Scapegoat



I have been a pastor for 14 months. From time to time, I’ve felt like I was in way over my head. A couple of times a week, I have moments where I feel I don’t know what I’m doing and who am I to even be involved in something so consequential for so many people.

I fear failure. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to make mistakes that end up hurting others, and I don’t want to let people down. But the thing is, I’m just a student pastor, by a long shot the youngest and least experienced pastor on a big team. And I joined in the middle of a lot of changes that have been a long time coming. A lot of these changes are being engineered by other members of the church that have been around for way longer than me. So I don’t want to be overly dramatic about how important I am to what’s going on; I’m just a small cog in a big machine.

But, see that’s the thing! That last paragraph is true, but also a powerful way to absolve myself of responsibility if things end up going belly-up. “How is this my fault? I only came along last year; this isn’t my mess”.

Our culture has a thorough sensitivity to personal responsibility, but we are cavemen (cavepeople?) when it comes to understanding corporate responsibility. We tend to err on the “don’t blame one person for the failures of a group of people” side of things, which partly explains why almost nobody went to jail after the fallout of the global financial crisis. And why Trump was “not my President” (oops, or was it Biden?). We don’t possess a strong language or robust social imagination for dealing with collective guilt. “I was just an employee! It was only a job to me, why do I have to take the blame?” “I sure didn’t vote for him! Why do I have to bear his shame?”

And this is so frustrating to me. And it’s hella frustrating to you too, you just might not know it. Have you ever gotten pissed that your iPhone just wasn’t working right, or that you’re late for work because the trains are delayed again? And then have you ever gotten pissed because you can’t direct your original pissedoffness at any one particular human being in particular, and you just have to settle for being mad at Apple, or Transport NSW, or Woolworths, or Facebook, or Telstra or whatever? It’s not satisfying to be angry at a corporation or a brand, is it? You want a human being to take the blame. And you call customer service and yell at some poor customer service rep who didn’t have any part in designing the feature that’s pissing you off, and that’s not satisfying at all and now you feel a little guilty for unloading on an “innocent person”. But even if you did find the guy who made that stupid pop-up ad that you can’t turn off, or the engineer who didn’t factor the train schedule for rain delays, would yelling at them be satisfying? They were just doing their jobs! They were just a small cog in a big machine. “How is it my mess? Blame my boss. Blame my boss’ boss. Blame the executives who prize profit over functionality. Blame the investors who prioritize dividends over product quality. Blame anyone but me. Me, small cog. You’re mad at the big, bad machine.”

The opposite of a champion is a scapegoat. A champion wins victories for his tribe. A scapegoat bears their sin and shame, and cleanses the community by being banished into the wilderness. We all want a champion to share their victory. We all want need a scapegoat to take our blame.

Jesus Christ is both our champion and our scapegoat, and he occupies both those roles in ways that are gloriously beneficial to us. As our scapegoat, he alone bore the punishment of everyone who is in him. He didn’t say, “Father what do I have to do with these stubborn, wretched, wicked people?” Instead, even as he was dying for us, he said, “Father forgive them”.

And as our champion, Jesus secures for us every spiritual blessing that comes with his victory over sin and death on the cross. It’s a guarantee, a sure hope so long as we are in him. That’s why he is the Son of Man. That’s why he is the true Adam.

Our culture doesn’t get what Jesus did. We get passing the blame, and we get CYA, and we’re baffled that Christ came into the mess that we made, took it all upon himself, and then freely shared the blessings to everyone in him. So next time you see someone in the world avoiding responsibility, give thanks to God that you’re in Jesus, who is not of this world.

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