Scripture and Sacrifice
Perhaps there is no other passage in scripture that is prayed more by Orthodox Christians than Psalm 51 (Psalm 50 in the LXX). It’s recited in the morning prayers, during orthros, the third hour, during compline, and during the liturgy (by the priest silently as he censes before the Great Entrance).
There’s one thought from that Psalm that really stands out for me.
Certainly you do not want a sacrifice, or else I would offer it; you do not desire a burnt sacrifice. The sacrifice God desires is a humble spirit — O God, a humble and repentant heart you will not reject.
Clearly, the verse states that walking the Way is God’s desire for us rather than simply going through cultic ritual. And, most impressive, is the insistence that God does not want us to make sacrifices!
Imagine how controversial that idea would have been at the time. Perhaps, it was written during the exile when Solomon’s temple was no longer in existence. But, if that’s the case, then it would have been a verse of resistance as the Judeans returned to Jerusalem to build the 2nd Temple.
Imagine how that verse would have gone against Judean identity of the time–an identity that was centered around the temple in Jerusalem. It would be like if the Psalmist were to update the Psalms for a contemporary audience and write, “God doesn’t desire liturgies in Hagia Sophia.”
At any rate, despite the Psalmist’s insistence on proper worship being non-sacrificial (this theme, by the way, comes up over and over again in scripture), Christians have still insisted on speaking about Christ’s death on the cross as sacrifice.
Interesting.
The Christian Struggle with Sacrifice
Over and over again we pray a Psalm that says God doesn’t want sacrifices, yet, somehow, we still see the work accomplished on the cross as sacrifice.
I’ve seen theologians wrestle with this in a lot of different ways. Some go out of their way to explain the cross in terms of Leviticus 16, where the Day of Atonement sacrifices are described.
Others do amazing acrobatics as they try to explain how Christ’s sacrifice is a sort of atonement for our sins and how to properly understand that.
Even the church fathers start with a sacrificial framework and then struggle to explain to whom the sacrifice is offered (to God? to Satan? or is it a “parental” sacrifice on behalf of the children?).
However, not everyone is buying it.
N.T. Wright insists that to understand the cross as a sacrifice is to reduce Christianity to a new sort of paganism.
But, perhaps, the person who had taken the scriptural non-sacrificial model most seriously is the French philosopher René Girard.
Girard and Sacrifice
Girard makes the argument that all societies are based on violence. He painstakingly explains in his writings that this violence manifests itself through what he calls, “the scapegoat mechanism.” In other words, a problem arises in society and the only way to deal with it and restore peace is to blame an innocent person and sacrifice that person.
However–and this is important–when the innocent victim is sacrificed, the people making the sacrifice don’t see the victim as innocent. They find some way of explaining how the victim was the cause of the original problem (hence, the idea of the scapegoat).
So, for example, at Jesus’s trial, the crowds and the Romans thought that Jesus was the cause, or would become the cause, of an uprising in Jerusalem, thus he had to be sacrificed for the good of society.
But, Girard says, instead of Jesus being a sacrifice, what his death does is show us the violence that underpins the sacrificial system.
Finally, in Jesus, we realize that the person we’ve killed isn’t the real problem. In fact, we see and recognize that we’ve killed an innocent person. He died because of our sins (perhaps “because” is a better translation than “for”?)–that is to say, our sin of violence against an innocent man.
This realization reveals that the real perpetrator of violence is us! We are thus led to repentance and a change of heart. We are called to walk the Way.
So, what does this have to do with The Help?
The Help as a Functional Cross
Well, I think The Help is a great example of how Girard’s theory works.
The story (warning: there may be a few spoilers) is about African-American women in the 1960s American South who work as maids for white families. As the movie progresses, we see how white families mistreat and abuse their maids. In some cases, white families still treat these women as if they were slaves.
But, the problem is that this abuse is an unspoken and accepted reality among those in power. Instead of working for justice, the white families in the story actually work to make the oppression worse.
Clearly, this situation does not need sacrifice. In fact, making a sacrifice doesn’t even make sense in this situation. What’s needed is a way to bring the abuse out into the open so that the oppressors are shamed by their behavior.
This is exactly what happens.
With the help of an aspiring novelist, the maids tell their stories, which are eventually published in a best selling book called The Help. This book reveals the violence the maids continually suffer under their white oppressors and the stage is set for positive change.
In other words, the book functions in the way that Girard says the cross functions. It brings the violence out into the open, shames the oppressor, and advocates for peace.
I’m still thinking through Girard’s theory, but he’s impressed me because of his serious engagement with scripture. I’d love to see more Orthodox theologians engage his theories and keep testing them. Perhaps I’ll explore and test them more here or in my podcast.
But, for the moment, I was fascinated to see how The Help is a perfect example of what Girard says about the cross.