Luke 8:26-39
BEING FREED FROM YOUR SCAPEGOATS | SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST | JUNE 22, 2025 | Luke 8:26-39 (RCL) | David Zersen |
Today’s Gospel lesson is an interesting parable or story, but, surprisingly, it was not included in lectionary readings until 1995 when the three-year cycle of readings for the Revised Common Lectionary was first adopted. And just as surprising, it’s not included in the Roman Catholic lectionary at all. The narrative is dramatic and challenging, and it raises questions with which many theologians have grappled. And we are faced with the same challenges today! When wrestling with parables, it’s important to recognize that we don’t need to press every issue. Why did the poor pigs have to jump over the cliff to satisfy the demons? And who are the demons in this first-century story? Perhaps, most importantly, who was the chained and naked man living in the tombs? And probably, most personally. who were the people who told Jesus to get out of town?
Let me begin by sharing an episode from a novel that I read this week, The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink, a German lawyer and novelist who is eighty years old this year. His father was a well-known Lutheran pastor and theologian, Edmund Schlink. The 1995 novel became an international best-seller and was translated into 39 languages. The story tells about a clandestine love affair between a fifteen-year-old boy and a thirty-six-year-old woman that suddenly ends when Hannah disappears, and Michael goes to university to study law. As a part of Michael’s studies, he is expected to visit with fellow students, a trial that is taking place after World War II.
Shockingly, to Michael, one of those on trial is his former paramour, Hannah. And even more problematic for Michael is the fact that the other former guards make Hannah their scapegoat, accusing her of making all the decisions that led to the burning of hundreds of prisoners locked inside a church!
I haven’t revealed the surprising conclusion of the plot—should you choose to read the novel yourself. But I anguish with Michael about Hannah’s fellow guards making her the scapegoat in the trial in the hopes of avoiding punishment themselves. Rene Girard, Paul Nuechterlein, and others have suggested that this is the anguishing situation in the parable Jesus tells—and to which we should now pay attention. The scene that Jesus encounters is one in which local people have perhaps accused a man of indiscretions, petty theft, and even more problematic things. You know how it is when it’s not easy to determine who committed a crime or caused a problem? To blame someone who can’t easily defend themselves. A person who once made a serious mistake. The town bad boy or the village idiot. So, they fashion a scapegoat. There is no prison, so they tell him he has to stay outside the community in a place where the graves are located. They chained him, so he can’t come back. And if something inappropriate occurs, they check to see if the scapegoat is loose again.
There is something deeply profound, even personally challenging, about this story. Thinking back to your childhood, do you remember ever blaming someone for something that you did? I do? There were classmates who were mentally or physically challenged whom we found it acceptable to humiliate. We didn’t know the word scapegoat, but I remember their actual names even today. And as we’ve become more mature, we’ve learned how not to just brand individuals, but to accuse whole segments of society. Depending on whether we’re more conservative or progressive, we have our scapegoats. And you don’t have to be a journalism student to understand how the media inflames our passions by creating negative headlines to intimate that problems result from the very people that are distasteful to various media persuasions. The tensions that arise in our society as a result of our need to blame someone—anyone—give us uncomfortable assessments of our world and our place in it. Theologians call this sin—the need to find fault in others in the hopes of setting ourselves free.
Now let’s revisit the parable to discover why scapegoating doesn’t work. Jesus enters the scene and messes up the comfortable arrangement the townspeople have. He gives the scapegoat a new lease on life, setting him free from the chains that hold him to the tattle-talers and the finger-pointers and the blamers. And now the townspeople—you and I—have no one to blame but ourselves. What we thought was a good deal is a dead end. And we have no one to blame.
BUT WE DO HAVE JESUS!
And it is this Jesus who sets us free from our need to blame, to hate, to criticize, to find fault.
Those are the very tools that we had hoped would allow us to escape any need to be wrong.
To be plagued by guilt or fear. In today’s Epistle lesson (Galatians 3:28), Paul reminds us that through Jesus‘ gift of forgiveness and new life we are freed from the antagonism that needs to separate us from others. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free. We are all one in Christ”. If scapegoating is your sickness, Jesus has set you free. In our baptisms, we have died to the old possibilities. In Christ’s death, we are given new life. In his resurrection, we face the future unafraid.
I well remember a shut-in call I made as a pastor to old Mr. G. We would talk about our sin and Christ’s forgiveness. But Mr. G, who was hardened in his old way and struggled to grasp the meaning of new life for him, typically raised his cane and shouted, “We’ve got to go back to the old ways.” Mr. G. was afraid of leaving the old life, the one that had driven his wife away and estranged him from his children and neighbors. He mistakenly thought he was comfortable with his scapegoats.
Don’t you be afraid! What are your complicating sins today? Who are your scapegoats? Let Jesus set you free! As we gather at the Lord’s table today know that Jesus invites us to accept his full and rich forgiveness, that his love helps you say “no” to scapegoating and ‘yes” to the realization that it’s better to acknowledge your sin and be forgiven for it than to allow yourself to pretend that clinging to scapegoats does anyone any good.
Don’t be afraid to let Jesus set you free!
Hymn for the day: “Oh For A Thousand Tongues To Sing”
David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D. FRHistS
President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas
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