In Jesus Christ, God has entered our world as the Supreme Scapegoat: The blows who have hated you have fallen upon me. Jesus willingly took the place of the woman caught in adultery, in the place of the outcast, the tax-collectors, the sinners, and the poor in his own life and in his death. He was nailed between two thieves: one who accepted Him, and one who seemingly was a rebel and who deserved his plight. Jesus on the cross was "naked" and uncovered. While The Divine Seamstress sewed coverings for the nakedness of Adam and Eve so they would not be overcome with shame, He left His Son exposed on the cross.
We are the only religion in the world that worships the scapegoat. In the wilderness, Moses was instructed by God to nail a serpent to a brazen pole; all who gazed upon it would be healed from snake-bite --- an interesting analogy when attached to the episode in the Garden. The very thing that was killing them was the thing that healed them. Anyway, Richard Rohr says this about the cross:
Today, this is perhaps what we would call 'grief work,' holding the mystery of pain and looking right at it and learning deeply from it, which normally leads to an uncanny and newfound compassion and understanding. The hospice movement and the exponential growth in bereavement ministries throughout many of the churches are showing this to be true, but how long it has taken us to rediscover such wisdom.
I believe we are invited to gaze upon the image of the crucified to soften our hearts toward God, and to know that God's heart has always been softened toward us, even and most especially in our suffering. This softens us toward ourselves and all others who suffer (p.192).
Many people today commonly accept as the 'mainline opinion' that Jesus' death was 'appeasing the justice of God, who was 'offended' by man's disobedience. What they do not realize is that the "Atonement Theory" emerged in the Middle Ages with the growth of universities and 'scholars.' One could really argue that to read both Isaiah and the Book of Romans from a masculine, organized, theoretical viewpoint, the theory can be demonstrated with select quotes from Scripture. Some of the Dominican scholars, in particular, with their emphasis on accounting for every minute detail of theology (as in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica), reasoned that a debt or sacrifice had to be paid to someone for some reason. Some said to the devil, some to God the Father, while others like Peter Abelard were not sure why either was necessary.
The subject was one of debate in the Middle Ages -- after all, most of us have heard about and laughed about the "how many angels on the head of a pin" debate, stemming from the same era. Here's the interesting thing: the debate continued unabated for decades, without either denial or condemnation by orthodox Catholic teaching. The Franciscan and Dominican schools were almost the official "debating societies" of that time. [Today, we might see the Church's same stance on the subject of evolution: There is room within the church on both creationism and guided evolution -- neither position is thrown out while the debate continues. Obviously, we learned our lesson even before the farce of Galileo and the Inquisition.]
The Franciscan interpretation represented by John Duns Scotus, primarily, was considered a legitimate 'minority position," much as our Supreme Court operates today. Duns Scotus put his intelligence and spirituality to work on the written and stated positions of the "majority positions," primarily held by the Dominicans. Duns Scotus relied more on the books of Ephsians and Colossians than on the book of Romans to explicate his theory of Divine Compassion.
When the Reformation occurred, however, the Protestant reformers largely accepted and even furthered the "majority position" (necessary blood sacrifice, or atonement) rather uncritically. Even while "protesting," the Protestant tradition continued with popular Catholicism much more than it realized. Strangely enough, it became less "broad-minded" than the church it condemned on some issues.
John Duns Scotus saw the frequent references to 'blood sacrifices' in the Old Testament as speaking powerfully to a people surrounded on all sides by pagans devoted to human sacrifice. God chose Abraham to teach His people that it was not the sacrifice of their sons and daughters He wanted. He mercifully gave them a "substitute" for that impulse, even though the 'blood' of lambs and goats could not undo the sense of sin that haunts all of us. The story of the Old Testament is our story: God gradually leads us from "information" to "transformation," by participating with us in the human condition. If God is somehow participating in human suffering, instead of just passively tolerating it and observing it, that changes everything.
Jesus is, in effect, saying, "I am taking the bite of the serpent, the worst thing that has ever happened to you, and transforming it into the best thing that has ever happened to you." The Bible says that "he became sin for our sake, and nailed it to the cross." He is "not working some magic in the sky that saves the world from sin and death;" He is taking our sin and our death and destroying it forever, so that it no longer has power over us. (Read Romans 7 & 8). He is saying, "you will never be victimized, destroyed, or helpless again! I am giving you the victory over all forms of death and dis-union."
Jesus refused to blame or to scapegoat others for what was happening to Him. He "was tempted in all things as we are without sin." He entrusted Himself into the hands of the Father instead and returned curses with blessings. He refused to be overcome by evil. What dies on the cross with Him is not our body, but our ego. We surrender our "I" to Him, the "I" that needs to defend itself against all attacks, real or perceived -- and we allow the false "I" to undergo death in Him so that the Real Me -- the me that is the image and likeness of God -- can be resurrected from the dead and live forever. And we do not need to wait until our physical death for the process to begin. Through the outpouring of Jesus's Resurrected Spirit at Pentecost, we can all be daily dying and rising with Jesus.
Fortunately, our Salvation does not depend on our theology -- unless our theology is keeping us away from the love of God poured out on us in Jesus Christ and in the daily ministry of His Spirit at work in us. We can continue to defend the Atonement Theory without diminishing the Love of God for us if we choose -- as do many, if not all, radio preachers. But if that theory just cannot resonate in us, given our own experience, I would say we need to reach further for ourselves. Unless outward authority is matched by the inner authority of our God-given spirits, we do well to prayerfully examine the teachings of others. Even the 'ex-cathedra' teachings of the Catholic church, given usually after long centuries of thoughtful prayer and study and "majority" agreement among men of good will, are there for our own entry into worship, prayer, and thought. There are many who are not inclined to think, pray, inquire for themselves -- but even then, Jesus promise remains: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
(Note: I have taken the history of ideas from Richard Rohr's Things Hidden, weaving my comments into his text. )
(Note: I have taken the history of ideas from Richard Rohr's Things Hidden, weaving my comments into his text. )
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