It’s what we tend to do.  Most Christians have an entire theology built on it.  Someone/something must pay for others’ sins. 
 
Sin is burdensome, whether it’s our own or the world’s!

It can’t be ignored (at least not forever).  If ignored, it will still be felt in our physical bodies or relationships.  The more it's ignored, the greater the natural consequences from the unacknowledged harm to ourselves, others, and/or the created world.  So it’s no surprise that people have been trying to figure out what to do with the problem of sin for millennia.
 
We are a ritualistic people.  In Leviticus 16 found in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), it was a ritual with an actual goat (hence the term, “scapegoat”) that helped relieve the communal burden.  The impurities of the community were transferred to the goat through the “laying on of hands.” Then the goat was beaten and released into the wilderness to take away the sins of the Israelite people.  The despised goat symbolically took on their sins and carried them away from the community.  In the New Testament, the writer of the book of John records John the Baptist pointing out the role of the scapegoat being taken on by Jesus when he proclaims, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." 
 
It’s human nature to look for a scapegoat, especially when we do not want to or do not know how to deal with sin.  Watching small children (as well as our current politicians) will make that apparent quite quickly.  Their mantra: "Make it someone else’s fault!" 
 
It’s especially natural if we’ve grown up with a theology that espouses it.  It’s too easy to believe that when Jesus takes away my sin, I no longer have to deal with it or the consequences of it (someone else has paid the ultimate price after all).  The danger of this theology is that it can shift the focus to worshipping Jesus because of his offering of “fire insurance” for the life to come rather than following Jesus as a disciple in this one.
 
If we happen to be Christians who believe Jesus paid the price as the ultimate scapegoat (which made him the last needed scapegoat), why do we still continue to scapegoat others?—Democrats, Republicans, Black people, Indigenous people, White people, LGBTQ people, police officers, protestors, teachers, certain members of our families…
 
If Jesus is the ultimate scapegoat, that means we are now freed from scapegoating others! 

We are a ritualistic people in need of a new ritual.  If we don’t have anyone to blame or transfer our sin to, what happens next?

Facebook's "what's on your mind?" prompt has been taunting me, so here's what's on my mind. It begins with a conversation...

“You know what’s strange? Most people I see who aren’t wearing masks are Christians,” a friend who was standing over 6 feet away said to me. We both shook our heads.

Interconnected. That’s what we are with everyone & everything.

In not recognizing it, we are what the prophets lamented, “foolish and senseless people who have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear.” Which leads to little understanding of how God is present and at work in our world. After all, one way Jesus described the Kingdom of God is “like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough" (he also used the image of yeast to describe leaders’ hypocrisy).

The Reign of Love, like coronavirus, spreads in hidden ways.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my brother-in-law’s parents’ home this past year. They live less than 5 miles away. Both were diagnosed with COVID-19. His dad died this week. My husband’s grandma was diagnosed with COVID-19 this week, too. And we await the test results of a dear friend as to whether or not he has COVID-19.

The politicization of COVID-19 and seeing people not taking it seriously infuriates me.

I can’t help but think of words found in Deuteronomy 30, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life that you and your descendants may live.”

The “you” being addressed is an entire nation of people. A nation is made of many individual “yous.” So the choice is both personal and communal, they’re interconnected. And they also impact not only those we see right here, right now, but generations to come (we’re seeing this truth with our nation’s racial injustice crying out to be healed).

Granted, the choice doesn’t always look or feel like life at the time. The path of/toward Life often does not.

In the middle of May, we decided that until the virus’ spread trended downward for 2 weeks or we could assure social-distancing measures, we needed to do our best (knowing we wouldn’t do it perfectly) to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” So we cancelled our vacation and we have not let Alex play on his travel baseball team (the latter decision harder than the former).

​Does it make any difference? We don’t know. But those are a couple of ways our family has and continues to choose Life. Given our awareness of our interconnectivity to everything and everyone else, including all of you, we can do no less.

Today is Halloween and my daughter is dressing up like a crazy cat lady.
​In the 13th century she would have been killed.  

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?  

It's amazing what fear can do especially when its conduit is religion.  Fear and superstition can be passed down for centuries!

How many times have you or another remarked on the black cat that just crossed your path?!  

In graduate school, a man studying to be a therapist told me, in all seriousness, that demons took possession of cats so to be wary of them.  Years later a woman told me that black cats were associated with witchcraft and satanism so she would never own one.  A couple of years ago I told a friend how interesting it was that shortly after being trained in Reiki I noticed how our neighbor's 12-year-old cat began spending oodles of time at our house wanting to be petted. She said, "Well, you know what they say about cats and evil."  Clearly she did not trust cats or Reiki!    

All of these people are sincere, intelligent people, but their belief (or what they may even call truth) arose out of fear and superstition from around the year 1232.  

At that time, Pope Gregory IX wanted unity in the Church so he looked to weed out heretics and heretical beliefs (people and beliefs not conforming to the Catholic faith [now remember there was no Protestant faith at this time]).  He also wanted to stop local lords and their mobs from unjustly executing people for heresy before any kind of trial was held.  So he initiated the Papal Inquisition thinking it would bring more order to the process and give heretics an opportunity to return to the Church before being killed. He issued the Vox in Rama to Germany's King Henry hoping he would stop the spread of the heretical Luciferian cult.  In this papal bull he mentioned some of the cult's devil-worshiping practices, including how Satan took the form of a black cat.  And with that document, the demonizing of black cats and their owners began.  

Black cats were killed and any peasant woman who owned cats, especially black cats, was automatically suspect.  Soon the killing spread to all cats as fear heightened with the Black Plague.  Thinking that getting rid of evil cats would get rid of the evil disease, people unknowingly exterminated a needed predator of the rats that housed the fleas that later on many believed were to blame for the Plague.  

Choosing the fear-based path can have far-reaching consequences. From generation to generation others follow the fear trail marked out for them.
 
Here in America, Europeans brought with them their fear-based beliefs about black cats and witches which fueled the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s.  To this day, black cats' bad reputation continues to haunt them as shelters report that they are passed over for the brighter white and orange cats.  And violence toward cats, in particular the black cat, escalates on Halloween.  

So let's pause (no pun intended!) for a moment and let black cats beckon us away from the path of fear & superstition.  Let every cat and their owner be a reminder that we all hold such beliefs whatever person, people group, or animal we may choose to fear, blame, and even (God-forbid!) exterminate.  

In writing this post, I found I wanted to blame Pope Gregory IX but realized I needed to dig a little deeper into the story rather than automatically (and easily) demonizing him!  Each time we catch a fear and/or superstition-based belief arising within us (who or what we blame may clue us in), let us become aware of the fork in the road.

We don't have to continue down the same path tread by our ancestors.  Yes, it may be harder and take longer but as Deuteronomy and Proverbs urge, we can choose the path of life with discernment, wisdom, and kindness.

Black cats and crazy cat ladies will thank us.  Future generations will, too.    

​Do you really think
more thinking is
needed right now?

Especially when what
we're dealing with is a
sickness of the mind!

With sad eyes
the soul whispers
“Stop” (as it always has)

Did Saint Paul not say 
the same to the good folks
of Galatia?

With a humble heart
(admitting the -ism
existing in yourself)
sit in Silence

Without mistaking such
Silence for absence
or worse, indifference!

The soul knows
how to wait
for salvation from
its Source.

And do you remember
Jesus speaking to his disciples--
What does it take for some
demonic powers to leave?

Prayer and fasting.
So ask,
then close your lips and listen.

Until clenched fists open
until anxiety and anger
slip through your fingers

Until you receive
in your now-ready head,
heart, and hands
​
that which you are to give
for the healing of this,
your world.

What do we do with deep questions?  
While similar to last week's Trading Theological Certainty for Freedom, rather than inviting us to ask the questions, I want to consider what to do once a difficult question is voiced.    

Why?  Unfortunately we're masters at offering too simplistic of answers and explanations whether in conversation or from the pulpit.  Instead, let's keep a few things in mind and heart: 

Be wary of easy answers.
Whether you are on the giving or receiving end, an easy answer is often not a gift.  Writes poet-philosopher David Whyte in his poem Tobar Phadraic, "Be impatient with easy explanations..."
Indeed!  Have you ever cringed, felt a shot of anger or been further weighed down when you've read or been offered an easy explanation?  You may have wanted to shout, "What I'm wrestling with isn't that easy, if you can't do better than that, don't say anything at all!" If tempted to give an easy answer in response to a person's painful situation or deep question, bite your tongue (especially if it's getting ready to spout "spiritual" words) and offer your simple presence instead!  And if said person longs for you to give them an answer, let Rich Mullins' song lyric from Playing Hard to Get be your guide, "And I know it would not hurt any less, even if it could be explained."
 
Live the questions.
Jesus put it this way, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matt. 7)  He just doesn't tell us when or how.  So we're to continue to ask, seek and knock.

Rainer Maria Rilke put it this way, "I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." You can read even more in his 1908, Letters to a Young Poet.
 
Engage the imagination, body, intuition and other people.  
You live the questions by living them with your whole self in the whole of life. This is not some mind game or exam you'll be quizzed on later with a passing or failing grade (though there's bad theology out there that resembles such!).  Listen to your dreams, both the daytime bidden and the nighttime unbidden.  Your body has something to say to your questions, why not listen?  You know those inklings, suspicions, gut feelings and hunches?  Don't toss them out, they, too are valuable companions. And find at least one safe person, whether a spiritual director, close friend or family member, to engage in soul-shaping conversation.  Saint Basil of Caesarea once wrote, "God the Creator has arranged things so that we need each other."  In other words, we do not have to ask, seek, and knock alone.  

I hope you weren't expecting a black and white explanation of how to respond to deep (and rarely black & white) questions!  Whether you are asking or listening to the question, may you enter in with your whole self finding the question or difficult situation a doorway leading deeper into the transforming, life-giving Mystery.    

• When did an answer given to you fall flat or offer little to your situation or question?  
• Have you ever been on the giving end?  When did you realize the answer you were offering was not a gift and what did you do?
• Who in your life has a "deeper than words" presence offering a safe place for your questions?