Progressive Christian Reflections by Chris Glaser: Scapegoat

Showing posts with label Scapegoat. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Exorcising Demons

This post from 2011 speaks to the attack on the U.S. capitol last week.

The people of Jesus’ time assigned behavior or ailments they did not understand to demons inhabiting the individual. Any of us who have witnessed a friend in the throes of severe suffering, chronic pain, addiction, or mental or physical illness can understand how these things may so transform a person as to seem possessed. Naming the demon is the beginning of compassion, care, and possibly, cure.

We would not stop at naming a disease but try to provide treatment. So, to stop at simply naming a disorder or dysfunction and using it as an excuse for bad behavior or an occasion for getting on Dr. Phil, makes us enablers. Cultural anthropologist Rene Girard writes, “Possession is not an individual phenomenon…[it] is always contagious; those who are [so affected] are likely to communicate their desire to you, or in other words, drag you along their same path…” As Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Jesus might as well have been working with an addicted family member, a dysfunctional congregation, the Washington quagmire, or the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate when he confronted the Gerasene demoniac’s “Legion”—a hostile army of demons that caused its victim to live naked among the tombs, exiling himself and stoning himself, the standard punishments (Girard points out) of Middle Eastern societies in Jesus’ time. (See Mark 5:1-20.)

The Greek word for devil in the New Testament is “diabolos,” which means “divider” or “adversary.” I believe that “discerning the spirits” empowers us to name and cast out divisiveness, but not diversity, even of points of view. According to Girard, the demoniac was a convenient scapegoat for the Gerasenes, reflecting their own dysfunctionality. Jesus casts the demons into a herd of pigs which runs off a cliff into a lake to drown, another style of execution. His fellow villagers find the formerly possessed man at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind” and they are afraid, asking Jesus to leave their community.

Who exorcises demons in our world today? Whistle-blowers. Prophets. Mediators. Systems analysts. Interim pastors. Therapists. Spiritual directors. 12-Step sponsors. Soul friends. Researchers. Scientists. Journalists. And more.

In our own divisiveness and dysfunctionality, Christians may take comfort as well as challenge in these words from the epistle to the Galatians, “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

May we become “clothed in Christ” and in our right minds.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Earth, Air, Water, and Fire

Sunset on the Nile, January 1981 - crg

I offer four meditations from my book Communion of Life that celebrates the gifts of earth, air, water and fire. You will better understand how Celtic spirituality and Celtic Christianity deeply touch me.

Cycle One: Day 1 Earth

Sacred earth :

Holding us fast,

Whirling to keep us steady,

Shifting axis to temper climate,

Yielding nutrients of life.

Holy ground :

A grassy belly cradling us in rest,

A rounded, rocky bosom inspiring dreamers,

A birth canal whose current is destiny.

Grateful, grateful am I,

To stand, to sit, to lie on you,

To ride, to sail, to drive on you,

To look down, to look up, to look out

And see you there.

Sacred ground,

I remove my shoes in reverence.

Cycle Three: Day 10 Air

The sun’s glory

Wraps around us,

Dives into valleys,

Peaks behind ridges,

Slinks through city streets,

Explodes on beaches

As if through thin air.

The sun’s grandeur

Glows green through branches,

Bounces lavender off irises,

Mushrooms grey above factories,

Canopies blue on clear days,

Gilds with age,

As if through thin air.

The sun’s gospel

Proclaimed to earth’s ends

Effortlessly, gracefully,

Baptizing us all,

Just and unjust,

Believer and nonbeliever,

Grateful and ungrateful,

Enlightened and unenlightened—

Immersing us all

In our star’s splashing splendor

As if through thin air.

Cycle Two: Day 7 Water

You live within me—

In my eyes, in my flesh,

In my thoughts, in my movements :

My liquidity.

You cleanse me inside and out,

Rinsing each cell,

Flushing out toxins,

Boiling out sweat,

Crying out grief.

Most of me is you.

Before air, I knew you,

Bundled by embryonic fluids :

Echo of primordial waters

Where first were fused

Earth, air, water, fire,

The things that make for life.

As you held me,

Now I hold you,

Precious, unasked gift from eternity—

Living water.

Cycle Eleven: Day 44 Fire

You have been the center of our dance.

From bonfires ablaze to candles flickering,

Wildly we have swung around you,

Howling, shouting, singing, chanting,

Igniting our passion for uniting

For war, for the hunt, for community, for the gods.

Flame mesmerized by flame :

Our burning, restless insides

Stretch outside unfired clay

For flames of unity, at-one-ment in immolation :

The burning flash of bullets and bombs,

The stinging, fatal wound by carnivores,

The searing of the heretic at the stake,

The burnt offering of sacrifice.

Attacking the enemy,

Devouring our prey,

Excommunicating the stranger,

Slaughtering a scapegoat

Do not make us one.

We are one—

With one another and the gods,

With the enemy, the prey, the stranger, the scapegoat—

Clay lamps burning with the same divine starstuff

That prompts bowing in reverence and awe

Before one another.

To know more about how the book came to be, see my earlier post “Communion of Life.”

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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

White Supremacy: Fifty Shades of White?

Courtesy The Star.

Since the Unite the Right demonstrations and counterdemonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, I have alternated between rage and tears.

Why do Jews become an automatic scapegoat? Why are blacks and Muslims and immigrants viewed as “stealing” our country? Why are liberals the “bad guys”? Why has the Confederacy become for some the icon of American values? Why should Anglo-Europeans have a corner on American culture?

When it comes to white supremacy, I want to ask which hue of white? Off-white? Ivory? Cream? Eggshell? Almond? Vanilla? Manila? Navajo white? Are freckles allowed? How many? How deep a tan is permitted? Would I have to be an albino to qualify? White supremacists should consult interior designers and fashionistas to list fifty shades of white that are welcome in their movement.

All those classified as “white” come from cultures and countries that managed to create angry divisions all on their own, long before they stepped onto the global stage to conquer and colonize and “civilize” peoples of color, including the only Americans who can claim they were here first, Native Americans.

And white “civilization” could not make it on its own, but depended on slavery and spreading their empires to succeed, exploiting the resources of other civilizations that were not recognized as such. Granted, Anglo-Europeans were not alone in the world doing this, but why elevate any civilization that did so?

And for those white supremacists who claim “Christian” as their religion: Jesus was a Jew from the Middle East, and more than two-thirds of the Bible are Jewish scriptures. Even most of the New Testament was written by Jews.

Jesus lauded faith where he found it: the Gentile centurion who sought healing for his servant, the Good Samaritan who rescued one who had been brutalized, the Samaritan woman at the well to whom he revealed his mission, the Jewish widow who gave all she had to the Temple treasury, even, after a little hesitation, the Canaanite woman who sought mere crumbs.

From the cross, Jesus assured a criminal that they would be together in paradise, and he prayed God’s forgiveness for his executioners. For generations, white supremacists have mocked Jesus by burning crosses to terrorize people, acts of domestic terrorism.

From those who claimed President Obama was not born in the United States to those who lynched minorities, whether by rope, weapon, or jury, white supremacists are anything but supreme. They are threatened not by external factors, but by their own insecurities and inadequacies.

On the radio Sunday, I heard an African American theologian say we must not believe anyone is beyond redemption. From her lips to their hearts.

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Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Jesus, A New Adam

Jesus as the new Adam is a trope familiar to Christianity since Paul’s letters to the Romans and Corinthians. It has come to be reinterpreted by others, and perhaps what I present here has already been imagined, as anyone reading this blog knows my knowledge is limited. But I want to offer what meaning came to me as I grappled with the notion of Jesus “dying for my sins” during this recent Holy Week.

I have flat out written on this blog that the God who is worthy of my devotion would never require the death of any kind of scapegoat as a stand-in for me taking responsibility for my own sins.

But I have also written that the sacrificial love represented in the story of the cross mythologically conveys the absolute and eternal depths of God’s compassion. Many theologians have focused on the concept of God dying on the cross rather than “his only son,” taking the onus of a demanding, bloodthirsty God off the table. And anyone who has had a terrible sin to forgive of another knows the suffering such compassion entails.

Longtime readers may remember that one of my Holy Week practices is to read one chapter each day of a short book, The Temple of God’s Wounds, in which the narrator visits a mythological monastery at a turning point in his life. I’ve written that I overlook his transactional understanding of atonement to contemplate other, deeper spiritual wisdom contained therein.

This time I focused on how difficult it is for him (and for me) to face that which is absolutely holy. I understand better the “mysterium tremendum,” the “terrible” face of God or, as the OED adds in its definition, of existence itself.

During our last visit shortly before his death, an elderly dedicated churchman and beloved professor surprised me by his sudden tears and seemingly non-sequitur confession, saying something like, “I hope dear old Mother Church can forgive me for any embarrassment I’ve caused her.” I don’t think this was prompted solely by his having been a closeted gay man.

Age may make us aware how far we have fallen short, not only of the glory of God, but of the glory of being a child of God, because I found during Holy Week that, along with the writer of The Temple of God’s Wounds, I felt such a need for forgiveness! Now, I know, as an introvert, that even the good I may do can embarrass me; but I’ve done plenty of things I’d prefer not to have in my eulogy!

I have a depiction, acquired in Egypt, of a Pharaoh being weighed on scales opposite a feather. The tradition was that if the Pharaoh’s heart was heavier than a feather, he could not enter eternity. Few if any of us could pass such a test!

I have been reading The Islamic Jesus by Mustafa Akyol. A reader and contributor to my blog had asked me if there was a book I was eager to have in my library. Having just read a review of this book, that’s what I asked for. What’s remarkable to me is that the Qur’an, while not supporting Jesus’ divinity, reveres him as a prophet, like Moses and Muhammad. The writer suggests that this was the view of the Jerusalem church and its Jewish Christians led by James, and represented in Christian scriptures by the epistle of James, which does not refer to the divinity of Jesus and famously includes, “Faith without works is dead.” This contrasts with other Christian emphases on mere belief, and specifically belief in Jesus’ divinity and substitutionary atonement.

Thus I realized that progressive Christians have that in common with the early Jewish Christians, not to mention Muslims and Jews. We may or may not hold to Jesus’ divinity, and consider that doing justice and practicing charity and showing mercy are what the Lord (i.e. God) requires of us.

For me as a progressive Christian, Jesus is the “new Adam”—not the innocent and perfect and beautiful (and initially sexless) Ken and Barbie doll of Adam and Eve; rather the tried and tested, unappealing and vulnerable and wounded one, acquainted with sorrows and grief, the bearer of the sins and injustices of the world—political, religious, and personal. Treasonous and blasphemous, betrayable and deniable, because compassion was all he held dear.

Thus he knows the trouble I’ve seen, the trouble I’ve gotten into, and the trouble I’ve caused, not just personally but throughout the world. He is the real human being that Adam and Eve could not even imagine in their innocence and privilege. They were rough drafts, prototypes, not as fully human.

So when Jesus prays, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” it seems genuine, true, and possible.

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Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Gerasene Demoniac Announces Presidential Bid

With gratitude to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Unrestrained by the moderates of either ruling party of Gerasa, Mr. Legion has announced (howled, really) that he will run for president of the country, declaring that its dysfunctional government must be replaced by his Lunatic Fringe if it is to accomplish what the people really want.

Campaigning in a nearby cemetery—the only place, he explains, where he will not be interrupted—he says he has no need of the media to bash him, because he can do so himself using the many stones available there. His nudity, he asserts, symbolizes his campaign’s transparency, contrasting with his opponents’ many obfuscations and secret funding.

He explains that his 5000 demons, from whence he takes his name, best represent the many prejudices, fears, anxieties, and evils secretly harbored by the Gerasenes, and which the ruling parties manipulate to win elections.

“There would be no need of a candidate like me,” he wails persuasively, “If the members of the political parties could negotiate their differences without trying to score points in the media, take advantage of the other’s flexibility, or insert narrow ideologies and religious views in legislation.” He adds, gesturing, “Why, that great herd of swine over there get along better than they do!”

As Jesus passes by, Mr. Legion demands gruffly, “And what do you want with me?!”

“Come out of this man, you unclean spirits!” Jesus commands. And out of Mr. Legion come the people’s prejudices, fears, anxieties, and evils—but they have nowhere to go, save to return to the people who imagine they are above this candidate’s lunacy.

Though Jesus doesn’t want to scapegoat the nearby herd of swine by visiting them with the presidential hopeful’s demons, this seems the lesser evil, and off they stampede over a cliff to drown in the sea (“News at 11!”).

The people of Gerasa, as well as the leaders of their ruling parties, come to find Mr. Legion clothed and in his right mind, and they are afraid. Lest Jesus exorcise their demons, they urge him to move on.

Mr. Legion wants to follow, but Jesus challenges him to go to his fellow citizens and tell them what God has done—how God’s mercy can transform even the most vile and merciless candidates for elected office, as well as their electors.

Likely, many of his fellow countrymen and countrywomen will prefer to join the pigs in the sea.

Today’s post alludes to an analysis of this story by René Girard referenced in an earlier post, “Exorcising Demons.”

This “midrash” on Mark 5:1-20 also appeared in the Huffington Post a few weeks ago, but didn’t get much traction!

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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Crazy Man in the Basement

The intimacies offered me in conversation and pastoral counseling as well as my own self-knowledge have convinced me that many and perhaps most of us live with a crazy man or a crazy woman in our basement. Perhaps that was the intended metaphor of Charlotte Bronte’s Gothic novel, Jane Eyre, that had a deranged relation imprisoned secretly in an upper room or attic. Yet I think my “crazy person in the basement” concept suggests something more basic to our nature than our upper regions, more visceral than conscious. This is the one stoking our furnace and fueling our engine down below, so to speak. When one escapes, the host makes news, and endures judgment from those of us who think “we are not like them.”

What occasions this rumination was watching an entertaining romantic comedy about a British retirement home for gifted musicians entitled, Quartet (2012). A character’s frontal lobe has been damaged and so cannot edit himself, bluntly expressing indelicate feelings, observations, and thoughts coming from, one could say, his crazy man in the basement.

What you read on this blog I carefully edit, because writing my posts is like working without a net—after all, I have no editor or copyeditor as I have had with all my other writings. Thus I read and review each post multiple times to make sure it says what I want it to say as well as to avoid misunderstandings.

But my whole life—and I would suggest others’ lives—is a product of similar, careful editing. I cannot speak for others, but Christ, culture, and Chris are primary editorial filters for me. I follow Jesus as spiritual guide, and he represents specific views of God, so Christ is also my God filter. Multiple cultures serve as editorial filters for me: spiritual, ethical, theological, literary, social, scientific, liberal, marginal—the list goes on. Most in need of explanation is “Chris,” but all this means is that my life must reflect and reveal what I believe about myself, and I believe this is common for most of us.

The crazy man in my basement is one who resists Christ, culture, and Chris. This is the one I sometimes meet when I become angry or anxious, infatuated or lustful, greedy or envious or vengeful, obsessive or pious, one who is fearful and fearless, vulnerable and arrogant, clueless and clever.

Christian mystics from the Desert Fathers and Mothers to the more contemporary Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating have recognized that the crazy man or woman in the basement rears his or her unwelcome head as our spiritual lives progress. Like the demons who asked Jesus, “What have you to do with us?” so our shadow selves emerge in the presence of God’s light, needing redemption and healing. This is considered a natural progression in spiritual growth.

Some keep the crazy person in the basement, often secretly, preventing their shadow side from encountering Jesus’ or God’s TLC. Some externalize and scapegoat the crazy person, attempting to restrain the demoniac as the Gerasenes did, or allowing him to exile and stone himself naked and vulnerable among tombs, failing to recognize that “he is us.” (See Mark 5:1-20 and my post, listed below, “Exorcising Demons.”)

I believe what is needed is an honest encounter with the crazy man or crazy woman inside each of us. Only then may we come to ourselves, and through spiritual practices and the help of a spiritual community, spiritual director, or soul friend (anamchara), find our right minds.

Progressive Christian Reflections is an authorized Emerging Ministry of MCC. Your donations are its only means of support. Thank you!

Related posts:

Exorcising Demons

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite. Consider using a post or quotes in your congregation’s or group’s newsletter, including the blog address: http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

What I Don't Believe, What I Do Believe

News flash: My dog, Hobbes, was mentioned in yesterday’s New York Times!

Kierkegaard echoed the apostle Paul’s spiritual counsel to work out our own salvation “in fear and trembling,” and many if not most of us know exactly what that means. “The fear of the Lord” is so entrenched in many of us that we have dearly struggled to ‘fess up to what we do and don’t believe, for fear of angering a jealous deity, or incurring the wrath of fellow believers (and sometimes, strangely as insistently, of nonbelievers) for not “toeing the line” of standard Christian doctrine. I can do little about the latter, what others think, long ago taking as a mantra (though insufficiently realized) the title of a book I never read, What You Think of Me Is None of My Business by Terry Cole-Whittaker.

But it still feels like my business what God thinks of me, and I have had the fear of the Lord assuaged in me by Brother Thomas Keating’s observation that biblical “fear of the Lord” was less that of anxiety than of awe. I do believe in an awesome God, but what keeps me from quivering (most of the time) is that I TRUST God rather than FEAR God, which seems to me what the gist of the biblical witness is about. I say all this as preface to what follows.

I don’t believe Jesus died for my sins. At least, not exactly. Human sin tortures, torments, and kills people every day, and I do my fair share of causing that, either by sins of commission or omission. But a god who requires the blood of a scapegoat, a lamb, or a child of God to forgive me is not worthy of my praise. The God I believe in is bigger than that. I do believe in a God willing to sacrificially forgive, which to me is the spiritual essence of the story. And I do believe that Jesus lived and died and still lives on our behalf.

Jesus is not the only son of God. Remember, the Hebrews thought of themselves as the children of God. And the Gospel of John says Jesus came into the world that we all might be children of God. I do believe Jesus reminded us of our divine imprint, the imago dei of creation, and the apostle Paul called us to live up to our inheritance as sons and daughters of God—an awesome task, not to benefit our self-esteem as in self-help movements or “extend our territory” as in the prosperity gospel, but to “be the change we seek in the world” (Gandhi).

“One holy catholic (as in universal) church.” Notice I did not preface this with “I don’t believe” nor “I believe in…” “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief,” I would say. I have seen this holy universal church in my dreams as well as in my waking hours. It is not confined to the institutional church, of course, but includes those “standing on the threshold of the church” with Simone Weil, and those well beyond that threshold, “the least of these.” This includes those of us who carry invisible wounds of the church’s abuse and abandonment, like my rescued dog, Hobbes, who ducks when somebody reaches to pet her because she was apparently mistreated before I found her, abandoned in the local park, thirteen years ago. For us and for her, it’s not really about forgiveness, it’s about trust.

I don’t believe in hell. What good is it? What good does it do a deity to enforce eternal suffering? Purgatory makes more sense to me. I’m not quite sure what to make of heaven either, except I’ve long believed that heaven on earth is where God’s will and our wills coincide. I would like to think that those I love who’ve died are with God. I do believe God loves us always, and in that love (again) I trust, so, blessedly, I don’t have to have a fully-formed opinion.

I don’t believe in original sin. This one’s way too easy. With Celtic Christianity and specifically with Pelagius, I believe each of us is born good and essentially are good, though we may be blemished, disfigured, or held captive by sin. Thus redemption may be viewed as liberation to be who we really are.

“Jesus loves me, this I know.” And not only because “the Bible tells me so.” Mere words could never convey the love I have felt from Jesus. It came from my mom and dad, from Christian friends, teachers, professors, clergy, guides, soul friends, and lovers. And it came from the Holy Spirit, opening scripture to me, opening my heart and mind, and releasing me from the whitewashed tombs of doctrines that no longer resonate.

“To God be the glory.” This seems too obvious, but needs be said in a culture and church where everyone’s glory is noted in the phenomenon of celebrity. No matter how “glorious” one becomes, including even Jesus, all glory ultimately rests with God. Else, how would it be there?

Related posts:

The Soul Feels Its Worth

What about Sin?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Exorcising Demons

We would not stop at naming a disease, but try to provide treatment. So, to stop at simply naming a disorder or dysfunction and using it as an excuse for bad behavior or an occasion for getting on Dr. Phil, makes us enablers. Cultural anthropologist Rene Girard writes, “Possession is not an individual phenomenon..[it] is always contagious; those who are [so affected] are likely to communicate their desire to you, or in other words, drag you along their same path…” As Dr. Phil would ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”