Lent 2023 | Week 6: Holy Week and the Mimetic Cycle

Mimetic Rivalries

Last week we began to hint at how the implications of mimetic desire might lead to the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion on a Roman cross. There is a kind of domino affect. When we desire what others desire and others desire what we desire, this can give way to rivalries. We are all going after the same thing and therefore we are tempted to see ourselves in a competitive relationship with one another.

We see this most clearly in sports, which is often what we probably think of first when it comes to rivalries – Lakers vs Celtics, Yankees vs Red Sox, Giants vs. Cowboys. These teams are all going after the same thing – to be the last team standing. Their rival is the one that refuses to let that happen.

Rivals are those we come to recognize as the biggest threat to our getting what we want. But not all rivalries are bad. Sometimes they push us to heights we otherwise would not have been able to reach had it not been for the competitive fire fanned into flame by our rival. But rivalries, as we all know, also have the potential to bring out the ugliest parts of us. What begins as friendly competition can quickly turn into hostility and violence.

Building on the work of the French thinker René Girard, Luke Burgis, in his book “Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life,” provides a kind of roadmap as to what happens in society at large given our penchant for imitation. We might call it the Mimetic Cycle.

If our mimetic desires set us against one another and we see each other as rivals going after the same thing, this can lead to enmity and conflict. The life of the community is threatened if there is no way to resolve the escalating cycles of hostility and resentment caused by mimetic desire. As Burgis points out, what Girard saw was that throughout human history this kind of crisis was resolved by singling out a particular person or minority group against which all the people could be united. As a result, the violence of each against all is able to give way to the violence of all against one.

By sacrificing this one person or group, there is a kind of catharsis, the “air is cleared”, and peace is achieved. But this peace is only temporary. There is a lull in the mimetic machine, but then the engine starts up again. Our desires slowly begin to be drawn toward the desires of others. New rivalries arise, conflict ensues and the cycle continues with another sacrifice needed to calm the erupting volcano of hostility. All are united in blaming him, her or them and on and on it goes, repeating itself ad nauseam.

What is important to note is that this tendency toward ganging up on a sacrificial victim happens unconsciously. That is, we don’t know we are doing it. If we were aware of what was happening it wouldn’t produce the kind of catharsis needed to keep us from societal implosion.

This is why it is called a scapegoat mechanism.

Clearly, those we sacrifice are not guilty of the blame we pile on them. We are scapegoating them, heaping upon them our violence and hostility for reasons of expediency. But if we knew that that was what we were doing then we would know that what we were doing was unjust and wrong. And so this act of scapegoating happens beneath surface. It is a mechanism triggered unconsciously in us during moments of terrible crisis. We don’t think about it. It just happens.

This leads us to Good Friday. One way to understand the events that unfold in Jesus’ last week is that this scapegoating mechanism is triggered – in the crowds, in the religious leaders and in the Roman officials. These parties which have shown to be at rivalrous odds with one another are somehow all united by week’s end. What brings them together is these joint decision to execute a lowly carpenter from the marginalized town of Nazareth.

And so we hear the religious leaders say, “You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish,” (John 11:50). We find the crowd, who were proclaiming Jesus as the long awaited Messiah only a few days ago, screaming, “Crucify him!” (Matthew 27:22). Then there is Pilate, who we see give in to the mob for the sake of political expediency (Mark 15:15).

And at the end of it all, we hear Jesus pray from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” (Luke 23:34).

The Last Scapegoat

What we find in this way of reading the events leading up to the crucifixion is that Jesus fulfills the need for a sacrifice. But it is important to recognize who it is that is demanding a sacrifice. To put it more sharply, God is not the one demanding the sacrifice. Jesus dies not to satisfy God’s desire for a sacrifice, but our desire for a sacrifice.

In this video clip, Irish writer and thinker Pete Rollins, gives a concise and eloquent summary of this way of understanding what is accomplished on the cross.

Scripture

We now come to our sixth and final reflection on Matthew 20:20-28. In past weeks we have pointed out how the disciples are prone to imitate the desire of “the Gentiles and their high officials.” These, in a sense, are their mimetic models. And what do the disciples see these models doing? As Jesus tells them, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them,” (Matthew 20:25).

This is the desire behind James and John’s request to sit at Jesus’ right and left in verses 20-21.

In response, Jesus tells them, “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mimetic desire becomes problematic when what is desired is something only a few can have. This is what turns our neighbor into a competitor and where rivalries are born. Notice in our passage that this is precisely what happens with the disciples. The others learn about James and John’s requests and Matthew tells us they are indignant. They are offended. Why? Presumably because they were each jockeying for the same thing. They had not yet understood the vastly different model confronting them in the life and teaching of the one they called Lord. And as a result, a rivalry was brewing among them.

Rather than climb higher, Jesus advises the disciples, and us, to reverse course. When we climb higher up the pyramid we find that there is less room for others and so, out of necessity, we need to knock off those who are above us and kick down those below us. But if we go with the way of downward mobility we find there’s room for everyone.

At the bottom we find that we don’t need to scapegoat anyone in order to bring peace to our enmity, because we have already done away with our enmity by receiving one another as friends.

What God does in Jesus is replace the mimetic cycle of scapegoating with one that begins and ends with the example of Christ.

We still begin with mimetic desire, but our model is no longer “the Gentiles and their high officials,” but Christ himself. And rather than invite us into a world of scarcity, Jesus graciously invites us to gather around the abundance of his table; a table where there is always room for more. At this table we are not afraid of losing our spot. So instead of looking at the speck in our rival’s eye, we are able to look at the log in our own. Rather than find a scapegoat to blame we are able to confess and receive one another as friends and in so doing, live into the peace made possible through Christ’s body broken for us, his blood shed for us.

This is the mimetic cycle according to Jesus.