By Rev. Rebecca Bryan
Many famous and infamous things happen in a moment. We make decisions every day, every moment, in fact. In and of themselves most never amount to anything. Every decision is interconnected to a web of earlier decisions and moments though by and large we are unconscious of the interconnectedness of our actions.

It is easy to forget that what we do today plants seeds for what happens tomorrow, the next day, and even for the next generation. We like to think of ourselves as intelligent, clever, and creative; and we are all of those things. Yet we must also admit that we are indisputably affected by those around us. 

Are we awake? Do we learn from history, or do we simply go about our days responding to the forces of time and people around us, acting and reacting in habitual ways? 

How often do we promise that this is the last time we will need to respond to violence with violence, hatred with hatred, and anger with vengeance? 

How often do we profess values of love and peace yet act differently? 

Easter is a time when we remember and honor the story of one prophet, among many, who taught the way of nonviolence. Jesus lived in a world just like ours, one fraught with violence, poverty, and division. His was a message of love, inclusion, and restorative justice. “Love your neighbor as yourself” was his primary commandment, second only to loving God. 

Many scholars agree that Jesus’ disciples included women at a time when women were not included in positions of formal power and influence. He loved lepers, children, and tax collectors. He left no one out. All were called in. And what if, just what if, the stories of his miracles are to show us the possibilities of restorative justice? Love conquering the incurable. 

Scholar and theologian Mark S. Heim in his book Saved from Sacrifice, a theology of the cross, offers an alternative meaning to Jesus’ death on the cross. In place of the common theory of atonement, or Jesus dying for our sins, Heim invites us to consider that Jesus’ death was a call for us to choose peace and stop violence, specifically scapegoating. “Jesus was already preaching the forgiveness of sins and forgiving sins before he died. He did not have to wait until after the resurrection to do that,” Heim writes.  “Redemptive violence is our equation…Sacrifice is the disease we have…The cure is not more of the same,” he goes on to write.

French philosopher and historian René Girard, from who Heim drew much of his conclusion, “contends that the practice of sacrificial scapegoating is a cornerstone of human society and religion.” 

Girard outlines a simple but profound theory of scapegoating and the role it plays in groups. He believes that scapegoating is an age-old response to group conflict. Other scholars have noted this; the difference in Girard’s theory is that he concludes that scapegoating works. It temporarily relieves tension or conflict in a group. It does not, however, resolve the origin of the conflict. Thus, we are challenged not only to stop scapegoating but also to understand how conflict in groups arises and then cultivate change at that foundational level. 

Girard notes that when people come together in a group of any size, including families and congregations, they learn from each other. This is known as mimetic theory. 

For example, children learn how to understand themselves through the eyes and facial expressions of their caregivers. Similarly, children learn what toys are desirable through the reactions of their peers. When the focus of our desire clashes with other people’s desires, as it inherently will when we look to limited resources or false idols, tension or conflict arises. At a certain point, the conflict escalates to a point that people in the group unconsciously look for a way to relieve the tension. They seek to redirect the attention and place the tension onto something or someone else. In comes the scapegoat. 

A person or group of people who are weaker and more vulnerable than the people in power are chosen to become the problem. We see this when the child in an alcoholic family becomes the problem to be fixed or in history when poor whites turned against African American slaves. The group focus turns to the scapegoats, and “harmony” is restored in the larger group. 

Eventually the scapegoat leaves, is ostracized, or is even killed. Scapegoats who leave or are ostracized are known to start the cycle all over again, except this time they are the oppressors. This plays out when the bully in the school yard is a threatened scapegoat at home or when the early colonists left the constraints of England to subsequently persecute the American Indigenous people.

Key to this syndrome is that the people doing the scapegoating do not realize this is happening. Heim reiterates that “the choice of a victim is in truth an arbitrary act. It does not have to do with the guilt of the accused but with the need of the community.”

The only way to change this cycle is to stop the scapegoating. “Scapegoating…cannot be reversed until it is recognized.”  Says Girard.

The only way that scapegoating can be stopped is to give voice to the victims. Thus, we return to the concept of centering from last Sunday. 

We cannot know what we do not know. We do not want to see this pattern in ourselves. Not only do we want to believe that we are intelligent, clever, and creative, as I said earlier; we also want to believe that we are kind, loving, and free of harm to others. We are kind and loving, and we harm others, sometimes knowingly, more often unknowingly. 

The practice of scapegoating creates insiders and outsiders. It is painful at best, and murderous far too often. It is easier to recognize this pattern in other people and groups. It is harder to recognize it in ourselves and our own groups. 

We know when we are the outsider. It takes an incredible amount of honesty and self-awareness to realize when we are the ones on the inside. But it happens every day. 

When this happens, it hurts.  It fosters pain and lack of understanding which are the opposite of what we strive for. 

An integrated community has room for all of its people as an integrated person has room for all parts of herself or himself. It is diversity, not uniformity, that makes us most whole. As a congregation, we promise to create this kind of inclusionary community. Community is not the same as conformity.

The answer lies in centering the voices of those who are normally marginalized and learning from one another. It is hard work. We will and are making mistakes. When we center different perspectives and voices, including historically marginalized or scapegoated perspectives and voices, we can begin to learn. We develop compassion where before we had ignorance. We begin to love through that compassion, and we realize that we must care for one another. We then desire to act in solidarity with others who are being scapegoated. 

Karlene Griffiths, feminist theologian and organizer in the black liberation movement, calls this creating communities that are borderless. It is about “creating space to explore what it means to be fully human and the sacredness of all humanity through deep relationship building and solidarity.” Karlene told me just last week. 

Theologian James Cone says “We share a common humanity despite our cultural, racial, and gender differences and all the kinds of differences we have, and that common humanity is more important than all the other things, even though the other things are important…”

This is a both-and situation. We share a common humanity, and we have differences. We cannot bypass the phases of understanding our differences, for it is in understanding our differences that we come to know our common humanity. That will create a world of insiders. All insiders. No scapegoats. Imagine that. 

This world that I am describing, which some might say is an impossible dream, is our responsibility to create. The place to start is within our own families and this community. 

You can do several things right now. First, you can learn more about the proposal for FRS to become a level-two sanctuary church. This is what Marilou was describing for us earlier. The congregational church in Amesbury has voted to become a level-one sanctuary church. That congregation will house the immigrant or refugee, and we, along with other faith communities, would provide the volunteers and support needed to ensure that that the person or family lives safely while in sanctuary. There will be opportunities to learn more about this. I hope that you will vote yes when it comes before you at our congregational meeting on June 9^th. 

Second, you can complete a brief survey entitled, Willing to Connect. The link to this is in your Order of Service. The survey has five questions that will help us to identify some differences among us. Then we are going to match up folks that perhaps don’t know each other and encourage you to get to know one another. Take a chance, it will be fun. 

Finally, you can take a palm as you leave the sanctuary this morning and keep it as a visual reminder to learn more about others. This includes being curious about differences, being open to learn from them, and then accepting and welcoming them. Let’s keep these palms for one year. As we journey together over the year ahead, I hope that we will commit to our common humanity. I pray that this will be a community that is inclusive, open, and welcoming to all people and that we can learn how to live and thrive in our differences and shared humanity. 

I started this sermon by saying that there are moments in time that are famous or make a difference. This is one of those moments. Your choice can make a difference. We arrive here at this place today intertwined and connected to history — the history of our country, of this church, of ourselves. 

We can choose to make the sacrifices our ancestors of all races made matter. We can choose love, inclusion, and restorative justice. Jesus would be happy. 

Just imagine. 

Amen and Blessed Be 

I’m going to ask us to do something different today. Please leave in silence at the conclusion of our service. You will be offered a palm as you leave.