Scapegoats

We all have them. For Cain, it was Abel. For the Jews of Jesus’s day, it was the Samaritans and the Gentiles. For the Pharisees, it was those who didn’t follow the scribal interpretation of the law. For the Republicans, it’s the left-leaning Democrats with their socialist agenda. For the Democrats, it’s the Republicans with their pro-business, dark-money conservativism. For the MAGA crowd, it’s the RINOs and the libs. For the Lincoln Project, it’s Trump and his supporters. For those advocating white supremacy, it’s people of color and immigrants. For The UMC, it’s the GMC. For the GMC, it’s The UMC. We all have our scapegoats.

A scapegoat is an individual or a group that another individual or group views negatively. The scapegoat is viewed as the source of a problem or of an unwelcomed situation. Viewing the scapegoat through this negative lens leads first to judging them and then to speaking critically of them. The scapegoat is to blame—“It’s their fault. They’re the problem. If it weren’t for them . . . !” The blame, in turn, can lead to treating the scapegoat cruelly, harshly, even abusively. The scapegoat is viewed and treated as being in a one-down, less-than position.

Not only do we all have them, it seems we also need them. We use scapegoats in at least three ways. First, they are a way we establish our own sense of identity and our sense of being okay. “We are not like them!” The implication is that we are better than them. Scapegoats are also a convenient way to avoid issues we don’t want to acknowledge and don’t know how to address. By blaming the scapegoat, we can live in denial, blind to ourselves and to our contribution to the problem. In addition, scapegoats are an easy target of our unrecognized, unaddressed, and unresolved anger. They allow us to dump our anger with a not-so-subtle sense of self-righteousness.

While we assign blame to the scapegoat, the scapegoating process is really about us. It is about what lies in our shadow that we do not recognize or acknowledge. It is about old pain that we stuffed down out of our awareness, leaving it unrecognized, unaddressed, and unresolved. Because we cannot face it or own it, this pain gets projected out onto others. Unresolved pain gets projected outward onto others. Unaddressed grief becomes a grievance directed at others. In other words, our scapegoat is a mirror reflecting what we don’t want to see about ourselves.  

It seems Jesus understood the emotional dynamic at play in the scapegoating process. In the Sermon on the Mount, he taught “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). We become critical and judgmental of others when we do not recognize the 2x4 in our own eye. Our unrecognized, unaddressed, unresolved pain gets projected onto others in the form of criticism and judgment. Our critical spirit is the indicator of inner pain needing to be recognized, acknowledged, addressed, and resolved. 

We all have our scapegoats. That reality raises two questions. First, who—what individual, what group—is my scapegoat? To answer this question, we only need to identify those we repeatedly criticize, judge, find fault with, and feel anger toward. The second question: what am I avoiding by focusing on my scapegoat? What about myself do I not see because of my focus on the faults of others? What is the 2x4 in my own eye that I don’t see because I am focused on the speck in my neighbor’s eye?

Scapegoating is a normal part of our human nature. It is a dimension of our constructed, ego-centric self. It is the inevitable expression of us-them thinking. Jesus warned us about these kinds of emotional games. “Do not judge,” he said (Matthew 7:1).

For those of us who are the followers of Jesus, scapegoating is not the last word. The Spirit is at work in us, bringing us to Christ-like spiritual maturity. That work includes healing the emotional wounds and the old pain we have stuffed into our shadow (an often neglected aspect of spiritual formation). “First take the log out of your own eye,” Jesus said. Dealing with and resolving our own inner pain changes how we see and treat others. It changes how we view and deal with the speck in their eye. As we work through our pain in pursuit of healing, we become more understanding of and compassionate with others. Rather than being critical and judgmental of them, we become supportive and helpful as they do the hard work of dealing with their pain. As the Spirit heals our pain and matures us emotionally-spiritually-relationally, we move beyond us-them thinking. The Spirit leads us beyond scapegoating.

Scapegoating is not a characteristic of the follower of Jesus.