Love v. Wrath
John 3:11-17
Vengeance can be very appealing. When someone wrongs us, they should suffer consequences, right? The person who cut us off in traffic--well, they deserve to have their car totaled. That person who got in front of us in line--well, let's hope the cashier screws up their order. Those darn kids skateboarding on our property--well, maybe they will skin their knees.
These are harmless examples, of course. But vengeance is baked into our culture, and it is baked into our justice system. I've been tuning into the confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as she goes through the process of potentially becoming our first Supreme Court Justice who is also a black woman.
And a really interesting thing keeps constantly being brought up, presumably by her detractors who are trying to trip her up in this hearing: her work in sentencing convicted persons as a trial judge in cases involving child pornography.
The public fervor for vengeance that has arisen against even the possibility of child sexual assault and the proliferation of child pornography--egregious and devastatingly awful things--has been striking these past 4 years or so. Conspiracies about child sex rings and the proliferation of child pornography that accuse those who serve in the highest halls of state in our country of committing these heinous crimes has created a maelstrom of vengeance seeking that. These conspiracies that whip up such rage have fueled a movement known by many as "Qanon."
In Judge Jackson's hearing, over and over, senators on the judiciary committee seem insistent on questioning why some of her sentences, according to them, were too light. Over and over, despite her offering the same answers (a judge delivers a sentence based on all of the evidence and sentencing standards that come from supreme court precedent and congress, a prison term is not the only way these crimes are punished), the question keeps coming up. "The prosecutor wanted 2 years and you only gave 3 months!"
I can understand this sentiment. Violating children in these ways seems like the worst crime humanly possible. And when we have someone we know has perpetrated a crime like this, why wouldn't we want the worst possible punishment we can imagine?
This gets at really deep questions we must continue to ask as citizens AND as Christians about justice; questions that are practical, legal, and spiritual. What is justice? Is justice simply the appropriate amount of punishment? Or is justice restoration and rehabilitation?
This is the question I am wrestling with as I consider the scripture passage that we will hear in worship this week that ends with that bible verse we all learned as kids. "For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." This verse was taught to me at a young age in a church that taught about how the end of life boiled down to whether or not you were punished or rewarded for what you believed, and what you did .
But we never were expected to memorize the next verse: "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." Is our justice system only capable of condemnation and punishment? Or can people who transgress actually be saved--rehabilitated and restored?
