Restorative Justice
Galatians 3:23-29 | 6/6/2004
Listen as I read these words to a popular song from the past.
my mama told me, "Son,
always be a good boy;
don't ever play with guns."
But I shot a man in Reno,
just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin'
I hang my head and cry.
I bet there's rich folk eatin'
in a fancy dining car.
They're prob'ly drinkin' coffee
and smokin' big cigars,
But I know I had it comin',
I know I can't be free,
But those people keep a movin',
and that's what tortures me.
Pierre Allard understands, perhaps better than most. In 1980, his brother Andre was brutally murdered - shot in the face and then dumped in a field outside Montreal. His killers were never found.
Pierre went to see the frozen body because he wanted, he says, "to see the ugliness of evil." Pierre had been a chaplain in one of Canada's roughest prisons, and the whole experience nearly drove him out of the chaplaincy. He had been preaching about reconciliation and forgiveness, but all of a sudden he wanted something else.
He wanted revenge…..Raw, naked revenge.
Who can blame him? Certainly not a growing number of Christians who want tougher justice - not only longer jail sentences and work camps for young offenders, but also capital punishment. There are many devout Christians in the United States who agree with this approach, absolutely and enthusiastically.
Fact is, you can go straight to Scripture if you are looking for support for tougher justice. Right there in the second book of the Bible it says “an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe…life for life.” (Ex 21:23-25) "Life for life" - that sounds like crystal-clear justification for capital punishment ... and raw, naked revenge.
But Pierre Allard found a different foundation in the faith. One night, back on the job, he found himself alone in the prison chapel, looking at the cross - looking at an ancient means of capital punishment.
"I started crying," he confesses. "It was a real healing. The feelings of revenge just melted away."
Pierre started to reflect on the true meaning of justice - and decided that it MUST include both the victim and the offender. He discovered that within Christianity, you don't have the freedom to exclude anyone. Even if you become enemies, you're challenged to love your enemies. Jesus didn't call for revenge on his killers - instead, he said "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).
This isn't "tougher justice," but it sure is tough. In fact, it may be the most difficult type of justice to achieve. But a growing number of people are trying to pull it off, including Pierre Allard, who now says that he would like to meet those who killed his brother and tell them: "I forgive you."
Revenge has been replaced. Replaced by reconciliation.
There's a new movement in the justice system called restorative justice. It's based on the notion that you don't have the freedom to exclude anyone. It offers the guilty an opportunity to be restored - restored by showing repentance, making restitution for damage, restoring the relationship, and making a commitment to change their criminal ways. With the approval of the victim, offenders who qualify attend a series of supervised meetings with the victim(s). What usually happens is that the offender is able to put a face on his victim. His crime is personalized. Complete restitution must be made, and together he and the victim work out the details.
The apostle Paul approves. In fact, if there is any biblical character who benefited from restorative justice, it is Paul himself, who started his career as a violent anti-Christian--an elite-educated, zealous Pharisee. On the road to Damascus, he was "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1), having just approved of the killing of the deacon Stephen. A light from heaven caused him to fall to the ground, but he was not killed - he was given a second chance. He converted and went on to serve the first-century church.
In his letter to the Galatians that I want us to look at today, Paul recalls that "before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed" (3:23). Instead of being the gateway to justification before God, the law was a watchful jailer, keeping people from any further transgressions. Galatians 3:19 says, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring would come…” At times, the law may have seemed more like a benevolent guardian, but it was still keeping men and women imprisoned. The law served this necessary but inferior purpose until the "time of faith" arrived. In verse 24, Paul clarifies that "time" as "until Christ came."
Before faith in Christ delivered us, we had to live by the law--an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We lived by the laws given because we were basically prisoners of sin. "But now that faith has come," Paul says, "we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith" (vv. 25-26).
Thus baptized into Christ, we become one with Christ, and thus, all who are baptized are united in a bond of fellowship stronger than any other existing force. Paul's excitement over the power of this baptismal unity becomes evident in verse 28. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
One of the legal requirements Paul's opponents were pushing for among Gentile Christians was to be circumsized. This was something that obviously symbolized the difference between Jew and Gentile - that held groups apart. Now Paul triumphantly holds up baptism into Christ as the act that breaks down all barriers and blurs all distinctions. Not only does Paul declare that there is no difference between Jew and Greeks, he also insists that even the other major categories of distinction no longer hold - there is no "slave or free" nor even any "male or female." Dissolving these differences also suggests that in Christ there is no hierarchy – morally, economically or socially.
In Christ Jesus, we are all children of God. Jew and Greek. Slave and free. Male and female. Victim and offender. All one in Christ Jesus.
This is tough justice. It's tough because it doesn't feel fair. It doesn't seem right to lump together good, law-abiding citizens and bad, law-breaking criminals, and say that in Christ Jesus we are all children of God through faith.
Another advocate of restorative justice who found it the hard way is Wilma Derksen. Her daughter Candace was just 13 when she was abducted on her way home from school. Six and a half weeks later, despite a massive search and frequent television appeals, she was found dead of exposure, with both her hands and feet bound.
Derksen says she and her husband Cliff found themselves isolated, stigmatized and suspected of having killed their own daughter. Today Derksen heads Victims' Voice, a Mennonite for families of murder victims, and she publishes a journal called Pathways, telling stories of people who have seen murder close up. Like others who survived the pain only by learning to forgive, she is passionate about restorative justice. "Those principles say justice is about more than law. It's about people, and that makes sense to me." She realizes that many people believe that there are certain people who are bad, and if we get rid of them we'll have a good world. "But the Bible says, for good reason, that if we extend our hand to our enemy, we will eventually find that our hand is extended to ourself." She confesses, "That's what I found when in the end I had to face myself."
All are one in Christ Jesus. All. One. Good and bad. Saint and sinner. I believe one day we too will have to face ourselves because we have NOT extended our hands to our so-called enemies, those we war against. When we look at the evil that took place on 9/11, we see evil men who killed 3,000 people. And our immediate reaction as a nation was…an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Revenge. More killing. More death. But Jesus says, “I have a different plan for you who profess to follow me. You’ve heard it said, and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say to you, do not resist an evildoer…Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…for your Father in heaven makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt 5:38-45)
All one in Christ Jesus. All…….One…….Good or bad…….Saint and sinner. It's an idea that benefits us. We ourselves are a forgiven people, so why is it so hard to believe that what works for us might not work for others? If God forgives us, requiring only confession and repentance and a restored life that bears witness to our repentance, then why can't such an approach work between ourselves in the human family?
This is so alien to our current justice system, which emphasizes the punitive approach. These days, if you commit the crime, you do the time. Three strikes and you're out - locked up for life. But evidence is mounting that feasible, restorative justice has a chance to alter criminal behavior.
There's nothing naive or touchy-feely about it. It can actually work. Thirty years ago, when he was a young reporter at the Edmonton Journal, Bob Harvey took on the task of starting a program for teens at a neighborhood church. One of them confessed a deep, dark secret: He and several other bored teenagers had broken into a number of nearby homes.
Bob Harvey and a co-leader met with these young offenders and made a surprising suggestion: Let's go in a group to the homes that had been broken into and apologize.
Now the homeowners had suffered damage to their homes, loss of property and a sense of violation, and the teens quickly realized that a simple apology was not enough. So they started holding bottle drives and car washes so they could at least pay back the cash they had stolen. They also received a lecture from a couple of burly detectives about what would have happened if they had not worked so hard to repair the damage: an appearance in juvenile court.
The result? That was the last crime committed by any of those teens, and their victims became some of their biggest supporters.
Restorative justice.
The key to dealing with most criminal behavior may well be the application of basic Christian principles: Repent, make restitution, restore relationships and change your ways. In our rush to extend jail sentences and build more prisons, we have forgotten that offenders are people and that people can be transformed by the love and discipline of a committed community. "Crime is not primarily a breaking of the law," claims Chaplain Pierre Allard. "Crime is primarily a breaking of relationships in a community, where real people have hurt real people." The secret to healing broken relationships is restorative justice, not a punishing justice.
So, should we let criminals off the hook, provided they show sincere faith in Jesus Christ? Hardly. They still need to repent, make restitution, restore relationships, and change their ways - and this work can be much tougher than sitting sullenly in a cellblock. Not all will be willing. But to those who want to change, we should give chances. Just as we are given repeated chances.
Faith and love. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Restorative justice.
They're never easy. But they are the call of a convict named Paul.
And a crucified Lord.
Source:
Harvey, Bob. "Christians and crime," Faith
Today, September-October 2000, 30ff.
Children's Sermon
Arrange for someone in your church with a small toddler to bring the child up for the children's sermon. Ask the children how many of them have a baby brother or sister. Ask them if the little child has different rules than they do. See if they can name some of them. (Examples: Toddlers can't touch something that's breakable, can't go near the stairs in the house, can't go outside by themselves to play in the yard, etc.) Ask: Why do we have different rules depending on age? Remind the children that as we get older we seem to be able to learn what is dangerous, and we get a feeling for what is good behavior. Point out that the same thing happens as we grow up in our belief in God, as we move from focusing on laws to focusing on a relationship with God's Son Jesus (Galatians 3:24). Ask the children what will help the little toddler to grow up and learn and take responsibility. Answer: loving parents and brothers and sisters. Conclude by saying, "When we have a loving relationship with our God, then we just naturally behave better. We discover that we want to share God's love with others - not because there's a rule that says we have to - just because we want to. That's the neat thing about growing up, isn't it?"
