by the Rev. Mark Abernethy
January 30, 2005
Genesis 4:1-16
Let me start by telling you up front this morning’s sermon is a sermon about the death penalty. As such, I want to be as clear as I possibly can. I’m not under the illusion that everyone will agree with me by the time I’m done preaching. Reasonable and faithful people disagree about the death penalty and it’s not my intention to persuade or ultimately convert anyone to my point of view.
I do, however, believe that the death penalty is more than a legal issue. Among other things, the death penalty raises important theological questions that are worth exploring through the lens of our faith as the State of Connecticut stands on the precipice of the first execution in New England in over forty years. In any case, by the end of this service I hope you will share with me your own perspective in light of what I say. Or maybe you’ll let me off the hook because it’s my fortieth birthday tomorrow and you’ll congratulate me or commiserate with me instead.
The second point I raise at the beginning of this sermon doubles as a kind of disclaimer. The subject of the death penalty is too big for one sermon. Therefore, I want to tell you what this sermon is not about as a way of zeroing in on what it is about. This sermon is not about whether Michael Ross deserves to be punished for his heinous murders of eight women. It’s not about Michael Ross’s self-proclaimed desire to be put to death and whether he’s competent to make that choice. In fact, it’s not really about Michael Ross specifically at all. Nor is it about his victims or their families, whom I do not know and whose pain over the years and in recent weeks is hard for me to imagine.
On a theoretical level, this sermon is not about whether the death penalty deters violent crime and it’s not about how race and class impact the way in which the death penalty is meted out. Lastly, I don’t claim to fully comprehend the legal maneuvering around Ross’s case that is happening in the court system even as we gather for worship. And despite the fact that the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ has been on record since 1973 against the death penalty, I don’t understand the subtleties of the recent suit filed pro-bono by a lawyer in our Conference trying to stay Ross’s execution.
All of which may leave you wondering what ground there is left for me to cover. By way of an answer, I begin with a story….a story some of you have heard and many of you have not.
Early in October back in 1997, I arrived home late after a Deacons meeting at my former church in Waterbury, Connecticut. It was around 10:30 and I had just taken my coat off when the phone rang at the parsonage where we lived. On the other end of the line, a member of my former congregation passed along the sketchy news that the police had just arrested a young man who was also a member of my church.
After I hung up, I put my coat on again, got back in my car and returned to the church, well aware that this young man’s house was about three hundred yards from the church’s front steps. When I reached the church I looked down the street and I saw flashing police lights and what looked like a lot of activity.
So I drove carefully down the street making mental note of the yellow crime scene tape stretching as far as I could see around the perimeter of the family property where the young man lived. I pulled up to a police officer, identified myself, and tried to ask for him for information. But it was clear to me that the officer either didn’t know many details or couldn’t share what he knew with me for valid reasons.
The officer did, however, direct me downtown to the Waterbury Police Department. About ten minutes later, I parked across the street from the Police Station and made my way, as inconspicuously as possible, past numerous local news trucks and cameras and into the front entrance of the station.
Once I was inside, I was directed upstairs where I met the young man’s family in the waiting room Without really knowing much about what was going on, we exchanged a few pleasantries. But within half an hour, an officer came out of squad room and gave us an update. At the same time, he asked us to give him about ten more minutes and then he informed us that any of us in the waiting room were welcome to go in and visit the young man in his holding cell.
It turns out I was the first one ushered inside the squad room. An officer directed me over to the cell, unlocked the door and I stepped inside a dark room about the size of a large closet. Later on I would learn that my visit occurred within five minutes of the young man writing a four-page statement to the police. In that four-page confession, the young man from my church described luring a twelve year old boy into his backyard and murdering him, justifying his hideous actions with the infamous, impulsive reasoning, “I just wanted to see what it would feel like to kill somebody.”
Over the next year I visited that young man in prison on a number of occasions. I went to his court hearings. I was called to testify by the public defender in his death penalty case. I organized and led a community prayer vigil in the wake of the murder. I reached out to the family of the victim. I recounted with people in my church the way the young man had once been Joseph in the Christmas pageant. The times he had hosted Coffee Hour. The Sunday he lit the Advent candles with his younger sister…
It’s been over seven years since that fateful October evening. I moved on to this church and by his choice haven’t seen or heard from the young man since his last trial. There is still a chance I may be called upon to testify again down the road. But in that pitch dark holding cell I asked the young man what he wanted me to say to people in the congregation on the upcoming Sunday morning.
He barely hesitated before offering two thoughts which I can’t shake from my memory even if I wanted to. First he said he hoped people would look at the total picture of his life, taking into account the good things he had tried to do, and not write him off for this one crime, no matter how horrific it was. Second he reminded me that we talk a lot in church about how we are a family. And if we really are a church family the way we say we are, you should always have a place in the family…
For the past seven years, I imagine I’ve thought about the death penalty more than most. And from time to time, when I’m in my car or lying in my bed or reading the newspaper, I find myself in the middle of a long-running conversation with two familiar companions.
In fact, you might know the two of them as well as I do. One of them goes by the name Justice. And the other goes by the name Mercy. Sometimes the conversation revolves around mundane, every day kind of stuff. For instance, I’m driving in my own lane, dutifully observing the traffic laws and all of a sudden somebody in a big truck pulls in front of me without signaling, causing me to jam on my brakes.
Justice is the one who asks me in no uncertain terms, “Mark, are you gonna just sit there and take that? Lean on your horn. They’ve clearly got issues and you need to send them a message.
Then Mercy pipes in. “Mark, you’re right…that person does have issues…and by the way you have a few issues of your own. Just let it go.”
Every so often I ask Justice why it’s important to be a part of my life. And Justice always replies the same way. “It’s a hard world out there and without me, people will trample you.”
When I ask Mercy the same question I get the same reply as well. “It’s a hard world out there and without me telling you to look out for someone besides yourself, you will trample others.”
The two of them go back and forth in my mind all the time. When I see a homeless person hold out a coffee can and ask for money to buy food, Justice wonders whether they’re worthy of my coins or dollars. Mercy forces me to consider whether I’m worthy of the food on my table.
When I’m standing at the foot of the hospital bed praying with someone whose body is riddled with cancer and whose life is being supported by tubes and machines, Justice whispers to me, “he or she doesn’t deserve this.” Whereupon Mercy whispers in the other ear, “no one deserves this.”
When someone provokes me, Justice says “hold your ground,” while Mercy says “blessed are the peacemakers.” When someone hurts or offends me, Justice says “an eye for an eye,” while Mercy says, “turn the other cheek.”
When someone brutally takes the life of another person with no regard at all for dignity and suffering and consequences, Justice is the one that argues for the accused paying the ultimate price. Mercy is the one that says executing the killer will not bring the victims back to life. Mercy believes that violence spirals and begets more violence. Mercy maintains that killing in any form by any person or persons cannot be justified. Mercy points out that for every horrible action there does not need to be an equal and opposite reaction.
Justice and Mercy, side by side. I take them with me constantly like two old friends. And once in a while, the three of us take a trip together in my imagination back to a place called Golgotha. Where a man named Jesus Christ hangs on a cross between two thieves.
As Jesus nears his own brutal death, he breathes in all the suffering and pain and violence of the world. He who was abused but did not retaliate. He who was wronged but would not seek retribution. He who was condemned but steadfastly refused to pass judgment. In those dying moments, Jesus willingly gave his life in order to teach us how to love one another. Staking his very being on the fervent and timeless wish that human beings would not have to go on killing each other for any reason anymore.
When it comes to the issue of the death penalty, Jesus is my third companion. And he always says the same thing too. Looking down from a wooden cross he cries out, “Stop the killing!” “Witness in my name to the God who holds out hope for humanity.” “Live by grace and peace…not by vengeance and death.” Amen.
NOTE: The framework for the justice and mercy debate at the end of this sermon came from a sermon preached by the Rev. Mark R. Feldmeir. His sermon, entitled “Don’t Do the Math,” can be found on pages 155-160 in his recent book Testimony to the Exiles: Sermons for GenXers and Other Postmoderns. (Chalice Press: 2003)
