Every now and then a hopelessly overcrowded little boat arrives at Darwin. Jammed with refugees, it has made the hazardous voyage from Viet Nam with inadequate supplies, often with nothing more than a compass and a page torn from a school atlas as navigational aids. Typically the boat has far too many people in it for even reasonable comfort as the people scramble for places in the boat that they hope will bring them to a new life. More often than not the boat is in pretty poor shape. The refugees must know that there is a good chance that they will not survive (it has been estimated that at least half the ships sink on the way). The little boats were not designed for long ocean voyages and they are usually not in the best of shape to start with.
But still they come. Despite the dangers and the hardships they keep coming. The refugees may not know all the hazards into which they are thrusting themselves but they do know what they are fleeing from. So they continue to make the effort.
So far those who have reached Australia have been allowed to stay and efforts have been made to find jobs and places in the community for them. But there have also been voices raised in protest. Unemployment in this country is high so some ask, Why should we allow these people to come in and take jobs away from native-born Australians? Others point to recognized immigration procedures and ask why these people should be allowed to jump the queue. There have been allegations that some who arrive in the little boats are not really refugees, destitute and friendless, but wealthy people who choose this way of getting away from their problems in their own land and starting afresh in this one.
In our world there are many groups of refugees and no real solution to the problem has been found. The Palestinians are a continuing reminder that the problem can be lasting and intractable. So there they are, in many countries throughout the world, minority communities without rights, without possessions, and often without hope.
It is rarely that they are given anything remotely resembling a welcome from the host country. Indeed, the opposite is often the case, for a minority group, especially an ethnic minority, forms a splendid scapegoat. When troubles arise in our community most of us are happy to find someone on whom we can heap the blame. It is comforting to divert attention from our inability to solve our problems by saying that really it is not our fault. If it were not for these aliens in our midst we would be all right.
So it is that minority groups are rarely regarded as valued members in the community. Few of us are guiltless when we think of black people in Australia and the U.S.A., of Asians in Britain, of Chinese in Viet Nam, of Palestinians in Lebanon, to name but a few. It is so easy to be hostile to the stranger within our gates, however he got there and however just his cause. Even if the majority community is hopelessly in the wrong the attitude is the same. Majorities are more interested in scapegoats than in justice.
Christians ought to be the leaders in mitigating such evils. We profess to follow one who pronounced a blessing on those who welcomed the needy and the stranger (Matt. 25:34–36) and who pronounced a curse on those who failed to make use of this kind of opportunity (Matt. 25:41–43). His “Inasmuch as you did it (or did it not) to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it (or did it not) to me” rings in our ears. The Bible leaves little doubt as to what our attitude should be.
It is a matter for profound sorrow that the track record of the Christian Church in this matter is far from uniformly good. In our thinking about minorities we are often all too representative of the communities in which we live. The lines have sometimes been drawn as hard in the churches as anywhere. It is not difficult to find examples of professing Christians who have shown anything but love to the underprivileged in their area. All too often we have been just as ready as anyone to ostracize our minorities and to make them the scapegoats for the ills in our midst.
When we are tempted to make yet another scapegoat we might profitably reflect on the origin of the term. Leviticus 16 lays down the procedures to be followed by old Israel on the annual Day of Atonement. There are solemn rituals to be gone through and sacrifices to be offered. The part that concerns us is that in which “Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and send him away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness” (Lev. 16:21). The goat was not thought of as sinning. It was the community that sinned. But the high priest “put” the people’s sins on the goat and then sent him off into the wilderness.
What distinguishes the classical scapegoat from our modern tendency to find someone we can blame for all our ills is the Bible’s clear recognition that the community has sinned. The repetition is impressive. The high priest was to confess “all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins.” There was no evasion or equivocation or attempt at avoiding responsibility. The people had sinned and they knew it. They came humbly to God confessing those sins and seeking forgiveness. The scapegoat ritual witnessed to the fact that God had provided a way of dealing with the sins of the people.
In the New Testament Jesus is seen as fulfilling perfectly all that the Old Testament ritual had foreshadowed. The Epistle to the Hebrews makes use of the Day of Atonement ceremonies to bring out the truth that Jesus has carried away the sins of his people and they will see them no more.
But it also insists that the people who have been forgiven in this way should live as the forgiven. In particular this Epistle urges on us the importance of brotherly love, of right treatment of strangers and of prisoners, of love in marriage. For good measure it adds a warning against a wrong kind of love, love of money (Heb. 13:1–6).
Confronted with the boat people or any other minority it is this kind of thing that should guide Christians. One has suffered in our stead, suffered for our sins. Suffered. It is not for us then to make minorities into scapegoats. Rather we are to find the path of love and pursue it resolutely in the spirit of him, whose we are and whom we serve.
Leon Morris is principal of Ridley College, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
