[Aaron] shall take from the congregation of Israel two male goats for a sin offering… He shall take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the doorway to the tent of meeting. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the LORD and one lot for the scapegoat (azazel)… the scapegoat presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement for it, to sent it into the wilderness as the scapegoat… Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and sent it away into the wilderness…
Leviticus 16:7-22
On the Day of Atonement, there were two goats offered on behalf of the people. The “scapegoat” comes from the Hebrew word azazel and is only used here in this chapter. Aaron laid his hands on the goat to transfer the sins of the people onto the live goat. The goat was never killed. The goat bears the sins of Israel on itself; their sins become embodied in another. The people of God have now transferred their sins somewhere else.
I want to ask a question.
Do we have a scapegoat in our religious society today?
Think real hard.
I work as a server. There was a woman and her daughter that came in the other day, and my first impression was the thought, “I bet her daughter is very oppressed…” I don’t know this woman. I don’t know these people. I don’t know their home life. I’m making a judgment based upon what I can see and through the lens of my own experience. This family is clearly of a higher wealth income. It got me thinking though.
I was taught manners growing up.
Don’t chew with your mouth open. Sit straight up; don’t slouch. You’re holding your pencil wrong (slap the hands). Don’t make noise; children are to be seen not heard. Come inside you’re playing too much. You gotta think, son (in context of being forgetful). You’re getting too old to act like this. Don’t let your fork scrape the plate. Don’t cross your legs (or do if you’re a lady). Eat that with a spoon, not a fork. Say please and thank you. Wait your turn. Hold the door. Cover your mouth. Ask permission. Mind your elders. Offer your seat. Wear clean clothes at the dinner table. Place your napkin on your lap. Eye contact when communicating. Listen without interrupting. Don’t say “yeah;” it’s yes. Place the napkin in your lap. No potty mouth. Sit still. Yes ma’am or sir. Shake hands firmly. Say excuse me. Put down electronics when someone enters the room. Don’t visit unless invited or agreed that it is convenient to do so. Don’t assume you can stay as long as you want. Don’t leave food on your plate. Always speak softly on the phone; don’t shout because it disturbs others. Be on time.
In some regard, these are legitimate. We teach our kids to be respectful and how to grow up in the world. There’s another degree to which it becomes oppression.
Here’s what ends up happening when the manners become the goal, instead of the goal being to teach your kids to be a certain type of person:
The people who don’t satisfy your beliefs of what “manners” and “good” and “success” and “acceptable” and “respectable” are suddenly become ostracized. They become looked down upon. Drunkard. Bum. Addict. Hussy. Floozy. Spinster. Ghetto. Deadbeat. Trashy. Delinquent. Vagrant. Ne’er-do-weller. Bad stock. Shiftless. These aren’t labels. They’re terms used to cut down someone’s personhood based upon their social status.
“You don’t want to be like…”
Suddenly, when you examine these terms, you realize something. Almost every single one of these terms is disproportionately associated with lower income areas. A wealthy teen is “troubled;” a poor teen is “a delinquent.” Suddenly, it isn’t about the person. It’s about scapegoating the poor. It’s about pointing the finger at the oppressed to claim they’re the dregs of society. It’s about suggesting the problem with America is that those people just won’t stop being like those people are. It then causes the entire demographic to get categorized as “lesser than” and somehow less pious, or righteous, or whatever term applies. No longer are we putting our hands upon the scapegoat to send it into the wilderness. We personify the sins of our own doing, as if it isn’t the societal and systemic machine that has forced these categories to begin with. Suddenly it is easier to say that it’s more righteous to hit your children than for them to hold their pencil wrong. Suddenly we justify scolding and screaming at a child because they didn’t sit up straight. Suddenly we find the youth are being blamed for society’s pitfalls instead of the adults who raised them.
The community’s disorder now has a face, and it conveniently isn’t yours.
Today is the Day of Atonement, September 21, 2026. While so many within the religious world that I have encountered have put Jesus as the goat that gets sacrificed, I can’t think of any who have shown how Jesus was the goat that was cast into the wilderness. They called him demon possessed. They called him a heretic. They said he blasphemed. They called him a sinner and a friend of sinners. They called him a glutton. They called him a drunkard. They called him a samaritan (derogatory in his world). They called him mad, or out of his mind. They called him a deceiver. They said nothing good can come out of his hometown in doubt of him. Some even think that Jesus was called a bastard when they said, “We were not born of sexual immorality.”
From the overflow of your heart does your mouth speak. The way you speak of these types of people show just who it is that you have deemed as your scapegoat in order to escape your own sins.
Hebrews ends with this statement: Jesus also… suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach (13:11-13). The followers of Jesus are being summoned to leave the respectable center and to join him there, most likely even being ostracized with him.
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