SBG, Part 6

This is the continuing saga of this little brown blog's unprofessional book review of Stricken by God?...Part 6, Chapter 5:

SBG
Chapter 5
God’s Self-Substitution and Sacrificial Inversion
James Alison
pages 166-179

This chapter by Catholic theologian James Alison begins with what we are up against…the thing we’ve "all heard before", and that is that humankind fell and God in his mercy sent his Son to pay the price as a human and the "whole sorry saga could be brought to a close," the precious blood of the Saviour saving the humans from their sin so they could at least inherit heaven as planned before everything had been mucked up. I am using the words in the chapter, by the way.

So the author goes on to say that the principal problem with this conventional account is that it is a theory (an idea), while atonement was a liturgy (something that happens to and at you).

The author then goes on to describe what went on in the temple. Here I thought perhaps there was at least something worthwhile to read in this book. He explains the High priest’s duties, and the sacrificial lamb and how it parallels with "the lamb of God", etc., which is, for the most part, okay.

And then the explanation takes a twist. Suddenly, the atonement is about God making the chance for us "to participate in the fullness of creation by becoming a sacrifice for us in our midst." What Jesus did was not to "fulfil a series of prophecies regarding a somewhat bizarre ancient rite that involved lots of blood and a barbeque. What Jesus did – was to make an extraordinary anthropological breakthrough." What Jesus was doing, says the author, was "substituting himself for a series of substitutions." So Jesus takes the inverse route to the sacrificial sustition of nearly every culture and brings it to an end by giving portions of himself as Lamb to his fellow priests. Thus, "Jesus is substituting himself at the centre of what the liturgical tradition was…making it possible for us to…live without sacrifice"…"what Jesus was beginning to make possible for us was to begin to live as death were not, and therefore, to release us from having to protect ourselves over against death by treading on other people."

Got that?

Well basically, it’s about the purpose of the Eucharist…"our obedience to Jesus’ instruction to invoke him"…"the victim…is present…and we have access to participate in that atonement, which has been achieved and is made available to us in our Eucharist." And so Jesus set up the last supper and gave himself to us so that we would become him…a "risky project" of God, who said "We don’t know how this is going to end. But I want you to be co-participants with me on the inside of this creative project" (even though the Bible says the outcome of this "project" was planned and foreknown by God a long time ago, as Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world).

The chapter concludes by saying that Jesus overcame our tendency to sacrifice each other, and we can live liturgically, not grasp the theory, but imagine the love behind it.

All in all...this is one more chapter that left me going...huh?