Scapegoat Sunday, October 26, 2008 A Sermon offered by Reverend Kathleen C. Rolenz West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Rocky River, OH Sermon Part I The year was the 2003 National League Championship Series, Chicago Cubs against the Florida Marlins. The place was Wrigley Field and the Cubs were just five outs away from winning and playing in the World Series. At the eighth inning Luis Castillo hit a high foul ball toward the left field wall. As outfielder Moises Alou reached for the ball, Cubs fan Steve Bartman did the same. The ball bounced off Bartman's hand and into the stands. Though the Cubs pleaded for a call of fan interference, the umpire ruled that the ball had left the field of play and was therefore up for grabs. Steve Bartman was blamed for catching a ball that could have been recorded as an out for the Chicago Cubs in the and would have sent the Cubs to the World Series for the first time in 58 years Steve Bartman, passionate Cubs fan, baseball coach for kids, was led out of the stadium amidst boos, hisses. Some threw beer cans at him. That night he had police protection around his home. Illinois governor suggested that Bartman join a witness protection program, while Florida Governor Jeb Bush offered Bartman asylum. Cubs lost the game and Bartman was seen as the reason. Bartman was the perfect Now if we look at this rationally we know that this was one event in a series that may have caused the cubs to lose that game, but that s harder to pinpoint, so, it was easier to focus on that one dramatic moment; and that one person for the loss. Of course some have tried to blame the Cubs failure to make it into the World Series on the legendary Billy Goat Curse that was placed on the Cubs when a goat was denied entrance to a World Series Game in 1945. But, we know that it wasn t a curse that brought the Cubs down; and it wasn t Steve Bartman but something in us needs a The Ancient Hebrews knew this to be true that s why they created the ritual of the scapegoat to be performed at the holiest day of year Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. As you heard from the book of Leviticus, the ritual went something like this: a goat was chosen through a lottery system; the priest took the goat into the temple; prayed over it; and then set it forth to be led out of town. People would line up on streets yell at the goat; curse it maybe throw their beer cans at it and then they led it out of town--into the wilderness where it was cut off from the community.. The purpose of this ritual was that the goat became the virtual substitute for individual and collective sins It s what s called substitutionary atonement you don t have to take the blame for other s ills or your own for that matter-you can put it on an innocent victim, objectify it, dehumanize it, or in the goat s case, make it be seen as an instrument of the devil, and because it is now the repository of the sins of an entire nation, it has to be banished sent away. Of course this idea of a scapegoat is not confined to the ancient Israelites. When you look down through the annual of history, it seems like every culture has a place for the scapegoat and usually, with one exception, no one ever volunteers for the job. For example, have you ever heard the term whipping boy? That was a real job, you didn t apply for that job you were drafted. A whipping boy was a young, impoverished orphan, whose duty it was to accept punishment for wrong-doing performed by the prince. So, any indiscretions or misdeeds
the prince did the whipping boy got the punishment for. Most scapegoats are determined by the majority, except for people who agreed to be the scapegoats. In 16 th century Wales there was a group of people who made their living by being professional sin eaters. How did this work? When a person died his or her relatives would place a loaf of bread on the body. Then, they would carry the person s casket outside the house, with the loaf of bread on top. The family would then give the professional sin eater the loaf of bread, a maple bowl of beer and sixpence, and for that the professional would agree to eat the sins of the deceased; taking it upon him or herself. The sin eater, by taking on the sins of the deceased, can help the family begin again with a clean slate. What a job! Bread, beer, sixpence and sins all in a days work! All of this is very interesting or at least I found it interesting, but we moderns & post-moderns we can t really relate to this can we? Jews don t release goats into the wilderness; the whipping boy job has been outsourced; the sin-eaters have long since died off; we don t have any modern day equivalents to such ancient notions do we? Unfortunately we do. Just this past summer a man walked into a Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN, pulled out a gun from a guitar case, and began shooting. Seven people were wounded; two were killed. The reason? After listening to right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, he was convinced that the reason he could not get a job was because the liberals of this country were ruining everything. And because he had actually attended a Unitarian Universalist conference center for several years because he know Unitarian Universalists were religious liberals somehow in his mind he believed that inflicting harm on the church could somehow tip the balance of justice in his favor. It s crazy, I know. It s as crazy as believing that a goat can bear the sins of an entire community. The story of the Tennessee Valley UU Church is a hard one to bring up, especially in church, in our sanctuary and because it hits so close to home. Naively, I never believed for a minute that religious liberals could be the target of someone s wrath and violence, but then the truth hit me as I realized that anyone, anything and anyone can become a Ask any of our African American brothers and sisters and they ll say you re just figuring this out? and ask our gay lesbian, bi-and transgender women and men and they ll say oh yes we already know that Ask any immigrant or Jew as a Muslim and they ll say no surprise. It s not enough just to know we have to do something about it. And what we have to do as a congregation of learners and lovers is to figure out how not to allow that pull that laying the blame on someone or something else to take root in us. There is something in us that needs a Our purpose as religious and spiritual people is to be able to discern when our sense of moral outrage can be turned inside out into some terrible urge to make a person or a people the other, and by so doing, feel that we can destroy them. Yes, there is something in us that needs a scapegoat and there is also something in us, equally strong that can resist that need and what that thing is that spiritual quality that lives within us will be the part of the reflection of the second half of this morning s sermon. So, while the morning offering is being taken, reflect on what you ve written during the contemplation and prayer time. Think about the places where you place blame for either what s wrong with your life or what s wrong with the world. Take 2
ownership of them, and be prepared to release them later on in the service. For now, let s listen to the Dave Blazer Trio s version of a piece by 19 th century composer, Scriabin. If you are a visitor this morning, please be our guest and let the plate pass you by. Let the ushers now come forward to receive the morning offering. Sermon Part II That piece was adapted from a longer work by the hip hop group called Atmospheres. I picked it not only because the title of the song is Scapegoat but I think those artists hit a nerve when they said: It s everything but me. I know I don t need to tell you that we are in the midst of a global financial crisis the end of which we have yet to see. And it seems to me that our leaders are as puzzled as I am about how we got into this mess, but we re looking for someone to blame. It s the Democrats tax and spend; it s the Republicans high rolling friends; it s Alan Greenspan de-regulation; it s the economy stupid and outrageous inflation wait somebody get me out of this Bulworth rap loop! Bob Dylan sang that ya gotta serve somebody but I d also ad that human nature dictates that ya gotta blame somebody, because it must be everyone else but me. I know you re as tired and fed up as I am with all the mud-slinging ads from the two dominant political parties each one blaming the other for the economy, the war in Iraq, and all the other ills that plague this country. Both men honorable men with great personal integrity held out as long as they could, until the inevitable happened; make the man and his policies the source of contempt and fear, and you might just win this election. It worked for Lee Atwater, in 1988, the campaign manager for George Herbert Bush, who depicted Michael Dukakis as weak on crime by televising a picture of convicted murderer Willie Horton and described him as every suburban mom s nightmare. It worked for the Swift boats of 2004 against the candidacy of John Kerry. So what s the opposite of a scapegoat? It s a Savior. I think there is something in our human nature that bounces back and forth between wanting to blame and wanting to be saved, and neither position serves our spiritual growth very well. Whether we are naming it as such, we are looking for a savior someone who, come January 20, 2009, we are hoping for a big turn around real and lasting change. Our expectations are so high for this next president that I can t imagine anyone being able to live up to them.. Just as our nature seems to want to find somebody to blame so we want someone to save us. The most blatant example in Western religious tradition is Jesus. Later interpreters of his story made Jesus into the new scapegoat the model of substitutionary atonement but he did not want that title. He surely was familiar with the Hebrew ritual of the scapegoat the innocent goat bearing the sins of the community, but there is no clear evidence that he wanted to be the scapegoat for the sins of Israel. That idea came later, from his PR man Paul of Tarsus. He believed more in what I am calling participatory atonement that it s up to you and you, you and you, to be an active participant in bringing out tikkun or mending the world. The problem with creating both a Savior and a Scapegoat is that something of their essential humanity is lost along the way. In order to create a scapegoat, you have to dehumanize a person; to make him or her the bad other. In order to create a Savior, you have to ignore their humanness and project a whole host of hopes and expectations upon their shoulders. You have to make her perfect; infallible, unsullied unstained. You make him born of a virgin, celibate, and a martyr. And then, when the Savior does not live up to those expectations, the Savior 3
will fall and may just become the next Is there another way? Is there another path? There has to be and as members of a religious community, who are guided by a certain set of principles, we are obligated to find another way. I said earlier that just as there is something in us that wants a scapegoat there is a co-existing and fundamental urge that lives inside of us for justice. This morning we lit our chalice in recognition of our first principle to covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Our first step then, when tempted to place the blame on someone else is to remember how doing so is a deliberate diminishment of their dignity. Now don t get me wrong when we want to blame someone there is usually a reason sometimes even a good reason. But when we start blaming another for what s wrong with our life, we risk becoming the very thing we despise. We have to stand on higher ground. We have to remember that we have these Unitarian Universalist principles for a reason, and that they mean something and they mean all the more when it s difficult. Now believe me, I know how hard this. Sometimes when I am really mad at someone for something he or she did I have to keep telling myself: dignity and worth; dignity and worth; she or he has dignity and worth. like a kind of mantra. Sometimes that inherent worth and dignity is hard to find and sometimes I can t find it. Admittedly, there are some persons, whom I ve never personally met, but have heard or read about, whose actions are so heinous as to make me doubt whether or not they have mortgaged their inherent worth and dignity by their deeds but that is content for another sermon on another Sunday. When we forget to acknowledge another s dignity; when we ignore another s inherent worth, we diminish them and we diminish ourselves as well. A second antidote to the desire to scapegoat is to be your own sin-eater. I know it s a weird idea, but taking responsibility for your share of the blame in any dynamic is part of the process of Atonement of At-One-Ment. This is your chance before the month ends, to make the calls, to write the letter, to let it go, to eat the bread and in so doing, be able to move on, and forgive yourself, and another and begin again perhaps in love or perhaps simply at peace. And finally, the antidote to the desire to scapegoat and shift blame to another is to engage in ritual. I don t know if those ancient Israelites really believed that the goat would take away their sins, but I tend to think not. I think what they did know was the act of preparing for this ritual of thinking about it of engaging with it was part of the process. We don t have any rituals in this society where we can lay our blame burdens down. We don t have very many rituals to heal from wounds that have been inflicted on us, to shed the shame of being the scapegoat for someone or something else. We have such opportunities, however, here. You have in your order of service, that post-it note. Maybe you ve written down one blaming or shaming behavior you have that you would like to let go of. While the Dave Blazer trio is playing music, please come forward, if you d like and put your post it note on the mirror. If you get here early enough, you can even look yourself in the mirror. If you d prefer to stay in your seat, then raise your hand and worship associate Jeffrey Randolph Lee will bring it forward for you. After the ritual is finished, Jeffrey will take the mirror out of the sanctuary, and after the service, he and I will remove the notes, burn them, and clean the glass. If you choose not to participate in this ritual that s okay too. Just sit quietly 4
and perhaps reflect on the ways which you can now be part of mending the world and ending the blame and shame game. When everyone who wishes to come forward has done so, we ll sing our closing hymn glory, glory, hallelujah, since I laid my burdens down. May it be so and let the atonement making ourselves at one with ourselves and one another now begin. Amen 5