"WHAT CAN WE BELIEVE?"

“Sacrifice and Sin” Part II

In his book, The Challenge of Jesus, John Shea says, “It is the stubborn yet unrecognized fact that forgiveness, as it is currently preached, has no impact because people just do not think they are all that bad.” Shea continues, “In most cases the sinner takes his sin with a grain of salt and is not all that sorry.”

What do you think of Shea’s comments? Do most people today feel pretty good about themselves? Should the Church dispense with “prayers of confession” which, of course, imply that people have done something bad? What significance would Communion have for people who feel they are not all that bad? Should the idea of judgment, where we tell people how “wrong” or “bad” they are be eliminated from religion?

Blood sacrifice was prevalent on thousands of altars in the ancient world. Sacrifice means “to make sacred.” To sacrifice is to offer something to a deity, or it can be the giving up of something desirable in behalf of something higher, or devotion to a claim more pressing. To the ancients, the “life was in the blood”, thus a blood sacrifice was a sacrifice of a life.

Is blood sacrifice practiced today? Is life offered to any of the “gods” of the present world? Are there other kinds of sacrifice prevalent in today’s world? If so, are they attempts to achieve “forgiveness of sins”? Is sacrifice an outmoded concept for modern life and religion?

Among the ancient Israelites, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) the priest chose two goats. One was sacrificed and the other had the sins of the people ritually transferred to it , and it was then sent out into the wilderness – thus the scapegoat. The scapegoat was used to bear away the sins of the community.

In our time do we have “scapegoats”? Is there a sense in which the larger community transfers its sin and guilt to a person or group of persons causing them to be “driven out into the wilderness” or to suffer in behalf of the group? How do individuals and groups get rid of sin and guilt today?