Sparkford, West Camel, Second Sunday before Advent, 15/11/2015
The new James Bond film is out now. If you’ve not yet seen it, Spectre, starring Daniel Craig, is still showing at Cineworld, Yeovil. Now, whether you’ve seen it or not I imagine that you know what you're going to get in a James Bond film. And sure enough, the plot of Spectre is the familiar mix of attack and counter-attack, intrigue, spectacular shoot-outs and death-defying stunts, flirtatious dalliances and dangerous alliances. As in every Bond movie, Bond’s nemesis traps and tries to kill him, Bond escapes, and thwarts the evil plot by killing his opponent. The key to every James Bond film is this: Bond saves the world from apocalyptic madmen - and he always does it by using violence. [2]
The idea that we can be saved by a hero who overcomes evil by force; the idea that we can be redeemed by an act of violence - this is the plot of virtually every thriller you can think of. Hollywood loves this plot. It uses it all the time: whether Superman, or Tom and Jerry, there’s a good guy with whom we identify, and a bad guy who represents all that is wrong with us. In the story the bad guy gets the upper hand - it looks like the dark side is going to win. But always, by acts of force and aggression, the good guy overcomes, and the world is safe again.
The writer Walter Wink calls this storyline the myth of redemptive violence [3]. The idea that a final violent act can save the world for us. And this is not just a Hollywood thing. He says that our modern world believes this myth more than any other. He says that "Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world." And though its devotees are not aware of it, violence is a religion to them.
The leaders of nations believe it. Hence the violence reigned on Iraq after 9/11 in the faith that this would redeem the West; the pursuit to the death of Osama bin Laden, in the belief that his death would atone for the deaths in the United States and put things right again. The violence of ISIS today is rooted in the very same sort of beliefs as this. [4]
This myth of redemptive violence is in fact the oldest story of all. Way before Christianity, way before Babylon, the very first people believed in a story of a god who by brutally killing his mother brings about creation. Evil came first but - by violence - good overcame it, and the world was born. In every culture, every religion, ever since, this myth has provided stories of creation, and also stories of the end times, sometimes called apocalyptic or millenarianism, the belief that the current society and its rulers are corrupt, unjust, or otherwise wrong, and so they will soon be destroyed by a powerful force. In this popular storyline, a disaster or battle to come will be followed by a new, purified world in which the true believers will be rewarded. Society will be transformed; after this change all things will be better than they are now.
Apocalypticism has infected our religious communities. It is popular in some Christian circles to believe that we are living in a time when prophecies of a final divine judgment are coming to pass. And in the best-selling Christian novel by Frank Peretti, called This Present Darkness [5], the people of a small town fight a New Age plot to subjugate them by using the power of prayer to conjure up an avenging angel who - by acts of violence - saves them. The statement which ISIS made yesterday in support of the actions of their suicide bombers in Paris was heavy with apocalyptic certainty: ‘Allah conquered through their hands and cast in the hearts of the Crusaders horror in the middle of their land,’ the statement read. [6]
The myth of redemptive violence affects us all. But many are uncomfortable with it, many question it. Think of those ex-servicemen deeply troubled by their memories of killing another human being. Picture, at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, the ex-serviceman standing there out of duty and respect but feeling deeply torn inside, burdened with unresolved guilt, recalling the consequences of his actions, whose tears during the two minutes’ silence may not be just for those whose names are etched on the memorial, but also for those whose names he never knew. [7]
People like these servicemen are often told that the sacrifices they made in war were for the good of all, but their hearts cry for a different sort of atonement altogether. [8]
In Jesus' time people were as concerned as we are to find a hero who would overcome evil and transform the world. And they were as liable as we are to look for that hero in the wrong place, to search for a hero who would redeem the world by aggressively erasing all the evil people from it.
Jesus challenged his followers to be very, very careful that they didn't get caught in that trap. He told those closest to him not to be led astray by people who come as Messiah, or some sort of saviour, saying ‘I am the one!’. Jesus wants his followers to understand that his own coming will not be like this at all. There will be no doubt about his coming, but he won't be coming like an air chief marshal, like an avenging angel, like a suicide martyr, like a 007.
Now, when things are in crisis, when the signs of the times we see alarm us, we long for a hero of this sort to come and dramatically save us. But Jesus urges us to step back from this state of anxiety. He says,
‘When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed;
this must take place, but the end is still to come...’
Jesus says, don’t let these wars, battles and portents alarm you. These violent events will not redeem the world. They are in no way acts of God. And this speaks directly to the questions of our day.
The attacks on the World Trade Center - were they God's judgment on a greedy rich nation? Jesus says, don't be tempted to think in that way. The execution of Saddam Hussein - was that God's way of bringing about justice and peace for the people of Iraq? Jesus says, such thoughts are not God's thoughts.
Of course, such things are going to happen, and Jesus knows very well that there will be wars, and nation will rise up against nation: he predicts the coming violence in his part of the world that will result in the destruction of the Temple in the year 70AD.
But through all of this Jesus wants his disciples to tread carefully, and to dissociate ourselves from the myth of redemptive violence. For his kingdom is distinct from the kingdoms which are founded on such violence. His story denies the myth which underlies the James Bond stories. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, Jesus is not asking us to make 'sacrifices that can never take away sins'. For, 'Christ has offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins'. [9]
The great questions of our day are easily answered by people championing merciless aggression. What do we do about youth disorder? Lock them up; Terrorism? Bomb their countries; Asylum-seekers? Travellers? Move them on, send them away. But Jesus warns us, ‘beware that no one leads you astray’. He offers a different kind of moral leadership altogether.
Jesus urges us to disbelieve all rapid and dramatic solutions to the problems of the world. He urges us to embrace the good news that the kingdom of God is here - but will emerge slowly and almost unnoticed. And he invites us to contribute to its coming, for the kingdom of God will emerge through tiny acts of grace and love, through modest lives lived faithfully; it will develop by means of a community of faith whose members encourage and provoke each other to love and good deeds, it will grow each time we do something which demonstrates our love for enemies, each time we offer prayers for those who persecute. Through the gentle witness of Jesus’ followers the new kingdom will come, slowly and almost silently, to all nations. [10]
The Christian watches for signs of God's kingdom emerging as we try to engage graciously with the hard questions of our time. Today - Prison Sunday - marks the beginning of Prisons Week in the UK [11], where the church people working with prisoners ask us to consider carefully current issues around crime and punishment, and respond to them with nuance. It is a difficult task, working out what salvation might mean for the prisoner, the victim of that prisoner’s crime and the society which deals with each of them, and we are asked to pray about these things this week.
The myth of redemptive violence tells us that salvation comes to the victim of crime when they eliminate the perpetrator; but Government research shows that when victims choose to participate in restorative justice programmes - to meet face-to-face with those who committed the crime against them - a vast majority of victims find satisfaction there; and the frequency of re-offending drops by 14% [12].
Ray and Vi Donovan’s son Christopher was killed by a gang on a night out in 2001. Three of the fourteen gang members who had attacked Christopher were arrested. A year later these young men - aged 15, 16 and 19 - were given life sentences.
In 2003, Ray and Vi were contacted by one of the offenders who said that he wanted to meet them and say sorry. The meeting never took place, but it prompted the Donovans to write to all three young men offering their forgiveness, and suggesting that one day they might meet.
Nine years after Christopher’s murder, the Donovans were put in touch with a restorative justice group, who were able to facilitate a meeting with one of the boys who had murdered their son. Ray and Vi were finally able to sit down with one of the people who had caused them so much pain.
Ray said: “When he walked into the room, I put my arms around him – he wouldn’t let go of me. He kept whispering ‘Sorry’ and ‘Thank you’. He said: ‘I was a fifteen year old coward. I left your son on the road, and for that, I’m sorry.’ And that meant the world to us. We got answers to our questions.”
For Vi, the encounter was equally moving: “I surprised myself, and I hugged him. Because I heard the word ‘sorry’, I heard the word I wanted to hear all those years ago in the court. He admitted what he’d done to us, and that was fantastic, to hear the truth. He released me. And I released him because I told him that I want him to forgive himself, and I forgive him.”
Eventually Ray and Vi got to meet all three of the young men convicted of killing their son. Ray said: “When we met all three offenders and told them what it was like for us, and the things we went through and are still going through, and told them about the ripple effect and how it affected everyone from our family to the community, it made them realise the amount of people that were affected by their actions.
“Then to hear them say sorry made us both feel like a ton of coal was taken off our back. We felt free for the first time because we got all we ever wanted. We got answers to our questions and the truth. Now we hope we can leave those questions in the past and move on into the future.” [13]
This brings us a long, long way from Spectre - and Iraq, and ISIS - but somewhat closer to Mark’s gospel.
James Bond is a great hero. He offers rip-roaring entertainment. But the follower of Jesus keeps a critical distance from the James Bond myth that a final violent act will save the world for us. We look for a different sort of salvation altogether - which comes through Jesus, the gentle and peaceable myth breaker - and we celebrate where we see signs of his kingdom displaying themselves in the world, restoring people’s lives, turning faceless enemies into people we can forgive.
Notes
[1] This is a rewrite of a sermon preached at Good Shepherd, Liverpool, 19/11/2006 (when the new Bond release was Casino Royale) and again in Devon, 18/11/2012 (Spectre). It followed a day where ISIS suicide-bombers had killed 127 civilians across Paris.
[2] Wikipedia: James Bond and Millenarianism.
[3] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination.
[4] This analysis owes a great deal to John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.
[5] Frank Peretti, This Present Darkness.
[6] ISIS claim responsibility for Paris terror attacks in online statement, joe.co.uk, 14 November 2015.
[7] Ted Harrison, Whom and what are we remembering? Church Times, 9 November 2012.
[8] See Richard A. Koenigsberg, The Soldier as Sacrificial Victim, for more on this.
[9] Hebrews 10.11-12.
[10] My concluding analysis of kingdom response to myth of redemptive violence, owes much to this week's Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, particularly the James Alison passages.
[11] Prisons Week website.
[12] Restorative Justice Council - What is Restorative Justice: Criminal Justice.
[13] Restorative Justice Council - Ray and Vi’s story.
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