Get Your Goat

Leviticus 16:20-22

I’d heard the phrase “That really gets my goat,” before, but I never really knew where it came from. The phrase itself has to do with becoming irritated, akin to saying, “That really irks me.” Apparently it was common practice to keep a goat as the stall companion for thoroughbred race-horses. Having a goat around helped keep the racehorses calm, taking the goat away would induce anxiety and restlessness. So, the night before a big race, less than reputable gamblers would try to “get the goat” of the horses they bet against, to keep them from having a restful night and doing well in the next day’s races. The goat became a metaphor for calm and peace, and “getting someone’s goat” became a metaphor for disturbing that peace.

The LORD commanded Moses that every year on the 10th day of the 7th month, the community of Israel should fast and take Sabbath and make atonement for their sins before one another and before the LORD. As Abraham Heschel puts it in his Philosophy of Judaism, “At the ritual of the Day of Atonement the High Priest would cast lots upon two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. The purpose of the ritual of the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel was to atone for the evil. The High Priest would lay both his hands upon the head of the goat, ‘and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, all their transgressions, all their sins.’ While the purpose of the goat upon which the lot fell for the Lord was to atone for the holy, ‘ to make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins; and so shall he do for the tent of meeting, that dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses.’On the most sacred day of the year the supreme task was to atone for the holy. It preceded the sacrifice, the purpose of which was to atone for the sins.”[1]

The Israelites understood sin in the same way that hand soap commercials understand germs, or that mouthwash commercials understand bacteria. You can’t see it, but it’s there, and it’s dirty, and it’s making you unhealthy. Sin, in other words, gets our goat. It disturbs the peace of a healthy community. To make matters worse, they believed this sin was making the tent of meeting unclean, and the tent of meeting was the place where the presence of the LORD came to meet with the people. The community needed a way to cleanse itself of this sin, and so the ritual of the Day of Atonement was, to go back to the mouthwash commercial, kind of like a gargle and spit for the community and the tent of meeting.

In ritual was performed to restore the health and peace of their community, or, to coin a phrase, “to get their goat back”. In order to do this, they would get two goats and place upon them their sins. The first goat for the LORD was sacrificed and it’s blood was used to cleanse the temple of the people’s sins (the gargle). The second goat, which we read about in today’s passage, took the people’s transgressions and was cast out of the community (the spit). This ritual was done publically, it was made a spectacle so that the people could have a visual representation of their sins being washed away. More importantly than seeing their sins washed away, however, was their believing that their sins were truly forgiven and how they responded to this belief.

If I truly believe that the sins of my community are forgiven, then I no longer carry the guilt and shame of those sins nor do I bear the responsibility of denying my community communion with God, by making the tent of meeting unclean and uninhabitable. Nor can I blame my neighbor. And if I am free of guilt and shame, and my neighbor is free of blame, and we have confidence in our ability to commune with God…then health and peace have been restored to our community. Blame and shame have been carried away on the back of a goat.

This is where the term “scapegoat” is derived. But the “scapegoat” was never intended to become a member or portion of the human community. The scapegoat was supposed to be that which took blame and shame away from the human community so that we could be at peace with one another. But we have become so accustomed to casting blame and shame on one another and our community is anything but healthy on account of this. We need a way to get our goat back.

Really, it’s not about the goat. The goat does not forgive us of our sins. God does. The goat was just a visible representation of God’s grace. The cross of Jesus is a similar representation and reminder of God’s grace for us, but it was also God’s condemnation of the human community’s abuse of sacrifice as a means of maintaining order in a corrupt empire. The cross, as a form of public execution, was Rome’s attempt at “keeping the peace” by crucifying those it found to be blame-worthy under their law. That Jesus was crucified, even though he was without guilt or blame, is a powerful and shocking indictment of this broken system.

The shock factor of the cross is intended make us aware of the devastating impact of our tactics of blame and shame. A simultaneous “shame on you” and “now let me take your shame and guilt so you can get back to living peacefully with your neighbor.” It all comes back to God’s desire that we love one another. That’s why God forgives us. God takes away our guilt and shame so that we are not tempted to cast it as a stone against our neighbor. But the power of that forgiveness to restore the peace of our community, to restore the peace of our nation, to restore the peace of our world only becomes viable if we believe it. Whereas if I believe that God has been taken out of my community, then I’m going to look for someone to blame for that. God has made a covenant with us, given us the promise of forgiveness. The ritual of the Day of Atonement and the cross of Jesus, were visual ways by which God tries to get us to believe in a love by which our world can be transformed, made whole, made healthy, restored to peace.

Our culture of blame and shame and fear and anger leads me to think that something’s got out goat. Something is disturbing our peace. Something, not someone. Although, wouldn’t it feel good to blame “them”? You know who they are...it’s their fault that God isn’t in our communities, isn’t in our nation, isn’t in our world anymore. It’s tempting to believe that. And temptation is the tool of that very thing that has got our goat. And that something is sin. So long as we can be tempted to cast blame and shame on our neighbor, then sin is not threatened. Look at the cross, the most powerful and shocking representation of your sin being washed away. More important than you seeing your sins washed away, is your believing that your sins are truly forgiven and how you respond to this belief. I would even suggest that what we believe influences what we see…it certainly influences what we look for. And fear clouds our judgment in all of this. If I’m afraid of being abandoned by God, and I believe that they are guilty of making my community/my nation/my world uninhabitable by God, then I’m going to look for ways to alleviate my fear by blaming them and casting them out. But it’s not my world, it’s God’s. And it’s not their fault, but sin using us, tempting us to separate from one another, separating us from God.

Let’s stop looking for ways to blame one another for the problems in this world and instead unite in the belief that together we can make things better. Do this, and the Kingdom of God will be close at hand. Know that you are forgiven and be at peace. Trust that you are forgiven and be at peace within yourself. Believe that you are forgiven and make peace with your neighbor. Have faith that you are forgiven and make peace with your enemies. Celebrate that you are forgiven and love one another. Don’t let sin get your goat. Amen.

[1] Heschel, Abraham. 371.