As Holy Week begins, Richard Rohr reflects on how quickly we tend to transmit our pain to others:  

Human nature, when seeking power, wants either to play the victim or to create victims of others. In fact, the second follows from the first. Once we start feeling sorry for ourselves, we will soon find someone else to blame, accuse, or attack—and with impunity! It settles the dust quickly, and takes away any immediate shame, guilt, or anxiety. In other words, it works—at least for a while. 

When we read today’s news, we realize the pattern hasn’t changed much in all of history. Hating, fearing, or diminishing someone else holds us together for some reason. Scapegoating, or the creating of victims, is in our hard wiring. Philosopher René Girard called “the scapegoat mechanism” the central pattern for the creation and maintenance of cultures worldwide since the beginning. [1] 

The sequence, without being too clever, goes something like this: we compare, we copy, we compete, we conflict, we conspire, we condemn, and we crucify. If we don’t recognize some variation of this pattern within ourselves and put an end to it early on, it’s almost inevitable. That’s why spiritual teachers of any depth will always teach simplicity of lifestyle and freedom from the competitive power game, which is where it all begins. It is probably the only way out of the cycle of violence. 

It’s hard for us religious people to hear, but the most persistent violence in human history has been “sacralized violence”—violence that we treated as sacred, but which was, in fact, not. Human beings have found a most effective way to legitimate their instinct toward fear and hatred. They imagine they are fearing and hating on behalf of something holy and noble: God, religion, truth, morality, their children, or love of country. It takes away all guilt, and one can even think of oneself as representing the moral high ground or being responsible and prudent as a result. It never occurs to most people that they are becoming what they fear and hate. [2]  

Therapist Matthias Roberts describes how Jesus defied the scapegoating pattern:  

Jesus walked willingly into a human world defined—as it still is today—by violence and dependence on scapegoats…. He was murdered not because God wanted or needed his sacrificial death but because as humans, when the stakes are high, we determine who is in and who is out through violence and death.  

But Jesus … broke the system because what was supposed to happen didn’t.  

The scapegoat didn’t stay dead. And the victors, in this case, didn’t get to write the only version of the story.  

The scapegoat came back to life and told a different story, a truer story, a story about life and love. And through his story, Jesus revealed our ideas about God had been wrong all along.  

God and Jesus are nothing like the violent and vengeful world we live in. [3] 

A Gospel According to Scapegoats

Theologian Jennifer Garcia Bashaw describes how the Gospels are liberating for the excluded and scapegoated:  

From the inception of the Gospel narratives, we can see that they were not just stories written about a scapegoat—they were stories written by scapegoats…. When the [New Testament] authors told the stories of Jesus’s life or of the early church, they wrote and interpreted from this fringe position. The Gospel writers also focused on the stories of the marginalized…. These were the people Jesus taught, healed, and befriended in his life—the societal victims and outcast people who lived not only on the periphery of the empire but on the periphery of their own culture. The gospel story, then, is a story about a victim, written by victims, and featuring victims. It is good news for victims; it is a scapegoat’s gospel. [1]  

Jesus’ death on the cross reveals the violence of scapegoating.  

Jesus willingly becomes a scapegoat to draw attention to the scapegoaters; he submits to death on a cross to draw attention away from the scapegoats.… In his life, Jesus championed women, befriended and healed the poor and the disabled, and welcomed in the outsiders. In his death, Jesus becomes the woman, the infirmed, and the outsider. The Jesus who saved women from society’s shaming was himself publicly shamed, stripped naked, and despised. The Jesus who healed sick and disabled bodies became disabled himself, flesh pierced and torn, weakened and held captive by nails and his failing body.… If Jesus’s life reversed the fate of victims he had met, then his death reverses the fate of future victims. He becomes the scapegoat to end all scapegoats—and exposes the truth that could end human blame and violence once and for all.  

As they tell the Jesus story, the Gospel writers ensure that followers of Jesus see his scapegoat death for what it is…. They show us the innocence of Jesus so that we might recognize the innocence of all scapegoat victims before it is too late…. After Jesus became a victim on the cross, exposing the scapegoat mechanism and its fatal effects, the story is carried forward by the scapegoats of Jesus’s society. It is the women disciples who discover the tomb (Mark 16:1–8; Matthew 28:1–10; Luke 24:1–11; John 20:1–18) and become the first witnesses to the resurrection and the first evangelists to carry the news to other Jesus-followers. [2] 

 Jesus’ death compels us to join in solidarity with the scapegoated. Bashaw continues:  

Without a clear comprehension of Jesus’s pattern of life and death, those of us who follow Jesus can unknowingly become the ones who scapegoat rather than the ones who follow the scapegoat. When we enter the story of Jesus with an eye on society’s victims, however, we can grasp more fully the life, ministry, and death of the scapegoat that was supposed to end all scapegoats—Jesus. Maybe then we can stop creating scapegoats and work on their behalf instead. [3] 

Note: For Holy Week, we are taking a short break from the “Lessons from Naaman” series to reflect on the events leading up to Jesus’ death. We will return to the Naaman series on April 1. The great power and authority that Jesus had revealed day after day was not on display after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. Miraculously healing the severed ear of the guard in the garden was the final miracle Jesus would perform. The mighty prophet from Nazareth who had healed the blind and raised the dead appeared powerless by the time of his trial in the courtyard of the high priest. With a word he had silenced the sea, but he did nothing to silence the false witnesses and evil accusers that night. Frustrated by his lack of cooperation, the high priest finally came to the heart of the matter: “Are you the Messiah, the Son of God, or not?” he demanded. “I am,” Jesus said. His words were chosen deliberately to invoke the proper Hebrew name of God. “And you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” He was quoting a familiar image of the Messiah from the prophetic words of the Old Testament, but the vision of power and authority stood in sharp contrast to the man in chains before them. His claim sounded as ridiculous as it was blasphemous. Here was a mouse claiming to be a lion.It was too much for them to take. This passive, uncooperative carpenter could not be the mighty Messiah, the Savior of Israel, and God himself in human form. The priests tore their robes at Jesus’ blasphemy and unanimously condemned him to death. They slapped him, spit on his face, and mocked him. To these men, Jesus was worse than a liar and more embarrassing than a blasphemer. He was a joke.Amazingly, these men were the most educated scholars in Israel. They had memorized the Scriptures from childhood and had parsed their meaning all of their lives—and yet they could not recognize the God of Scripture when he stood before them clearly declaring his identity. It is easy to stand in judgment of these elders and priests, just as they stood in judgment of Jesus. But we dare not because their blindness could easily be our own. Instead, humility should lead us to learn from their example so we do not repeat their mistake. They possessed the scriptures, acquired knowledge, studied their theological traditions, and occupied important religious offices. But these things did not give them the ability to see the truth or to discern the presence of God. Likewise, we must be careful that our knowledge, traditions, and ministries do not cause us to miss the true presence of God. While we search for him in the powerful, the spectacular, and the impressive, the Lord may pass us by in the faces of those we deem worthless. DAILY SCRIPTURE MARK 14:60–65  JOHN 5:39–40 WEEKLY PRAYER. Karl Barth (1886–1968) O Lord God, our Father. You are the light that can never be put out; and now you give us a light that shall drive away all darkness. You are love without coldness, and you have given us such warmth in our hearts that we can love all when we meet. You are the life that defies death, and you have opened for us the way that leads to eternal life. None of us is a great Christian; we are all humble and ordinary. But your grace is enough for us. Arouse in us that small degree of joy and thankfulness of which we are capable, to the timid faith which we can muster, to the cautious obedience which we cannot refuse, and thus to the wholeness of life which you have prepared for all of us through the death and resurrection of your Son. Do not allow any of us to remain apathetic or indifferent to the wondrous glory of Easter, but let the light of our risen Lord reach every corner of our dull hearts. Amen.

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