Sacrifices & Scapegoats

Genesis 22:1-18 Matthew 9:9-13

Rev. Todd B. Freeman
Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas

November 9, 2003

So what do you think about this story from Genesis where Abraham, after finally having the son God promised him and Sarah, almost kills him in a sacrificial offering to God?

From a traditional interpretation standpoint, the church has focused on Abraham’s trusting faith and obedience in following God’s directive. The usual application drawn to our lives, then, is how well do we respond in obedience when we feel God is putting our faith to the test.

But thank God, literally, for non-traditional interpretations. Sure it’s holy Scripture, but ask yourself – and I mean this seriously – what kind of a God would require the murder of one’s innocent child just to test that person’s faithfulness? Is that the God of love that you believe in, and that we preach and teach here on a weekly basis? I think not.

But instead of tossing out biblical stories we don’t like, writing them off as simply ancient culture or as not literal or historically accurate, we must engage in the hard work of looking behind and underneath the surface of those stories. For perhaps the author was trying to make a theological point about the nature and character of God, as opposed to reporting an actual historical event.

At issue in this particular story of Abraham and Isaac is the very real ancient practice of offering sacrifices to God. So this is where we must begin looking. I came across an unexpected source for this in the 1998 book Coming Out as Sacrament, written by Presbyterian author, Chris Glaser. Many of us know Chris personally because of his tireless work toward making the Presbyterian Church (USA) more open and inclusive. I took today’s sermon title, Sacrifices and Scapegoats, from the title of Chapter Two in his book. In that chapter, Chris explains how blood was considered life to ancient peoples. Chris writes:

Let’s go back to this story in Genesis. Abraham thought God wanted him to sacrifice his long-awaited firstborn son, Isaac. So he took Isaac to a mount, later associated with the spot where the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was built, and was ready to sacrifice him as a burnt offering. But as Abraham prepared to spill Isaac’s blood, an angel of God told him not to do it, essentially saying, in the words once used at the conclusion of the civil emergency alert drills on the radio and TX, “This has been a test. Had this been an actual emergency...” And a ram is provided as a substitute. Chris Glaser adds:

Maybe this whole idea of needing to sacrifice any living thing to God has been merely a carry-over from even more ancient religious practices. There are hints of this in other places in the Old Testament. Psalm 69 states, “I will magnify God with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.” (Psalm 69:30-33)

The Old Testament prophet, Micah, contrasts sacrifice with God’s real requirements. “With what shall I come before the Lord... Shall I come before God with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)

We learn that our faithfulness and obedience to God, therefore, must be expressed in and through our acts of justice, kindness and humility, not ritualistic sacrifice or mere lipservice.

This brings us to today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew. Matthew, a Jewish tax-collector working for the despised Roman government, is told by Jesus, “Follow me,” which Matthew does immediately. Jesus is then discovered by the Pharisees sitting at the dinner table of many tax collectors and sinners - those who were considered unclean and impure by the legalistic religious establishment. They were, in all respects, social and religious outcasts.

When the Pharisees complain to Jesus about the company he keeps, Jesus replies, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Instead of being concerned with ritual purity, Jesus, quoting from Hosea 6:6, declares that God is more concerned with how you and I treat each other. God desires mercy and acts of kindness, especially toward those considered outsiders. This, among other things, involves genuine hospitality.

Have you ever been criticized for hanging out with the “wrong kinds” of people? Or perhaps you’ve even been accused of being the “wrong kind” of people!

This whole concept of purity, as Chris Glaser states in his book, “underlies many of the reasons given for [the exclusion of others, even] from the family of faith.” And I would add, sometimes even within the family of faith.

It is at this point in the discussion when Chris explains the practice of scapegoating.

Parallels to the church today can be drawn, which in varying ways still practices forms of excommunication, including inhospitality.

But here’s a more positive example of this ancient practice that I have often used at youth ministry events. When at Mo Ranch in the Texas Hill Country, I have asked each person in my small group to pick up a leaf and symbolically project onto it the sins that they wanted to confess. Then we would all go down to the Guadalupe River, which runs through the camp, and throw our leaves in and watch them float away – visually representing our forgiveness. We also do something similar to that during our Ash Wednesday service at the beginning of Lent, burning slips of paper on which we have written things we wish to confess or are struggling with. I hadn’t realized how similar this was to the biblical model of “scapegoating.”

But for the most part, scapegoating is a cop-out. Scapegoating usually involves using a person or group of people to bear the blame for others. Webster’s defines it as “the action or process of casting blame for shortcomings or failure on an innocent, or at most only partly responsible, individual or group.”

What minority group, be it racial, economic, sexual, or whatever, hasn’t been scapegoated by those in positions of power and control? We see the church continue to do it, and especially the fundamentalists. Remember a few years back when Jerry Fallwell blamed Florida hurricanes and tornadoes, in part, on gays and lesbians? We see scapegoating alive and well in our government as well.

But this kind of scapegoating is wrong. It’s a way to not face one’s own shortcomings or failures, or faults; of not taking responsibility for oneself. Getting through the difficulties of life, however, whether on a national level or at home, work, or church, is always a little easier when we can blame our problems or situations on someone or something else.

It’s the government’s fault, it’s the terrorists’ fault, it the conservatives’ fault, it’s the liberals’ fault, it’s the economy’s fault, it’s Hollywood’s fault, it’s the church’s fault, it’s the pastor’s fault, it’s the elders’ fault, it’s this or that minority group’s fault. That’s not to say that things are always our fault, simply that it’s not always someone else’s.

It is at these times when we must remind ourselves of what the Lord really requires of us – not sacrifice, not scapegoating, but living a life in which relationships and interactions among ourselves are marked by acts of kindness and forgiveness.

Let each of us focus on these things, then, today, in the coming week, and during this Thanksgiving season.

Amen.

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