[NOTE: This was originally written for Mennonite
Brethren Herald, August, 2001]
For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger
and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you
looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. (Matthew 25)
It makes you think a lot. Jesus’ words about the marginalized. I mean, unfortunately, he didn’t tie
salvation down to a formula, a creed, or a set of “spiritual laws”. Rather, he connected our freedom to others’
service. It is a representative list
only, in Matthew 25. Really, simply no
one is excluded – as that Legal Beagle in Luke 10 learned when he asked, “And
who is my neighbour?” He wanted to
“justify himself”, the text says. So he
asked the question. Quite plainly, our
neighbour is Everyman. And we are, each one of us, a sheep or a goat,
depending on how we respond to the neighbour.
After all, our embrace of the other is the only thing that shows we have
been justified, something we need not, cannot, do for ourselves anyway.
Included in that list is the prisoner. Let’s face it: the criminal
is an enemy. Sometimes Public Enemy Number One. And often rightly
so. A crime has been committed, a victim or
victims are left in its wake. They
deserve justice. And so does the
perpetrator. For that matter, the
traumatized community also needs healing.
Enter “restorative justice”, or better,
according to lifetime Quaker activist Ruth Morris, “transformative
justice”. Ruth, in her advocacy for
transformative justice, has taken seriously the Apostle’s admonition: “Do
not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s
will is– his good, pleasing and perfect will (Rom 12:2).”
God’s will for criminal justice is summed
up in the Suffering Servant Song:
"Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring
justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the
streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he
will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till
he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope (Isa 42:1-4).”
God’s intent for the Suffering Servant,
whom Christians understand is Jesus, is that through him and his church, a
beachhead be established so that the healing powers of Restorative/Transformative
justice might change definitively and forever the nature of justice in every
culture. As Amos the prophet pleaded for
Israel,
but no less for all nations: “But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream (Amos 5:24)!” This is that same healing stream reprised in
Revelation: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as
clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the
middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the
tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Rev
22:1-2).”
One eddy of this stream has been
church-based one-to-one prison visitation programs, active in several Canadian
provinces since 1966. The mandate is
simple: provide friendship resources for
persons inside prison, and reintegration assistance outside the walls. Thereby, conditions may be created for the
healing powers of Restorative Justice to transform prisoners’ relationships to
others, potentially the victim(s), the community, and ultimately God.
Sonya (not her real name) knew deep
alienation in her marriage, and increasingly generally in life. One day, she acted out her overwhelming
frustrations, and her husband lay dead.
Still in prison years later, she has been on a longstanding healing
journey. In it all, a volunteer has
refused to let Sonya be a “project”, rather ever a friend. And friends never give up, even when
rebuffed.
Jerry (again, not his real name),
meticulously planned his sexual assaults.
He had several rape victims before the police caught him, and a
completely traumatized community. He too
is still in prison several years later.
But his transformation has been profound. First in conjunction with a faithful
volunteer, who cheered him on through his very hard work on himself. Then in his professionally arranged, through
months of case development, meeting in “therapeutic dialogue” with two of his
rape victims, in which he found his own humanity rekindled in their reaching
out to him. And they discovered, as one
put it to national media subsequently, “a new birth”. The victim and wider community were thereby
significantly impacted with hope.
Restorative/Transformative Justice defies
any kind of easy definition or programmatic expression. Like Kingdom Come, it is rather an
enthralling vision that ever proves at once elusive and transcendent of all
attempts to “capture” its essence in words, programs, or systems. We in prison ministry acknowledge we are
caught up in something far vaster than our little agencies and lives. As Paul puts it: “For God was pleased to
have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all
things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through
his blood, shed on the cross (Col 1:19-20).” To which we all respond: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus (Rev. 22:20).”