whom you fell in love or with whom you could imagine sharing intimacy or tenderness.
The common Christian reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”—either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God the Father (proposed by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109). Theologians later developed a “substitutionary atonement theory”—the strange idea that before God could love us God needed and demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice to ''atone'' for our sin. As a result, our theology became more transactional than transformational.
Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) was not guided by the Temple language of debt, atonement, or blood sacrifice (understandably used in the New Testament written by observant Jews). He was instead inspired by the cosmic hymns in the first chapters of Colossians and Ephesians and the first chapter of John's Gospel. For Duns Scotus, the incarnation of God and the redemption of the world could never be a mere mop-up exercise in response to human sinfulness, but the proactive work of God from the very beginning. We were “chosen in Christ before the world was made” (Ephesians 1:4). Our sin could not possibly be the motive for the divine incarnation; rather, God’s motivation was infinite divine love and full self-revelation! For Duns Scotus, God never merely reacts, but always freely acts out of free and unmerited love.
Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. God’s abundance and compassion make any scarcity economy of merit or atonement unhelpful and unnecessary. Jesus undid “once and for all” (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:10) all notions of human and animal sacrifice and replaced them with his new infinite economy of grace. Jesus was meant to be a game changer for religion and the human psyche.
This grounds Christianity in love and freedom from the very beginning; it creates a very coherent and utterly attractive religion, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, healing, and universal “at-one-ment,” instead of mere sacrificial atonement. Nothing “changed” on Calvary but everything was revealed—an eternally outpouring love. Jesus switched the engines of history: instead of us needing to spill blood to get to God, we have God spilling blood to get to us!
Gateway to Silence: Father, forgive them
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi(Franciscan Media: 2014), 183-188;
“Dying: We Need It for Life,” Richard Rohr on Transformation, Collected Talks, Vol. 1, disc 4 (Franciscan Media: 1997); and
Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 202.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Thursday, 4 May 2017: "Love, Not Atonement" Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Image credit: The Sacificial Lamb (detail), by Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.
"Jesus as Scapegoat"
"Love, Not Atonement"
Thursday, May 4, 2017
All the great religions of the world talk a lot about death, so there must be an essential lesson to be learned here. But throughout much of religious history our emphasis has been on killing the wrong thing and avoiding the truth: it’s you who has to die, or rather, who you think you are—your false self. It's never someone else!
Historically we moved from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to various modes of seeming self-sacrifice, usually involving the body. For many religions, including immature Christianity, God was distant and scary, an angry deity who must be placated. God was not someone with whom you fell in love or with whom you could imagine sharing intimacy or tenderness.
The common Christian reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”—either to pay a debt to the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God the Father (proposed by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109). Theologians later developed a “substitutionary atonement theory”—the strange idea that before God could love us God needed and demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice to ''atone'' for our sin. As a result, our theology became more transactional than transformational.
Franciscan philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) was not guided by the Temple language of debt, atonement, or blood sacrifice (understandably used in the New Testament written by observant Jews). He was instead inspired by the cosmic hymns in the first chapters of Colossians and Ephesians and the first chapter of John's Gospel. For Duns Scotus, the incarnation of God and the redemption of the world could never be a mere mop-up exercise in response to human sinfulness, but the proactive work of God from the very beginning. We were “chosen in Christ before the world was made” (Ephesians 1:4). Our sin could not possibly be the motive for the divine incarnation; rather, God’s motivation was infinite divine love and full self-revelation! For Duns Scotus, God never merely reacts, but always freely acts out of free and unmerited love.
Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. God’s abundance and compassion make any scarcity economy of merit or atonement unhelpful and unnecessary. Jesus undid “once and for all” (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12; 10:10) all notions of human and animal sacrifice and replaced them with his new infinite economy of grace. Jesus was meant to be a game changer for religion and the human psyche.
This grounds Christianity in love and freedom from the very beginning; it creates a very coherent and utterly attractive religion, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, healing, and universal “at-one-ment,” instead of mere sacrificial atonement. Nothing “changed” on Calvary but everything was revealed—an eternally outpouring love. Jesus switched the engines of history: instead of us needing to spill blood to get to God, we have God spilling blood to get to us!
Gateway to Silence: Father, forgive them
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi(Franciscan Media: 2014), 183-188;
“Dying: We Need It for Life,” Richard Rohr on Transformation, Collected Talks, Vol. 1, disc 4 (Franciscan Media: 1997); and
Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media: 2008), 202.
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CONSPIRE 2017: Transformation
Friday, July 7—Sunday, July 9
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Richard Rohr is joined by three exceptional teachers:
angel Kyodo williams Sensei is a maverick leader in Transformative Social Change, bridging the worlds of personal transformation and justice.
Mirabai Starr's genius lies in her humble and authentic openness, baring her heart as a guide for others.
Ken Wilber (via video) is, in Father Richard's words, "the greatest modern philosopher of religion with a mind as broad as Thomas Aquinas."
We hope you will bring your own rich experience, wisdom, and presence to make CONSPIRE a vibrant gathering.
A webcast option, scholarships, and a student rate are available. Don't let distance or cost prevent you from joining us!
Learn more and register at cac.org.
Friday, July 7—Sunday, July 9
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Richard Rohr is joined by three exceptional teachers:
angel Kyodo williams Sensei is a maverick leader in Transformative Social Change, bridging the worlds of personal transformation and justice.
Mirabai Starr's genius lies in her humble and authentic openness, baring her heart as a guide for others.
Ken Wilber (via video) is, in Father Richard's words, "the greatest modern philosopher of religion with a mind as broad as Thomas Aquinas."
We hope you will bring your own rich experience, wisdom, and presence to make CONSPIRE a vibrant gathering.
A webcast option, scholarships, and a student rate are available. Don't let distance or cost prevent you from joining us!
Learn more and register at cac.org.
Copyright © 2017
Center for Action and Contemplation
Center for Action and Contemplation
Center for Action and Contemplation
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road, SouthWest (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States
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