"Capital Punishment and the Gospel"
Sermon Presented October 1, 2006
Darrell Meese was a well-loved Vietnam War veteran from the rural south Missouri town of Reed Springs who came back from the war a different person. While under the influence of methamphetamines, he brutally killed a man from the community who was hated and feared, and he also killed two other people. While awaiting execution in January of 1999, his execution was postponed until February because Pope John Paul II was to visit St. Louis on the date of the execution, and the Pope was against capital punishment.
While Meese was in prison, he had a powerful religious experience and believed he wouldn't die at the hands of an executioner. Because of the attention drawn to the case by the circumstances of its postponement, the Pope sent emissaries to Governor Mel Carnahan asking him to stop the execution. Carnahan said he would consider it, even though he wasn't of a mind to do so.
At an ecumenical prayer service at the Cathedral in St. Louis, the Pope was presiding and Governor Carnahan was in attendance. After the service, Pope John Paul tottered down the aisle to the governor - who happened to be seated next to Al Gore - and personally asked Carnahan to commute the sentence. Carnahan did so, much to the chagrin of proponents of capital punishment. (Interview on NPR August 16, 2006)
The case of Karla Faye Tucker, a woman on death row in Texas, didn't turn out so well. Tucker became a Christian while awaiting execution, and many religious leaders petitioned the governor to commute her sentence, but he would not. When the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case, Tucker was executed.
This morning we are going to consider the controversial topic of Capital Punishment, and the reason we're going to look at it is because of the referendum on Wisconsin's November 7th ballot. The referendum reads, "Should the death penalty be enacted in the State of Wisconsin for cases involving a person who is convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, if the conviction is supported by DNA evidence?" Wisconsin has not had the death penalty since 1853. A poll published last Thursday reported that 54% of likely voters said they favor the death penalty under the circumstances stated in the ballot referendum.
Both supporters and opponents of the death penalty strongly affirm the value of human life. Both regard murder as a heinous evil. But they disagree on whether capital punishment is the right response to those who have taken the life of another human being. I want you to carefully consider this emotionally-charged and often polarizing topic this morning. I also invite you to read the materials from the Wisconsin Council of Churches that you received and prayerfully consider this topic before you vote in November. If the results of the statewide vote are in the affirmative, it won't automatically instate the death penalty, but it will open the door for the legislature to do so.
How should Christians respond to radical evil in our world? I believe that we must seek to discern the mind of Christ. The death penalty is a life issue, and therefore, like all life issues, it raises important moral questions. It's natural for people of faith when faced with moral questions to seek guidance from the Bible and from the Holy Spirit. What is the mind of Christ and most in line with our identity as disciples of Jesus? (This is just an aside, but I am amazed at the number of people who believe that all abortions are wrong on the grounds that people shouldn't take a human life, and yet are in favor of allowing the judicial system to take a person's life.)
Let's look at the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus says "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." (Matt. 5:43-45) This is a continuation of what Sara read from Matthew, and here Jesus advises us against vengeance - which happens to be the primary reason that most people support the death penalty.
Jesus tells us that we must forgive, and forgiveness is the opposite of vengeance. Just as forgiveness gives us access to the offender and to God, vengeance cuts us off from them - emotionally, spiritually and physically.
When Jesus was on the cross, he asked God to forgive those who put him there, causing his death. If forgiveness is an important, even essential component of a person's healing process, it's interesting to speculate on its role in the health of a society. Isn't it possible that a society oriented toward compassion and forgiveness is healthier than one that encourages vengeance?
After the Oklahoma City bombing and the attacks of 9-11, we saw very different reactions toward the offenders. A few individuals who lost loved ones worked hard to forgive the assailants, while others cried out for blood. It was the voice of forgiveness that speaks of Jesus to me. (This doesn't mean there should be no punishment!)
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus quotes and then contradicts the Torah. "An eye for an eye" was already an effort to prevent conflicts from escalating by making punishment match the act that was being punished. For Christians, love is to replace retaliation, thus breaking the cycle of violence.
Some people have great fear that if there is no capital punishment, then a violent person will be unleashed on society after only a few years or decades behind bars. However, a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole can be instated. Then if later, a test proves that the person didn't commit the crime or that mental illness was a contributing factor, the person won't be dead and can have a new trial.
I can't get the case of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children, out of my mind. The prosecutor in that case asked for the death penalty, and thankfully that didn't happen. Postpartum depression caused Yates to commit these horrific acts, and a friend who also experienced postpartum depression after the birth of her second child told me that this could have happened to her, had she not been privileged to expensive and extensive psychiatric care. Yates's case was retried recently and the judgment was guilty by reason of insanity.
If you haven't seen the movie or read the book Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean, I highly recommend it. In 1982, Sr. Helen became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana's Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier's death, this Roman Catholic Sister came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. At the same time, Sr. Helen came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute him - men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing.
Out of the intimacy between Prejean and Sonnier came a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Confronting both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the needs of a crime-ridden society and the Christian imperative of love, Dead Man Walking really helped me to look at the human consequences of the death penalty.
Americans still live in one of the few countries that kill people to make clear what a terrible thing killing people is. Hardly any other civilized country does this anymore. In the past three decades, the number of nations that have abolished the death penalty has risen from 16 to 86. Last year four countries accounted for nearly all executions worldwide: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. We aren't in very good company!
Much of the debate about the death penalty since it reared its ugly head again in the '70's has been about whether it is disproportionately meted out to poor minorities, whether it should be permitted for juvenile offenders, and whether various methods constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Most of these discussions aren't designed to examine underlying deep moral issues but to allow Americans to continue to put people to death and still feel good about themselves. Very few people dance, laugh and cheer the execution of a prisoner outside of prison gates, but many are relieved when the person is dead.
In 1994 Justice Harry Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court wrote: "Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed." The question isn't whether executions can be made painless; it's whether they're wrong. Everything else is just quibbling. And most of the quibbling simply boils down to trying to make the wrong seem right. (Anna Quindlen in Newsweek, June 26, 2006, p. 64) I ask that you pray about this issue before you vote on November 7th. It's important!
