Homily for the 2nd Sun Ordinary Time by Fr. Guerric Heckel
January 19, 2019
John1: 29-34
How often in conversations or in more public ways do we hear people commenting on natural disasters like earthquakes, Tsunamies, tornados, hurricanes, volcano eruptions, floods, fires etc. say things like “the things we do are catching up with us.” They are not usually referring to the effect of our human footprint on the world’s finely balanced ecological systems but rather implying God might be punishing the world for its sinfulness.
In our Gospel today, John the Baptist refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – the Lamb, sent by God, entrusted by God to take away the sin of the world, not to punish the world or get even. There is no “getting even” in God. There is no violence in God- just the determination to save us from violence. But how does the sacrificial lamb take away sin and wash others clean?
Ronald Rolheiser offers a beautiful reflection on this in his book, Sacred Fire. He says, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is not just any lamb, he is the scapegoat lamb. He describes this notion of scapegoating in this way.
Until we reach a certain level of maturity, we form community largely around scapegoating; that is, we overcome our differences and tensions by focusing on someone or something about whom or which we share a common distancing, indignation, ridicule, anger, or jealousy. The function of gossip is very important here. We overcome our differences and tensions by scapegoating someone or something. That is why it is easier to form community against something rather than around something, and why it is easier to define ourselves more by what we are against than by what we are for.
Take this example: imagine going out for dinner with a group of colleagues. While there is not necessarily overt hostility among you, there are clear differences and tensions. You would not naturally choose to go out to dinner together, but you’ve been thrown together by circumstances and are trying to make the best of it. So, you have dinner together, and things, in fact are quite pleasant. How do you manage to get along so well despite your differences? By talking about someone else! Of course, you are afraid to go to the bathroom because you already know whom they will be talking about when you get up from the table. Your fear is well founded.
At the time of Jesus, within the Jewish community a ritual existed that essentially worked this way: at regular intervals the community would take a goat and symbolically invest it will all the tensions and divisions in the community. They would then put a crown of thrones on its head and chase it off to die in the desert. It’s leaving the community was understood as taking the sin and tension away and the community was seen to be washed clean through its blood, its suffering, its death.
It is understandable how immediately after his death Jesus’ followers would ascribe that role to him. His death was understood as doing for them and for the world what a scapegoat did for a given community. Jesus functions like the scapegoat, except he does not take away the tension and sin of the community by some type of psychological transference or spiritual magic, as did the ancient scapegoat. Rather, he takes away the tensions and sins of the community by absorbing them, carrying them, transforming them, and not giving them back in kind.
Jesus did this, as Rolheiser says, by functioning as a water purifier, a filter of sorts. In looking at his death they understood this; he took hatred, held it, transformed it, and gave back love; he took in bitterness, held it, transformed it, and gave back graciousness; he took in curses, held them, transformed them, and gave back blessings; and he took in murder, held it, transformed it, and gave back forgiveness. Jesus resisted the instinct to give back in kind, hatred for hatred, curses for curses, jealousy for jealousy, murder for murder. He held and transformed these things rather than simply transmitting them. He took away the sins of the world by absorbing them, at great cost to himself.
But it is always understood as an invitation and not a command. It is not so much a question of being good or bad, depending upon whether or not we accept or dodge the invitation. Rather it is a question of maturity: How mature to I want to be. In the words of Ronald Rolheiser, “That which does not get transformed gets transmitted.”