Romans 13.8-14, Matthew 18.15-20
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, 6th September 2020
Clapham and online
Today our readings suggest that we spend a while thinking together about crime and punishment.
When we mention 'crime', we might think of the latest piece of news we've heard on the radio this morning or read in the Craven Herald, or heard about in the village. There always seems to be some crime, from a mugging to a garage theft, to talk about. Most of us have been affected by crime, one way or another. Crime and punishment - closely connected with sin and judgement, repentance and forgiveness - they are all very relevant themes in our world today.
Scripture is full of crimes and criminals. We think of Cain killing his brother Abel; Joseph's brothers leaving him for dead; and David, that great hero of Israel who was also an adulterer and murderer.
The message for criminals in the old scriptures seems to be: what you sow, you reap: Cain became a guilt-haunted wanderer, Joseph's brothers suffered during the lean years of famine. Think of Judas after his betrayal of Jesus, and the rich man whose shoddy treatment of the pauper Lazarus came back to bite him in the afterlife.
Now let us consider this uncomfortable revelation - that the most notable criminal in scripture is Jesus himself. That's always worth remembering in a religion which at times, tries to look so respectable that it obscures the truth at its heart.
We might think that Jesus had done nothing wrong - but the authorities of his day did, and their show trial persuaded the people that Jesus was a heretical troublemaker who threatened national security, which meant that - by Roman law - he should be killed. This puts him among those people who today are unjustly imprisoned and in some cases executed. [2]
It also gives us another angle on sin and judgement - repentance and forgiveness. Because it brings us back to the heart of Jesus, who went to the cross as an act of love for us, to show the world that we are unconditionally loved and forgiven - whatever we do to God or to each other, to put an end to the power of sin in the world and in our lives. As a very old prayer goes, We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you; Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Notice the major difference before and after Jesus. The old law says repent, so that you may then be forgiven; Jesus says you are unconditionally loved and forgiven - and knowing this may cause you to repent.
In the old law, a criminal must first repent so that then they can be forgiven. In the new law of God's kingdom which Jesus brings in, where there is still punishment for crimes but here, crucially, criminals are cared about, in an open and forgiving spirit.
Now, please don't think that I'm going to say that Jesus is soft on crime and criminals. The truth is that Jesus is very realistic about the need to punish and discipline wrongdoers. In Matthew 18 he tells his disciples how to treat wrongdoers in the church - by trying to make them listen to what they have done wrong, and if they do not listen then to turn them out of the church.
But the key element in Jesus’ attitude towards wrongdoers is this formula: first of all you are unconditionally forgiven, so that then, you may be moved to repent.
Remember how Jesus came to Jericho and the despised and duplicitous tax cheat Zacchaeus, to get a good view of Jesus, climbs a tree. Although Zacchaeus does or says nothing to him, Jesus goes up to him, befriends him, calls him to himself, invites himself to stay at Zacchaeus' house.
Notice the order: first of all Jesus shows his unconditional love for Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus is so moved by this that he can’t help but repent. He offers to give half of his possessions to the poor; and to pay back people four times the amount he had defrauded them of. Then Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’
If we had been in that crowd, would we have rejoiced with Zacchaeus or would we have grumbled about it like most of them did? A prison chaplain once talked about the Zacchaeus story in chapel, pointing out that Jesus forgives even those who are most reviled by society. A prisoner who had been listening attentively commented, 'That's all very well; Jesus may have forgiven him but would the crowd give him a chance to change his life?' Would they? Would we?
Jesus requires us to continue his work in the task of forgiveness and support. What if we were created in love to judge with grace? What if we were born to be forgiving and loving towards others?
Because, on the Cross, Jesus showed complete love and forgiveness to everybody, regardless of who they are and what they've done, we owe him an attitude of forgiveness towards other people. Some would say this is foolhardy, injudicious, naive - but it is our calling. The consequence of carrying the Cross in our lives is that we must strive to be loving and forgiving to everyone else.
How might we do this today? Certainly by continuing to pray for and support the victims of crime, and that justice will be done in all cases of wrongdoing locally and in the wider world. But if God is asking us to cultivate in our hearts that spirit of open generous forgiveness then does that also mean us learning to pray for the criminals, the perpetrators, that they may know that they are unconditionally loved by Jesus, and that in discovering this they might have a change of heart?
We might also pray for and support those who try to help criminals, the perpetrators, to discover that they are unconditionally loved by Jesus. The prison chaplains and prison visitors and letter-writers. Maybe God is asking us to think if there's anything practical we might do to help share the message of Jesus's unconditional love for all. To show what it means to us to say, We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you; Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Notes
[1] A rewrite of On crime, punishment, and the cross, preached in Somerset, 2024 and in turn, Crime and punishment on Holy Cross Day, preached at St Christopher Norris Green 2008.
[2] The 2014 sermon was preached at a moment in the Iraq crisis where summary executions were being regularly reported. My 2008 sermon cited Michael Shields, a Liverpool man wrongly convicted for murder in 2005 and granted a full Royal Pardon in 2009.
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