#RevThread # 72
Scapegoats
1/ Here’s an amazing text: “So Herod questioned Jesus at some length, but He made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing Him. And Herod, with his soldiers treatedHim with contempt and mocked Him....
Scapegoats
1/ Here’s an amazing text: “So Herod questioned Jesus at some length, but He made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing Him. And Herod, with his soldiers treatedHim with contempt and mocked Him....
2/..."Then, arraying Him in splendid clothing, he sent Him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with each other.” Luke 23: 9-12
3/ In our day, Scriptures’ teaching about violence is vital. Jesus teaches us to avoid “counterpunching” (“turn the other cheek”). Jesus’ behavior during Holy Week is, among other things, a tutorial on non-violence.
4/ We Americans have perfected a liturgy of responding in helplessness to mass murder--a liturgy that we mindlessly repeat now, even as our children are slaughtered. I can tell you, after several decades of pastoral experience, that a liturgy is hard to change.
5/ The high schoolers are bravely challenging that liturgy. Here’s some theological thinking I hope will support their good effort.
6/ Violence is usually prompted by the scapegoat mechanism. That mechanism is very familiar, and has been most closely studied by the great Rene Girard.
7/ Scapegoating works like this-- There’s a general discontent that isn’t being dealt with. In our unconscious we know that something isn’t right about us. We try old solutions, but the discontent proves stubborn.
8/ This is always when Satan spies an opening. Someone desiring power and wealth and fame starts assigning blame to whomever seems different enough for the majority of the crowd to suspect. The power seeker starts a campaign against him or her or them.
9/ Soon, the campaign seems to clarify the moment & help us understand our discontent. The power-seeker knows that if he stirs that discontent he can rile up human on human violence. His accusations get more colorful, more strident. His followers multiply. “GET HIM OUTTA HERE!”
10/ Everyone within the cohort of riled-up haters feels suddenly free from old constraints. We all understand each other. And soon we strike. With violence. Then magically there comes a moment of joyful cooperation. As soon as the supposed enemy is killed,...
11/.. the people involved in the violence are released from the desire for violence. For the moment. They are sated. Discontent dissolves. Harmony reigns.
18/ But nothing has actually changed. The ones doing the scapegoating accomplish their unconscious agenda. Once again they have avoided maturing. Once again they have solidified their self-righteousness. Now they are ready for the next episode of violence.
19/ Over and over.
20/ CPAC this year was a scapegoating orgy. The problem, the source of discontent, said one, is this woman who is complaining of our hypocrisy that we supported Roy Moore and are oblivious to the President’s own immorality. The boo’s swelled...
21/... Security guards, trained to sense the approach of violence, ushered her out. The problem, said another, was that the Republicans had, in a moment of weakness, chosen a black man, Michael Steele, to be their leader years earlier & now they were reaping the consequences.
22/ But that wasn’t the real problem, according to the Scapegoater- in-Chief. The problem is immigrants, who, like poisonous snakes, are by nature killers. The cheering went wild.
23/ Back to Herod and Pilate. Notice how both of them turned on Jesus fairly easily. It was a case of: “The people are resitve, even under my sublime leadership? Who is this trouble-maker Jesus?”
24/ Notice how Herod and Pilate had hated one another....
25/ ...But once they allowed the clergy to rile up the crowds even more, to the point of demanding Jesus’ death, their hatred of one another disappeared. They became BFFs.
26/ Scapegoating has powerful rewards: we remain immature; old hostilities vanish without having been worked through; we get to indulge in permanent cycles of violence; and we remain utterly self-righteous.
27/ Here is the central learning to take away from the crucifixion story: Jesus was innocent. The Crucified One is without sin. Victims are innocent. God rejects the whole scapegoating routine. He resurrects the One who refused to imitate the violence of the scapegoaters.
28/ In the name of the Lamb who was slain, I ask, How can followers of Jesus remain in a Republican Party so passionately attached to scapegoating?
29/ And how can we, who reject this folly, avoid scapegoating Trump? We can do that by insisting on fact-based justice, by choosing new leadership, and by refusing to imitate the violent, partisan hatred on view all week at CPAC.
30/ “The Party of Lincoln” would do well to reread his 2nd Inaugural, which is all about refusing the scapegoating mechanism: “With malice towards none, with charity for all , with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right .”
31/ They would do well to consider the 2nd greatest Republican, Grant, and his compassionate wisdom at Appomattox when he refused to bully the defeated and allowed them to keep their horses to plow with and their guns to hunt with so they could feed their families.
32/ The corruption of the Republican Party is hurting us all.
