My kid punched a kid, so I punched him to teach him a lesson

I have brown eyes but my wife has blue eyes. I have brown hair but Estee has blonde. I have fine hair but Estee has full hair. I have oily skin but Estee is has normal skin. When you look at our boys you can see each of their parents in their body. 

One has blue eyes, blonde hair, oily skin and full hair. The other has blue eyes, brown hair, normal skin and fine hair. There is a residue of each of their parents in their lives. 

This is how DNA works.

While we know this about biology, this is also true about psychology. I was raised in a home with a mother who is a "hugger" and a father who highly values commitment. I am a mix of these two things. There are times I catch myself acting exactly like like my mother or father. The circumstances in my past are present in the present. 

When we create something, be it a child, artwork or even a society, there is a residue of the creator(s) in the created. When a child grows up in an environment that deals with anger by being abusive toward women, chances are that child will not know how to deal with anger other than to abuse women. The residue of the ones who help create that child will be present in that child throughout life. 

It is important to remember when we create solutions to problems, even problems of violence, we need to be very aware of the ways we create the solution. The things that go into that solution will be present in that solution. If we use chocolate chips in a batter and expect that after all the ingredients go into the oven that they chocolate will some how be absent in the cookie, we are fools. If we use violence to solve a problem and expect violence to some how be absent in the future, we are fools. 

I do not know the way forward in dealing with violence. I do know that if we use violence then we will only create solutions that in turn will have the seeds of violence within it. If we want to eradicate violence, let us begin with eradicating violence in the solutions we create. 

What Happens in the Theatre Should Not Stay in the Theatre

You may not have read before but there was a massive riot in the Bible and it might show us how the Bible teaches to respond to mob riots. First, the story from Acts 19.

"About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, ‘Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.’"

Commentary: Paul is converting people away from the religion of the state and this is affecting the finances of the silver business who makes money by selling silver statues of the state goddess: Artemis/Diana. The silver traders get angry and stir up the crowd.

"When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’ The city was filled with the confusion; and people rushed together to the theatre, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travelling-companions. Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; even some officials of the province of Asia, who were friendly to him, sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theatre." 

Commentary: The mob is wrapped up in a frenzy and begin to chant the mantra of the state. This mantra functions as a quick way to determine who is the 'other'. Like if you are at a soccer game and your team begins to chant their songs, you can quickly see who is on your side and who is not. The crowd sees there are a few people not chanting the team mantra and they drag them into the theatre. Also notice that Paul wants to get into the thick of things, but his disciples do not allow him - they know he will be killed. Paul's disciples know what happens to leaders who step into the mob. The heard what happened to Jesus and did not want the same thing to happen to Paul. 

"Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd gave instructions to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed forward. And Alexander motioned for silence and tried to make a defence before the people. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours all of them shouted in unison, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’" 

Commentary: Notice that the crowd is clear who is on their side but they do not agree who is the cause of their tension and scandal - "they did not know why they had come together". Some might have been shouting it was one of Paul's disciples while others blame Paul and still others blame someone else. There is confusion. Then Alexander is pushed forward and it is now clear to the mob that here is an outsider (he is not chanting the mantra) and he is also being pushed forward by a small group. These two factors is all it takes to have a cascade of agreement in the mob. Before Alexander can even say a word, the mob is unified and for two hours chant the mantra of the group. For two hours Alexander knew he was in great danger of death and for two hours he faced the reality that he was the mob's scapegoat. He could have chimed in on the mob's chant, but he remained faithful. His faithfulness is not just that he would not agree that there was another god, but he was faithful to exposing the cycle of violence. Even if he joined in the mob's chant, they still were in frenzied scandal and they would find another person to scapegoat/kill. Alexander is like Christ in that he was pushed into something that he did not choose but then chose to stay in the bullseye of the mob in order to expose the cycle of violence. He did not fight back. He just took the unjustness of the crowd and faced death. 

Theatre in Ephesus

"But when the town clerk had quietened the crowd, he said, ‘Citizens of Ephesus, who is there that does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple-keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven? Since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. You have brought these men here who are neither temple-robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the artisans with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges there against one another. If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly. For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.’ When he had said this, he dismissed the assembly."

Commentary: Just as Alexander teaches us how to behave like Christ when you are being scapegoated, the county clerk teaches us how to behave like Christ when we are a part of the mob. The clerk has cultivated the authority to speak to the group and call out the real nature of the scandal. Both Alexander and the clerk reveal non-violent resistance in a very hostile situation. 

Who can be the clerk of today? Who can speak with authority to a group and be clear to the scandal of our times? I would submit that the voice of nonviolent resistance is in the Church. The problem is that we have lost our voice. We have become so timid to speak out of fear we will be thrown into the center of the mob's hate. We fear we are going to lose members and money so we instead of calling the mob to task, we are often the ones who quietly join the chant of the mob. 

Personally, I do not know how to be a voice speaking to the mob. The complexities of the world and the lack of knowledge and effort on my own part leads me mute. For all the failings in the Church, it is clear that these failings are in me. So I pray that what happened in the theatre with Alexander and the clerk does not stay in the theatre.

Why did God kill the people who stole in the early church

Acts 5:1-10 reads like this:

But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; 2 with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3‘Ananias,’ Peter asked, ‘why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!’ 5Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. 6 The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him. 7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8Peter said to her, ‘Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.’ And she said, ‘Yes, that was the price.’ 9 Then Peter said to her, ‘How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.’ 10Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things.

This story is troubling for many Christians. It is troubling to think that God would kill you if you steal from the church but would not kill others who commit ever greater sins. For the most part the interpretations I heard in my life focus on why these two deserved to die - they deserved it because they lied and stole. This interpretation goes on to talk about how important it is to not lie and steal and turns this text into a moral lesson like an Aesop Fable, all the while downplaying the idea that God killed two people. 

So I would like to submit an interpretation of the story that might help us make sense of this text.

First of all it is helpful to understand that prior to this story there is a story about the early church and the great community that existed. No one was without and everyone had their needs met. This was a community that had found a way to eradicate the potential for envy and coveting things from their neighbors. In a community where there is no envy or covetous behaviour then you have a community that is able to avoid what is called mimetic rivalry.

Mimetic rivalry is a term from Rene Girard which is essentially the idea that we desire things because other people desire things. Mimetic rivalry leads to tension and unresolved tension leads to what Girard calls "scandal". Scandals need to be resolved and humans have learned that if we can scapegoat a victim the scandal will go away. While a scapegoat may abate the scandal the scapegoat cannot remove the cause of the scandal - mimetic rivalry - and so soon there is another scandal and that requires another scapegoat. This cycle of peace, tension, scandal, scapegoat, peace is what Girard identifies as Satan. Satan can only exist if we scapegoat others. Which is why when Jesus tells his disciples to forgive without limits, Jesus is showing us a way to banish the Satan from our world.

Now back to Acts. 

Notice in the story that it does not say that God killed either of these two people. There is a character in the story that has a reputation in fact can only exist on the blood of victims - Satan. 

Could it be that Satan is struggling for survival in this new community. Because there is no mimetic rivalry in the community Satan is at a loss for how to create scapegoats. The cycle of Satan is dying and, in a final clever bit, Satan comes up with an idea - kill someone. The person Satan kills is the one who, like all victims, everyone believes is guilty of some wrong. In this case the justification is the victim is a liar. Just as the authorities thought they were right to think of Jesus as a trouble making heretic so to the early Church saw Ananias as a trouble making liar. The struggling Satan gasps for a breath and gets energy from the tension in the group. Satan pulls the trigger and kills Ananias in order to impose the cycle of Satan on the group an try to convince the group that scapegoating is the way to live. 

When Ananias dies, the community is seized with fear because they know that Satan has gotten a toe hold in the community. So in order to address this unwelcomed guest of Satan, the community takes the body of Ananias away quickly so that the power of scapegoating does not spread among the Church. 

Satan is frustrated. So Satan kills another. 

The community is stuck with fear and wonder as they begin to realize how powerful the cycle of Satan is. How easy it is to be okay with the killing of someone who we think did something wrong. How easy it is for us all to be blind to the cycle of Satan to the point that we begin to think that it was God who killed the people who stole in the early church.