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.