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    • #1896
      Forgiving Victim
      Participant

      1.5 Dead man talking

      As we conclude our look at the Emmaus story and complete Part 1,  please share your reflections on the unexpected reversal that happens over a meal near the end of the Emmaus account and what this reveals to you.

      Receiving a new story

      Share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.

      Guess who’s coming to dinner?

      To begin to get inside the disciples’ experience of that reversal, think about the difference between being a dinner party host, and being a guest.

      Answer the following questions: When you are the host, what gift or experience do you hope to give to your guests? What is the experience of being a guest like? How is it different from that of a host?

      Food for thought

      • Do you wish that Luke had included everything that Jesus told the disciples on the Emmaus road? What stories from the Old Testament would you like Jesus to explain?
      • As the disciples heard Jesus interpret all the Scriptures, they knew they were hearing the truth about themselves and their history. James says they were being “re-narrated into being”.
        • What might it mean to discover that perhaps our stories about ourselves are not completely truthful!
        • The disciples seemed to react positively – do you think that would be your reaction to being “re-narrated into being”?
      • James says that the structure of Eucharist is the memory of a third person, out there, coming in to disturb you. How might understanding Eucharist/Communion this way change our experience and practice of it?

      Wrap-up question

      We typically star in our own life narratives. Conclude Part 1 of Jesus the Forgiving Victim by imagining yourself as a bit player inside someone else’s story. In this story, the protagonist is the presence of the risen and Forgiving Victim.

      What might your part in the story be?

       

    • #5206
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      A host tries to give the gift of being welcomed and valued to the guest.

    • #5210
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      A host wants their guests to feel at home, at ease and to enjoy the food or refreshments offered and in my mind to enter into a deeper friendship also through the conversation. A host normally does some preparatory work to make this possible and they don’t necessarily want the guest to know that they worked hard to make things relaxed and enjoyable. The guest has only to accept the offer of hospitality and follow the lead? of the host – well, I am groping because these are broad categories and guests can feel very comfortable or uncomfortable.

    • #5248
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I certainly recognize that my story about myself is not altogether true – how can it be when I only see a tiny part of the whole? It seems to me quite wonderful to be re-narrated into being by the One who is Love and who created us and all that is only for love. What is there to fear in being re-narrated into being by God who alone is not in rivalry with anything that is!!! This is freedom and life.

    • #5261
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I don’t know what my role might be but I will continue to ponder this question because I have had some significant experiences of being in a victim role and I do think that Alison’s reflection opens up a different way of seeing this and standing in it with Jesus who only becomes a victim in order to unmask our games and free us to live without rivalry, desire for vengeance. I would like not to be the protagonist but it is a slow process to see differently.

    • #5269
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Maginel, James demonstrates so well in the course how the the scapegoating, or victimisation of another comes about. And yes, as you so rightly point out, for someone who has experienced this personally, it is a slow process to see or experience differently the sense of victimhood. In the example of the boy who is bullied, James points out that the victim overcomes this without resentment or desire for revenge. I think that what he is teaching us here, is how fundamental is the recognition of the other, including the perpetrators of scapegoating, as they too are victims. It is difficult for us to realise that God also loves these victims. In his recent book “On Heaven and Earth”, Pope Francis tell us that…”it is not (enough) to know God only by hearing. The Living God is He that you may see with your eyes within your heart”.

    • #5924
      Tony Z
      Participant

      “Do you wish that Luke had included everything that Jesus told the disciples on the Emmaus road? What stories from the Old Testament would you like Jesus to explain?” I’m not sure I wish Luke would have included everything — on the one hand, it feels like it would fill in a gap in the story, but on the other hand, it would compromise the dramatic precision of the story Luke is telling. But if I had to choose, I’d like to hear about the story of Abraham and Isaac…

      This idea of being re-narrated into being does seem to me to resonate with the theme/themes in the story of the reversal of the position of outsider/insider, guest/host, argument/agreement. What’s resonating especially is the idea of the outsider being in the world, but not of it, and the insiders (Cleopas/N) discovering themselves in agreement, mediated by the outsider. The point of the story, or part of the point, seems to be trying to reveal to the reader that she/he is also in the world but not of it.

      I think it is interesting and important that James brings in the idea of the foreigner here. And there’s some tension for me: as a white, American male, where I live, I’m very much privileged, and not an outsider, or foreigner, at least in those respects. I’m thinking though, that the outsider status James is trying to bring out here is not at the level of the “social other”, which would include race, nationality, and gender, but the Other of that other, so to speak.

      And finally, about the theme of resurrection…to be honest, it’s difficult if not impossible for me to take the idea of resurrection literally, but I think I can relate to the meaning in the story I think James is trying to explain. It’s especially enlightening to hear him discuss how ghosts in stories are vengeful, contrasted with the lack of vengeance in the appearance of Jesus to Cleopas/N. That makes a lot of sense in the context of Girard’s account of rivalry in mimetic theory.

      Thanks for replying to previous posts, by the way 🙂

      • #5942
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Indeed Tony, the version given to us by Luke has a wonderful tension. It seem to be perfectly done. The disciples being re-narrated into being as they heard Jesus interpret the scriptures mede them realise that they were hearing the truth about themselves and their history, and yes, as you say, they knew that they were in the world but not of it. They had become part of the invitation to a better world, a new creation.

        I totally agree that when referring to the foreigner, the outsider, James in not referring to the ‘social other’, but to the essential recognition of the other as other. My neighbour is all mankind.

    • #6089
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      Share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous module showing up in your lives.

      When I post a personal narrative here in the Discussion Forum, sometimes it feels too true; and then I’m tempted to revise the post. I’m tempted to interpret my thoughts or actions in a not quite so unvarnished manner.

      And yet, the unvarnished data bring awareness of tough questions and woundedness that I probably was trying to pass-by, like the priest and the levite passing-by the wounded victim in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In spite of thinking I should respond to woundedness as the Good Samaritan responded, I so often pass it by. This rankles at the time, and continues to chafe underneath whatever front I project imagining I can dress-up my public persona.

      The meaning and context of posting personal narrative here deepened for me when I read the Forgiving Victim quote in the next paragraph. In that quote James describes how Jesus inducted two B-Team disciples, who were walking on the post-resurrection road to “Emmaus,” into a new interpretation of events surrounding the lynching, which we now call Holy Week —

      “… what seems important here is our third party’s [Jesus’s] awareness that these guys are never going to understand what was going on except through the act of themselves trying to tell the story [of Holy Week]. If they just shut him [Jesus] off and say “You wouldn’t get it, so we won’t bother even to try to explain it to you,” they’ll never start learning to piece the story together and become vulnerable to the holes in their own version. So the definitive interpreter with the voice from somewhere else has first to induct the “insiders into stopping squabbling with each other and instead beginning to try and tell their story. It is through the failed telling that they are going to be given the possibility of an interpretation that actually makes sense.” (Pg. 61, my underlining)

      Just as the Emmaus disciples stopped their “squabbling” and instead began trying and to tell their story of the man Jesus, I too can acknowledge inner conflict through retelling personal narrative. Retelling personal narrative, in this forum and elsewhere, is a way to resolve the fruitless squabble between interior thought and exterior action.

      Even though, or maybe because I will fail to get right the real meaning of personal narrative, retelling my stories within the context of my limited understanding provides Jesus-the-interpretive-principle the possibility of actually making sense of the narratives of my life. And then Jesus continues the healing process by inducting me into his risen life of integrated faith and practice.

      I’ve read and revised what I’ve written above. It’s as clear as I can get it. Now I think: ‘Do I really believe this?!’ Honestly, what I’ve written here is pretty abstract and mentalist, which I guess is how I believe it now! The real Good News comes time-laden and gradually. And, apparently for me the beginning has arrived through a sharpened focus on the meaning and practice of personal narrative in writing.

      • #6091
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Well Rich, I think you have given us here a good example of how we take in James’ teaching by osmosis. Or how we begin to see through ‘Easter eyes’. I think this chapter is pivotal to the whole of the course in that it asks us ‘through whose eyes do we read the Scriptures’. Jesus-the-interpretative-principle leads us to interpret our own narratives in such a way as to bring about healing.

    • #6090
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      I don’t know how the post above turned red and all in italics! I used a couple of the formatting tools. Apparently I’ve got a lot to learn!

    • #6093
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      When you are the host, what gift or experience do you hope to give to your guests?
      What is the experience of being a guest like?
      How is it different from that of a host?

      Hosting and ‘guesting’ go together like partners in a dance. Just as the lead switches, intentionally or not, between dance partners, so too at social events hosts and guests may deliberately or not exchange roles. Social occasion form and content varies widely. A tightly scripted event is like a line-dance where each dancer takes a particular place, but then moves in steps synchronized with those of the other dancers. Informal occurrences, on the other hand, encourage spontaneity not conformity. Unlike their formal cousins, informal circumstances blur the lines separating host and guest allowing togetherness to improvise and mature. I think of the Road to Emmaus narrative as an informal happening where the roles of host and guest merged into a fellowship of caring, one for the other.

      • #6094
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        I think that this is certainly true Rich, but perhaps we should also consider the subtlety of Luke’s writing, where he initially portrays Jesus as an ‘outsider’who gradually changes the roles to become the host and to offer them a new story. Luke writes of Jesus appearance as a ‘Yahwistic theophany’. The disciples come to realise that they are not talking to a man they met on the road, but to “I AM”, who is the fulfilment of their own Scriptures, and, the key to interpreting them.

    • #6096
      Rich Paxson
      Participant

      James says that the structure of Eucharist is the memory of a third person, out there, coming in to disturb you. How might understanding Eucharist/Communion this way change our experience and practice of it?

      Once in a Bible study at church I shared how I thought that much of Christianity today makes Jesus into an idol by conflating Jesus’s human existence with a pre-existing, divine nature that seemingly gives Jesus the man the power to ‘save us from our sins.’ Wendy our rector, who was leading the Bible study, politely listened to my thoughts about Jesus as a kind of modern day idol.

      And now comes James using a specifically anthropological lens, seeing Jesus the man living a fully human life that ended when he was thirty-three. James characterizes Jesus appearance on the Road to Emmaus, which was after his death, as a “Dead Man Talking.” Cleopas and ‘N’ encountered Jesus the Dead Man Talking there on the road to Emmaus, and their hearts burned within them.

      Jesus the Dead Man Talking had the form of a man, but was in no way limited by human being. Rather James explains how Jesus the Dead Man Talking was and is God’s own self in the form and narrative of Jesus the man. Through the form and narrative of Jesus, God desires to become interpretive principle, hermeneutic informing our very human lives.

      Chris Hedges, on page 41 in his book ‘Losing Moses on the Freeway,’ wrote:

      “God cannot be summed up in a name. God cannot be described. Only idols provide this certitude. But watch, God seems to say, you will know me when you encounter me. You will see who I am in the profound flashes of self-knowledge that cut through darkness, in the hope that rises out of despair and suffering, in the loving touch of another, in the moral life where we resist the worship of ourselves so others can prosper.”

      James writes that Eucharist is structured through the memory that the risen Christ is our interpretive hermeneutic, theophany of Yahweh, cloaked by the life of the man Jesus and its narrative, which is how the underlying theophany becomes discernible. Truly encountering Jesus the Dead Man Talking brings about an upwelling of the Spirit, which is felt as hearts burning in recognition and joy. Seventeenth century Quaker George Fox in his autobiography put it like this:

      “When all my hopes in [the priests] and all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition”: and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy!”

      • #6097
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        Very well put Rich.

    • #46784
      Michael R. Bartley
      Participant

      I have spent most of today thinking about time and how my life is narrated via time and via timeliness. As a clergy person and University professor meetings, schedules etc.. . . make the essential essence of my life. I am time bound and time laden. As a time bound and time laden creature I begin to exist within the relational categories that also are submitted to my timing.

      For example, students, colleagues, laity etc. who see themselves within my timeliness.

      • #46817
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        In what way do you see this impacting upon your life Michael?

    • #46785
      Michael R. Bartley
      Participant

      When you are the host, what gift or experience do you hope to give to your guests?

      The host is concerned with order, time, preparation, taste, quality and comfort. The gift that the host brings is one of ease of association. While the host may be hurried, it is the host requirement that the guest feel a sense of flow and ease.

      What is the experience of being a guest like?

      For guest the question is about accepting the condition of being guest. It is the guest condition to be comforted. To be fed without plan etc….

      How is it different from that of a host?

      Work

    • #46786
      Michael R. Bartley
      Participant

      Do you wish that Luke had included everything that Jesus told the disciples on the Emmaus road?

      Wishing on something that is not seems to me to be a futile question. I am not sure it matters what I wish in light of what is and is not.

      What stories from the Old Testament would you like Jesus to explain?

      I honestly have never thought about wanting Jesus to explain stories. I suspect it is because I see his life as an unfolding of those stories.

      As the disciples heard Jesus interpret all the Scriptures, they knew they were hearing the truth about themselves and their history. James says they were being “re-narrated into being”.
      What might it means to discover that perhaps our stories about ourselves are not completely truthful!
      The disciples seemed to react positively – do you think that would be your reaction to being “re-narrated into being”?

      Again, I have never believe that all the stories I understand or believe about myself are anything more than interpretations. I am not sure I am getting this line of questioning.

      James says that the structure of Eucharist is the memory of a third person, out there, coming in to disturb you. How might understanding Eucharist/Communion this way change our experience and practice of it?

      This section on the Eucharist is very powerful. How the Eucharist comes into the presence reality is essential for the church today.

      • #46818
        Sheelah
        Moderator

        The ‘Jesus the Forgiving Victim’ course is frequently best adapted to our own personal needs and also to the state of our knowledge, Michael. As you obviously have a great deal of familiarity with the work of Girard, Williams and Alison and are yourself an experienced teacher you will appreciate how James’s fresh approach and knowledge of scripture is life changing. Other aspects of the course are very elastic and can be helpful or not. Each group adapts the course to its own needs. As you say, this section on the Eucharist is indeed very powerful.

    • #47138
      andrew
      Member

      I had a peculiar occasion a while back in which I was left wondering if I hadn’t got a glimpse of a fleeting deity, in the way that is similar to what James says is characteristic of the depictions of YHWH in the Bible generally … in a similar way to how James says Luke framed the resurrection appearance of Christ in its concluding chapter. I suppose mystical encounters are, by definition, impossible to put into words. So if this occasion were to have actually been what I’ll suggest it was, then there is good reason not to try and write it down. So, what follows may come out lame for at least a couple different reasons, but I’m merely following the prompt to “share ways in which you have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your lives.

      I was watching a network news story on the Parkland shooting when they showed a clip of the shooter’s arraignment which had happened earlier that day. The narrator of the reportage explained that he spoke no words in court, other than a “Yes ma’am” to the judge when she asked him if he was Nikolas Cruz. The television screen showed a figure with slumped shoulders surrounded by uniformed officers and a well dressed lawyer. His seemingly meek demeanor was probably accentuated by a camera angle that looked down on him from the ceiling or some balcony. The text of the news report had prepared me to see a monstrous villain; what I saw in the brief shot of an orange-suited prisoner was far more startling.

      Please know that, in that peculiar moment, I was NOT moved to give ear to any excuse for the life taking violence perpetrated by the young gunman. I was NOT at all moved to pity a tortured soul who lamentably chose a horrendous means by which to vent his anguish. Rather, I was moved by the grand show the crowd (officials, camera crews, and television audiences) was making out of one solitary soul.

      For a moment, I couldn’t see a court hearing. I couldn’t see any investigation in to what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School; it was like everyone already knows what happened. I saw a courtroom that was concerned only with formal procedure and the reiteration of validation already agreed upon.

      I didn’t see a monster. I didn’t see a gunman. I didn’t see a poor lost bullied soul (i.e. victim-turned-victimizer). I don’t even think it was Nikolas Cruz I saw. The one I saw was one who, though technically living, was only still breathing so that those around him could move to execute him. Then, in a flash, he was gone. You know how video montages with newscaster voice overs don’t stay on the same picture for very long.

    • #47139
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      There is absolutely nothing lame at all about your reaction to watching a network news story on the Parkland shooting, Andrew. To the contrary, I found it most insightful and moving. And, if this is the way you “have noticed the content, questions or insights from the previous Module showing up in your life”, you have had a profoundly Christian response to those events in exactly the way that James is teaching us to respond to Jesus’ message.
      You finished with “I didn’t see a monster. I didn’t see a gunman……(he) was only still breathing so that those around him could move to execute him.”
      Quite recently I watched a remarkable French TV series entitled “Un village français” in which the settling of accounts which occurred at the end of the war against those considered to have collaborated with the Nazi, was frequently carried out by many who were far from innocent themselves. This was not justice, it was revenge. We are actually watching this beginning to unfold in the US at the moment, with this deeply disturbed being who is not fit to hold the highest office in the land.

    • #47141
      andrew
      Member

      To begin to get inside the disciples’ experience of that reversal, think about the difference between being a dinner party host, and being a guest. When you are the host, what gift or experience do you hope to give to your guests?
      Thinking metaphorically, I might describe a host as someone who, first, sets the stage for an improve show and, then, does her level best to get audience members to muster up the confidence to start acting out scenes with her on her stage.

      What is the experience of being a guest like?
      Continuing with my analogy, I think the guest is someone who feels the pressure of having been invited to perform a scene. The guest must act or the show will flop, and yet the guest must also be mindful not to act inappropriately, e.g. wandering backstage, mistreating props.

      How is it different from that of a host?
      The best host allows her guests to play important roles. The worst hosts insist that their guests just “watch” and “be awed.”

      The best guests are the ones who are responsive to their host’s cues. The worst guests are those who just start up a rote performance of some scene they have played elsewhere—without so much as batting an eye at who and what the host has placed around them.

    • #47142
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      At table, when Jesus blessed and broke the bread and gave it to them, suddenly he is the host and they are the guests. Luke portrays this appearance of Jesus as a Yahwistic theophany, an appearance of YHWH. The disciples come to realize that it hadn’t been a “he” who was talking to them, but “I AM”, the driving force all that had happened, as well as the source of who they are and what they are becoming.

      As a host, Jesus is authoritative, but gentle, not at all aggressive or domineering. I like your theatrical analogy, Andrew, and the reference to how a good host allows his guests to play a part. And yes, you have giving a very good example of how a good host would react and how a good guest “would respond to the host’s cues.”

    • #47143
      andrew
      Member

      Do you wish that Luke had included everything that Jesus told the disciples on the Emmaus road?
      Honestly, I am (as much any as any of those preachers James says totally miss the point) tempted to wonder how an outright word-for-word dictation of Jesus interpreting excerpts from Hebrew scriptures would read. However, James’ point is well taken; Luke did something far greater when he “gave us the structure of a living interpretive presence.”

      In Module 1.3, I mentioned how I would be an utter failure at leading a group Bible study if I were “to dominate the role of interpreter and force-feed my position to listeners” whose job would then merely consist of either listening approvingly or acquiescing to my position. It is easy enough for me to say such a thing about myself, because it comes across as modesty. However, it is a bit more unnerving to say the same about St. Luke. Wouldn’t we want an interpreter to dominate us and force-feed us positions, if we were fully convinced that he was reliably conveying the character of the Son of God? Wouldn’t readers of the Gospel do best to acquiesce, if they can’t yet listen approvingly?

      I suppose the answer is “no” and “no.” No, the true Son of God doesn’t dominate or force-feed positions, and any reliable conveyor of his character wouldn’t do so in his name. And, no, readers of the Gospels can’t complete their reading by merely acquiescing. Nor can we know the truth by passively approving of something we hear. We know the truth when we are enlivened.

    • #47144
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Yes exactly, Andrew, “Luke gave us the structure of a living interpretive presence.” I think what James is telling us is that, Luke portrays Jesus, the definitive interpreter, as an outsider who must first induce the “insiders” to stop squabbling with each other and instead to begin to try and tell their story. It is through their failed telling that they are going to be given the possibility of a new story.
      The interpretation offered to the disciples allows them to see how what was really going on had to be that way and makes perfect sense as part of a deliberate project or trajectory.
      What Luke wants to show us is the shape and incidence among us of the living interpretative presence in the light of which all texts become secondary.
      As the disciples heard Jesus interpret all the scriptures, they knew they were hearing the truth about themselves and their history. They were being re?narrated into being.
      Luke portrays this appearance of Jesus as a Yahwistic theophany, an appearance of YHWH. The disciples come to realize that it hadn’t been a “he” who was talking to them, but “I AM”, the driving force all that had happened, as well as the source of who they are and what they are becoming. He also gives a liturgical answer to the question: through whose eyes do we read scripture? We read eucharistically, through the eyes of one who is present among us and who causes us to undergo a complete change of belonging to our world, including us in a story which is his story, one where he is the protagonist.

      And no, as you say, the Son of God does not dominate or force-feed a position.

    • #47145
      andrew
      Member

      We typically star in our own life narratives. Conclude Part 1 of Jesus the Forgiving Victim by imagining yourself as a bit player inside someone else’s story. In this story, the protagonist is the presence of the risen and Forgiving Victim. What might your part in the story be?
      If the protagonist is a victim who forgives, then it would appear that that makes me a victimizer who is being forgiven. That is not an easy part to play.

      I think there is kind of martyrdom saga that is used as mortar to repair cracks of what passes as theology in my churchy circles. The saga goes like this: Following Christ ain’t easy. It means suffering, and no one will recognize the profundity of your suffering except for Christ—for he knows it all too well, better than anyone.

      Like any truly disastrous telling of the truth, this saga doesn’t leave the truth out altogether—it just gives a piece of it. Christ does indeed know suffering; and, certainly, as we follow Christ, we too shall know more about suffering. However, whoever said that Christ only introduces us to sufferings we must endure? Might he also introduce us to the suffering we’ve inflicted? This latter knowledge is one which, in some respects, is even more difficult to learn.

      It gets more difficult yet. We can’t know ourselves as mere victimizers and know ourselves through the eyes of the Forgiving Victim. We must know ourselves as forgiven, too. Do you suppose there is a sequence to these two aspect of our character in relation to our protagonist? Is it a knowledge of our victimizing that clears the way to a knowledge of forgiveness? Or does the knowledge of our forgiveness open our eyes to our victim-making past?

      As a matter of personal experience, I say its the latter. I think I’m someone who is being forgiven by members of his church. I like to set myself over and against fellow church-goers in various ways. One way is by making snide quips about their theology [see how I started this post]. Nevertheless, they wait patiently through all my condescension and behold me as one of their own. I’ve never ever doubted that I belong in their number, and that is because of how they persistently regard me so affectionately. I didn’t have to know how jerky I can be to know how much they love me; I’m learning how much they love me and it results in revealing (among other things) some of my jerkiness.

    • #47146
      Sheelah
      Moderator

      Andrew, you say “I think there is kind of martyrdom saga that is used as mortar to repair cracks of what passes as theology in my churchy circles” Yes, I think that this also tends to encourage an attitude where we go looking for suffering, when in effect Jesus tells us that “I have come that you will have life in all its fullness”. We should not go looking for suffering, we’ll experience it anyway, but this attitude stimulates, as you say, a martyrdom attitude.

      And how right you are about our sufferings frequently being self inflicted. My personal experience of this always makes me realise that there is something that I have to learn, or an attitude or belief that I have to change.

      Your last paragraph is wonderful Andrew!
      .

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