The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are currently touring the Caribbean.

But their arrival in Jamaica…

a few days ago… 

sparked protests.

Groups of locals have gathered outside the British High Commission…

holding signs with the local creole phrase, “Seh yuh sorry”.

The protests come after an open letter to the couple was published––

signed by dozens of high-profile members of the Jamaican community…

including lawyers, academics, teachers, religious leaders, artists, and scientists––

calling for an apology for “the exploitation of the indigenous people of Jamaica”…

as well as the transatlantic slave trade…

“indentureship and colonisation”.

But the letter also pointed out that an apology, alone, was insufficient.

Rather there needed to be “recognition of the need for atonement and reparations”…

pointing out that… 

the Cambridges are “direct beneficiaries of the wealth accumulated by the Royal family over centuries”…

some of which had come from “the trafficking and enslavement of Africans”.

So, more than an apology, what was needed was “a process of reparatory justice”.

That was the only way to “redefine the relationship between the British Monarchy and the people of Jamaica”.

 

When a relationship is strained or fractured…

most of us have been taught––

from the time that we were young kids––

that we need to say “Sorry”.

But, as adults, we know that it takes more than that.

Ultimately, we only heal a damaged relationship through concrete action––

action that we take to address what caused the rupture in the first place;

and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

And the onus, in that regard, is on the offending party––

if someone, in particular, is at fault.

But… 

as part of that process––

partly because of what we have been taught…

and partly through instinct––

we frequently perform symbolic or ritual actions…

as a visual expression of our remorse and our desire to make amends.

And so it is that…

within our culture…

we have the ritualised custom––

which has almost become a caricature––

of men giving flowers to their wives as a way of saying “sorry”.

The process of restoring a relationship…

then…

involves a combination of verbal acknowledgment…

symbolic action…

and genuine, practical acts of reparation and change.

Without those things, reconciliation isn’t possible.

 

When we come to consider our relationship with God––

down the centuries––

we have seen it in those same terms.

There’s a narrative that’s been constructed––

especially within Protestant theology––

that goes something like this:

God created the world and it was good. 

But humans rebelled and did what God said we shouldn’t. 

As a result of that ‘sin’, our relationship with God was damaged. 

And God was angry.

And there was nothing that we could do to make up for the enormity of what we had done. 

But God had an ingenious plan. 

Since humankind couldn’t repay the debt that we owed to God––

and we couldn’t appropriately make amends––

God sent God’s son into the world as a human, to pay the price as a human.

Yet, because he was also God, the payment would be sufficient. 

Anyone, then, who accepted that––

namely, that Jesus had died in our place…

as a blood-sacrifice for our sins––

would be saved and would receive eternal life.

 

And yet…

if you think about it…

does it really make any sense? 

 

What does it say about the nature of God? 

How do we make sense of––

let alone respect––

a God that demands a bloody sacrifice in order to be appeased?

To paraphrase Bishop Spong: doesn’t that leave us with a God who’s guilty of the worst form of child abuse imaginable? 

At the same time, such an understanding implies that the end justifies the means; 

or that two wrongs make a right. 

Yet that’s contrary to the most fundamental ethical principles. 

It also doesn’t fit with what the Bible says.

It certainly doesn’t fit with how Paul understood it.

Paul used a variety of images and metaphors to try to make sense of Christ’s death.

And we see a couple of them in our reading this morning…

from the so-called “Second” Letter to the Corinthians.

But there’s no sense here of Jesus dying as our substitute.

Rather, Jesus acts in a representative sense.

First, Paul claims, through our representative participation in Christ…

“there is a new creation”. 

That is… 

when we align ourselves with Christ…

it’s as if our old selves are put to death with him…

and are raised to new life with him.

And not just us––

the whole creation is re-created.

And that’s a wonderfully evocative image.

 

But, then, Paul moves to a rather different image or metaphor.

He speaks of our relationship with God…

and proclaims that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ”…

and…

in case we didn’t hear it the first time, he repeats it in the next verse…

“In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”. 

Again, note, there’s no sense of Christ as “substitute” here.

The Greek preposition that’s translated as “in” can have a range of nuances…

but, here, it seems to have the sense of ‘being contained within’.

In other words, we’re swept up in––

we’re the beneficiaries of––

what Christ has done.

And yet, at this point, Paul doesn’t spell out what that is.

What he does make absolutely crystal-clear… 

is that it had the effect of restoring the relationship.

But, note!

Paul is at pains to emphasise that it is us––

all of us…

the whole world––

who are being reconciled to God.

He specifically doesn’t say that God is being reconciled to us.

The reconciliation is from our side.

God doesn’t need to change for this relationship to be restored.

And that can only mean that God’s attitude towards us—

God’s ‘feelings’ about us––

don’t need to change.

In other words, God isn’t angry with us.

God doesn’t need to be appeased.

We, humans, presume that God does.

Because we do.

We have simply projected human nature back onto God…

and assumed that God responds as we do.

 

As such, the death of Jesus was not for God’s benefit…

it was for ours…

because we assume that something had to be done to make it right;

we assume that some sort of symbolic, ritual act was needed…

for us to be reconciled to God.

In effect…

we assume that God needed a big bunch of flowers…

or else.

And that’s more or less what’s going on in the final verse of our reading:
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”.

Here, Paul draws on the image of the “scapegoat”…

from the Hebrew ‘Day of Atonement’ ritual.

In that rite, the High Priest symbolically placed his hands on the head of a goat––

one that was ‘pure’ and without flaw––

symbolically transferring the sins of the people onto it…

and then driving the goat out into the wilderness.

It wasn’t a sacrifice.

Through this ritual…

then…

they could see themselves as clean and whole again.

And they presumed that God saw them that way too.

 

It wasn’t God that needed––

or demanded–– 

Jesus’ death…

in order for us to be forgiven or made whole.

It’s just a shame that we think someone had to die to do that.