Early in my career as prison chaplain a
prison guard once said to me, “It’s Ok for you to care about them “preach,” but
it’s my job to put the boots to them!” The statement, perhaps tongue in cheek,
reflects a persistent belief that prisons, the last door of the justice system,
must deliver the pain of punishment. We have seen it in our current
government’s passing of repressive crime bills, and heard it affirmed in the recent (Oct 16, 2013) Throne Speech, in the section entitled,
“Supporting Victims and Punishing Criminals.” The assumption is that
proportionate punishment must be served, the more harm done, the more harm
imposed. The question must be asked: “Is this justice? Is this even biblical?
Is punishment required to establish justice and achieve public safety? A close
read of the bible, I suggest, will show it to major in grace, forgiveness, and a
justice that restores. Current evidence will also show that formal punishment
in the sense of “getting even” as reflected in our current law-and-order
emphasis in Canada, is actually dysfunctional and criminogenic.
I could not help bringing to mind another speech, this one from the pulpit of the synagogue in Nazareth by Jesus. In that speech we experience a very different spirit reflected, one with a radically different paradigm of justice, a restorative model. In Luke 4 we read Luke’s rendition of the reading of Isaiah 61 by Jesus in his hometown synagogue. Jesus was reading from the Book of Isaiah, possibly with some prophetic licence to add a line here, from Isa. 58:6b on setting the oppressed free, interpreting an unclear reading elsewhere to emphasise sight to the blind, and dropping a line from the Is. 61 text, specifically the reference to the God’s day of vengeance; the addition and omission is striking. One almost needs to read a number of translations to get the full impact of Jesus’ view of justice. The Hebrew text uses imagery of throwing open the doors of a dark prison dungeon allowing in the bright light, taken by some translations as giving sight to the blind. (Keil and Delitzsh, 1973, Vol. VII, p. 427). The overall meaning is compelling in focussing on release of the imprisoned, the crushed ones, from the oppression. Christ makes one thing clear: a new epoch has arrived with his messianic anointing, made evident in his ministry as the expected messianic king as foretold by Isaiah. Christ also carries forward the Old Testament prophetic tradition of justice with its concern for the poor and needy, the orphan and the widow, the lame and blind, and actively caring enough to do something about it. A central theme is the unbinding of those downtrodden, releasing the oppressed, and restoration for those cut off from the wholeness of life.
This preaching of the good news to the poor and of the release of the prisoner is a holistic existential message. Wolterstorff (2008), notes that ancient Israel’s religion was not focused on salvation from this earthly existence, but rather of salvation “….from injustice in this earthly existence” (p. 79). Jesus implicitly challenged the structural underlying causes of corporate greed, and injustice as supported by those governing society and managing its wealth. The oppressed are set free, and by implication their oppressor’s behaviours are denounced, and they are held to account. It is the strong that are responsible to the weak regarding this injustice, not the other way around. Being in prison in Jesus’ day as a debtor, or as in conflict with the state, was then, as now, a form of civil death. As well, being seriously ill or handicapped in Jesus’ day, meant that you were unclean and a threat to society’s purity and thus cut off from it socially. Religious leadership at that time was compulsively perfectionistic, one might say, anal about right rituals. Christ’s holistic “salvation” resulted in an existential social-spiritual restoration of forgiveness of sins, of physical and emotional healing, and a full restoration to one’s rightful place in one’s home and society. This is the vision of justice as full restoration of the Jubilee script that Jesus was working from. For the folks of Jesus hometown, however, this message of extending such Divine grace to those who they considered “undeserving,” led them to outrage, and they resorted to throw Jesus off a cliff, surely to death if Jesus had not slipped away.
The congregation in Nazareth would probably have been happier if Jesus had read all of the Isaiah passage and included the reference to the Lord’s vengeance…punishment for the publicans and sinners. But what were they thinking! Well they should have known better; they knew their Bibles well, they knew that vengeance, mamqam, belonged to the Lord (Duet.32:35). They knew of the Great Love Commandment and, of the Jubilee laws of liberation, forgiveness and recompense every 50 years (Lev. 25). They also remembered the prophets Elijah and Elisha, who had certainly pushed the ethnic boundaries on grace; but for them this Jesus was not in league with them as he had implied, not as far as they were concerned! This hometown boy was not the Messiah; they knew who he was, he was Joseph’s son (Lk. 4:22). Perhaps for these folks familiarity had bred contempt, but they had little insight into their own prejudice, or awareness of their lack of concern for the welfare of those who they considered ritually unclean and outcast in society, and oblivious of their own complicity in institutional oppression as practiced in their society. In his commentary on his reading, Jesus gives the congregation an opportunity to do some critical reflection on their motives and values, and possibly to gain some insight into their unspoken “ritually correct” pious thoughts regarding justice and their covenant obligations to the common good and hopefully have a change of heart.
Primary justice is treating absolutely every one justly, without partiality, as their God given worth demands. This is good news for the world’s poor and oppressed, that it is God’s will for them that they are to be released from unjust and oppressive socio-economic structures that keep them from flourishing. Old Testament primary justice is amplified in the New Testament and given universal dimensions in Christ’s health giving rule. Justice as shalom, of total wholeness, is to be experienced also by the most vulnerable in society as an indication of the justness of the entire society; they have a natural right to it. The poor and needy, the blind and lame, the widow and orphan, the alien and the outcast in prison, all must be able enjoy their rights to life-flourishing existence according to God’s Good Design for their lives. Victims have a right to an existential opportunity to move forward in their lives in renewed ways, and experience reinvestment and peace in their lives. The emphasis is not on justice as punishment as in returning evil for evil; Biblical justice is not vengeance as revenge, or of getting even. It is true that vengeance, mamqam, is the Lord’s, (Duet. 32:35), but a close look will show that God’s avenging is restorative, not vindictive; He desires to heal and restore victims, not primarily going after the bad guys. After all, the year of the Lord’s favour is magnanimous in comparison to a day of vengeance. The original meaning of vengeance was to repay, to restore, not a Rambo type, “put the boots to them,” rampage of violence to get even, or to exterminate the enemy wrongdoer. However, the “buck” of accountability for oppression does stop at the top with those with power and influence in the status quo. For those who prefer the partiality and injustice of the status quo, the good news proclaimed to the poor, will mean bad news.
It seems that Jesus was considered impertinent for his claims of messiahship; the people of Nazareth likely also heard the good news as a negative. But Jesus did not proclaim vengeance on them in terms of punishment, but he was frank and honest about what shalom jubilee justice must look like. With a punishing persistence he forces the point home in his comments to the congregation of Nazareth, about who he is, and his mandate for the justice of jubilee that Isaiah had prophesied about. The scriptures that they knew well were also clear about justice for the oppressed. Jesus speaks the truth in love, but he minces no words and brings forward standards of justice that would be well known to his listeners. Christ does up the ante with people of means and political influence. He is not giving them a hellfire sermon as punishment, but is speaking in judgment (krisis), by implicitly denouncing injustice, and calling for people to stop and think, and take a good look at what they are doing or not doing, and calling them to have a change of heart and change their ways about justice (Bianchi, 1985). These folks, however, implicitly bought condemnation on themselves, suffering the vengeance of their own consequences resulting from murderous unjust intentions in response to the stories of the actions of grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ toward the undeserving in their eyes.
Similarly, later in Luke’s Gospel, Christ reprimands and brings reproof upon the unjust actions of the Pharisees and lawyers (Lk. 11:37-53). Jesus here again reflects the values of his jubilee speech, judging the Pharisees’ ritual correctness as hypocritical, as Isaiah had done in Is. 58:6, because they had neglected justice (krisan) and love (agapeen): “you should have produced the later without leaving the former undone (Lk. 11:.43. NIV). In addition, Jesus accuses those in power of having a double standard, placing heavy legal and moral, burdens on the people, but refusing to lift a finger themselves in that regard (Lk. 11: 46). This criticism is no doubt done to turn hearts back to the way of the Lord, so that they could be fitting shepherds for the people in the way of shalom. Covenant disobedience, though, will ultimately result in restorative intervention; God is not to be swayed in his desire for peace and well-being of all his people. As the Law of Moses had indicated, one is to love the neighbour also with words of reproof when necessary; a wise word of, “stop and think about what you are doing.” Reproof is also an example of loving the neighbour (Lev. 19:17, 18). When done in the spirit of seeking the good of the other, because we care about them and the common good, reproof as well as seeking the justice of repayment or restitution is a good, but not when done in the spirit of “putting the boots to ‘em.’” Punitive legal action as an end in itself to show who is boss, to send a message of deterrence, or whatever else it is devised do to win political favour, will not bring shalom or eirene.
Jesus’ sermon in Nazareth set the tone for his ministry as Servant Messianic King, and left a model for us to follow. We get the sense regarding the good news, that it is entirely incomplete, invalidated, when not enmeshed with justice, with a deep, just, care for all people, especially for the oppressed. Care must be genuine and bold to work to change unjust social-economic, political, structures and practices. Severe policies and harsh practices affecting disproportionately the marginalized, those overrepresented and oppressed in Canadian prisons, need to be challenged. Prisoners need to have the gates of the dungeons thrown open and have the light of God’s shalom, eirene, flood into their lives. Of course, this gracious restorative liberation must be felt by all oppressed and living in chronic poverty and those whose hearts are broken by prejudice, often the very roots of crime to begin oppressed families and communities. Prisons as places of retribution overcrowded and under resourced, oppress and break the human spirit, and serve to destroy the fabric of community wholeness. Injustice requires denunciation, reproof, and correction of the harm done. But justice is to be done in loving, just, concern for the total wellbeing of the neighbour and society, including the oppressor. Christ has clearly established his model of justice in love for us, so that we can follow in like manner as his disciples. Thankfully we do not just follow the model of a champion of the past, but we are empowered and inspired by the very real spiritual Presence of the one who spoke at Nazareth and promised that he will be with us until the end.
Henk Smidstra, Nov. 1, 21013.
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