Ash Wednesday sermon

There is a great scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where Brian’s Mum and all the other women in his town buy false beards and begin speaking in low tones so that they can pretend to be men and therefore can go to the public stoning. In that scene, the women’s enthusiasm to be present at the stoning and to cast the first stone is symptomatic of our desire to scapegoat other people. We love nothing better, they were saying, than to single out a victim, gang up on that person and see them abused or killed.

We see this happening in our schools when children are bullied. We see it in politics when a party like the BNP succeeds in local elections by persuading people that all their problems are caused by refugees and asylum seekers.

A teacher at the Asian Friendship Centre in Forest Gate, a project supported by the Church Urban Fund, gives just one example from many, of “A young man from Pakistan had limited English. He was laughed at in school and was very lonely.” Forest Gate has high levels of poverty, unemployment and crime, which leave many locally feeling isolated from mainstream society - scapegoated. As a base for social gatherings and employment and educational support, the Asian Friendship Centre is a vital resource which helps to make local people feel a welcome part of their community.

The Church Urban Fund has also been actively involved in the Poverty and Homelessness Week which has just ended. Alison Gelder, Chief Executive of Housing Justice, said: “Churches rightly pay lots of attention to poverty and hunger in the third world but often fail to appreciate the extent of the problem at home … [It is] a scandal that in this the fifth biggest economy in the world more than one in five people are living in poverty … For most people in poverty in Britain it is not about literally being homeless or having no money but about not being able to fully participate in society.”

People at the margins of society such as families having to endure cramped overcrowded accommodation, asylum seekers who are suffering destitution, disabled people having to live in inappropriate housing and families forced into debt in order to afford everyday items, end up being scapegoats for the rest of society.

So the Pythons were right when we look around our world we see many examples of a rush to scapegoat other people. What do our Bible readings have to say to us about this very human tendency?

In our Gospel reading (John 8. 1-11), Jesus is faced with a dilemma involving a scapegoat. A woman has been caught in adultery, the Law of Moses says that she should be stoned, and the teachers of the law bring her to Jesus and ask him what they should do.

The woman is a scapegoat because she has been singled out. It is she, not her partner in adultery, which has been brought before Jesus. And it is she that has been singled out, not any other of the men or women in that place who might have committed adultery.

How does Jesus respond? He says that anyone there who has never sinned should be the one to cast the first stone and begin the stoning. One by one, everyone in the crowd leaves because no one has never sinned. Each of us is a sinner and, therefore, none of us are in a place where we can honestly judge another person. That other person is guilty of sinning but so are we, how then can we judge them?

The one person in that situation who had a right to cast the first stone because he was without sin was Jesus. And he says, “I do not condemn you.” In verse 15 of chapter 8, Jesus says, “You make judgments in a purely human way; I pass judgment on no one.”

This is a crystal clear statement from Jesus about our tendency to scapegoat others. Because of our sin, we cannot in all conscience condemn another person and God himself does not condemn or judge either. Jesus makes it plain and clear that scapegoating others is wrong in every circumstance.

Lent prepares us for Easter and at Easter we remember that God himself became a scapegoat when he was nailed to the cross for the sins of the whole world. Jesus became the ultimate scapegoat in order that there should be no more scapegoating because his death shows us clear and plain that God accepts and forgives all people.

Often, we prepare ourselves during Lent for Easter by giving something up. This is a form of fasting but it is not meant to be focused on ourselves, like a diet is as we try to lose wait. Instead fasting or self denial should be focused outside of ourselves.

The reading from Isaiah (58. 1-12) says that the kind of fasting that God wants is for us to “remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.” As those who follow God, we should actively work for the relief of those who are scapegoated in our world. The two things can go together as, by denying ourselves luxuries during Lent, we can release money to go to those who have been scapegoated here and in other parts of the world.

If we were to give up having a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate a day, by the end of Lent we could give £12. If we were to give up a bottle of wine once a week, we could give £20. If we gave up meals out during Lent, we could give £50 and if we gave up unnecessary luxuries in our weekly family shop, we could give £100. So, let’s use our Lent appeal for the Church Urban Fund, our Lent lunch and the other Lent information and ideas around to think about the ways in which we can give to the relief of oppression in our world this Lent.

But the kind of fasting that God calls for, the ending of scapegoating, isn’t just about giving financially. It is also about the ending of scapegoating in our own lives and communities. It means addressing the issues of bullying, in and out of school, among young people. It means resisting the calls of those, like the BNP, who want us to scapegoat asylum seekers and refugees instead of providing the welcome for which the Bible calls. It means living out hospitality and welcome to those of other faiths in our local community, as we will be discussing in our evening Lent course. Let us give willingly and joyfully to relive oppression in our country and throughout our world but let us not use that as a reason to avoid the challenges to counter scapegoating that arise in our own community as well.

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Living Colour - Solace Of You.