First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon
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Two Choices
Rev. Dennis Lees
I Corinthians 13: 1-3, 8-13
December 1, 2013
Christian teaching over time has often asked us to practice some things that can be very hard to do. Among
these are to love, especially the unlovable; to forgive, especially the unforgivable; to seek redemption,
especially for the seemingly un-redeemable; and to seek reconciliation, especially those most needing to be
reconciled, with God or with others.
I want to introduce you to two people with two very different stories and the two choices that are presented to
us as a result of their lives.
We begin on a quiet Saturday afternoon when a young woman, she’s 23, finishes her shift at a local restaurant.
A senior at nearby California State University in Hayward, she works hard for excellent grades and waits tables
in a restaurant in town to help pay her tuition, and her parents help her as much as possible. She comes from a
close, loving family, has numerous friends, and she dearly loves the several dogs and cats she took in as strays
when nobody else wanted them.
She lives life with a zest that is contagious and invigorating to everyone around her.
Her life is full, just the
way she likes it, as she balances classes, studying, work, and time with friends, family, and her pets. She lives
in a small cottage on a ranch outside of town and gets a break on rent because she helps take care of several
horses on the property that she loves to ride in any spare time she might have. Her name is Sarah.
The other story is of a young man, he’s 21. His name is Michael, and he is quite the opposite of Sarah. It is
likely that he’s never known love, probably never felt nurtured or really cared about. He is a tragic young man.
There was never a father in the home and his mother was only sometimes present. Nobody really knows what
she was doing when she wasn’t home. This young man was raised, when they could, by his grandparents, but
largely by the dark and cold influences of the street.
Nobody knows much of his school history, but what is known indicates he is one of many youth who “fell
between the cracks” in our schools and society in general. He was barely noticed as a troubled youth. And
worse, no one intervened before tragedy struck later not only for him but many others. His life of crime began
before his teen years. He started out as a minor thief, graduated to minor assaults, then major theft and major
assaults. Drugs soon followed and finally two arrests for vicious attacks on women who wouldn’t let go of their
purses when he tried to steal them.
Michael was sent to the CA Youth Authority for his early crimes. When sentenced for his latest crime (at age
20), he was again sent to the CYA because the judge thought he was too vulnerable to go to an adult prison.
After some months in CYA they decided he could go out on work details, so he was put on a work crew with 11
others and two attendants, picking up roadside trash.
When the attendants weren’t looking, Michael walked away, disappearing into the woods nearby. When his
absence was discovered they looked for him for a while then decided to continue the search in the morning
because it was cold and getting dark. But he turned up soon. He hid out in the woods overnight, then the next
afternoon broke into a cottage he spotted nearby. He was apparently looking for money or jewelry, but then the
occupant came home.
First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon
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I won’t tell you all that happened next, except that as he heard her drive up, he probably wasn‘t prepared for the
fierce struggle she would put up to fight off his attack. But she couldn’t know the awful truth that before she
arrived he had found the hidden gun she kept for protection and had been trained to use properly if ever
necessary.
Ultimately, though, she was no match for the now-armed intruder on that awful day. Later, gathering up
jewelry and other things, Michael left, stealing her truck. The police identified him by fingerprints left behind,
and he was arrested two days later at a house in town where he’d been known to hang out.
Sarah’s jewelry
was in his pockets and her truck was parked outside.
A lovely young woman, loved by so many, died at the hands of a deeply damaged, angry young man who may
have felt he had nothing to lose and not much to live for.
But Sarah had so much to live for. I know she did. I am Sarah’s father.
So now what? Michael’s case didn’t get to court for over four years, for many reasons. It took another twoand-a-half years for the trials to be completed, delayed many times for many reasons. But nearly seven years
after Sarah died; he was convicted of his crime. In the end, after just a short deliberation, the jury gave him the
death penalty. At the end of that final, last day a crowd had gathered at the courthouse as he was led away.
They were angrily taunting and yelling obscenities at the condemned man. I had to turn away; it was just too
much more hatred, tragedy upon tragedy, with no winners, just more loss. Michael has been on Death Row
since 1993 and will probably die there an old man.
Justice served? Maybe. Problem solved? Not really. Time to move on? Yes. But how? At this stage, it
seemed there were two choices. Which of the two paths was best?
Some would say, “But at least he got the death penalty. He deserved it, and you must be relieved.”
Well,
not really. It’s been said that “retribution-based punishment rarely brings the satisfaction we imagined it
would,” and that’s true.
I’ll say it up front: I did not want the death penalty then, and I don’t see it serving any good purpose now. It
would give me no satisfaction to know that the State of California, in our name, killed Michael for killing Sarah.
I do think “life in prison without parole” is a fitting punishment and very necessary to protect society. And, it is
hard to imagine a worse sentence than spending decades in a prison cell.
But I don’t see the logic of killing someone because they killed someone, and I believe that for several reasons.
First, I can’t imagine the God we now know being pleased at that choice, no matter how heinous the crime it is
meant to avenge. Second, it has been shown in many studies that capital punishment is not a deterrent to
crime, and also that it costs far more to prosecute and house a prisoner under the death penalty than one in
prison for life without parole.
And we have to take into account that newer law enforcement techniques, such as identification by DNA, have
proven that some people given a death sentence were shown later to be in fact innocent, convicted by error or
perhaps intention. For these reasons, and one other I’ll explain next, I am not willing to have the responsibility
for proactively choosing to take a human life for any reason, nor to have it done in the name of someone I loved
so much.
The final reason, for me, is the very slight possibility that someone like Michael might, just might, someday
choose redemption and reconciliation for himself, a personal reason for which I cannot support something as
irreversible as a death penalty.
First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon
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So, if we don’t see the ultimate punishment of a death penalty as a way to deal with this unspeakable event,
what alternative or what path is left?
Forgiveness.
This is not to make an excuse for a crime or to grant a release from accountability. But . . .
It seems to me that the Christian tradition is very clear about the example believers can follow, at least as the
ideal for behavior, which is to read of Jesus himself forgiving those who took his life so violently on that awful
day that we oddly call Good Friday.
And I remember the prayer Jesus taught, for ages simply called the Lord’s Prayer. As it nears the end, this
Prayer that we are led to believe are Jesus’ own words, says, “And forgive us our sins (or debts or trespasses),
as we forgive those who have sinned against us.”
Of course, there are many other words attributed to Jesus where he tells us things such as: “forgive your
enemies and even pray for those who mistreat you.” Hard stuff, very hard stuff; sometimes nearly impossible
and understandably so. For in our human-ness, the overwhelming anger and wish for revenge is normal, even
justified. Some would say not demanding retribution is to dishonor the loved one tragically lost. But I don’t
think so, and I fear that being stuck on revenge and retribution can be corrosive to the soul.
And I want to make something very clear. In sharing our story, I make no claim to be a perfect or special
person in any way. I admit to being every bit as flawed and full of faults and shortcomings and imperfections as
anyone else.
But I believe that a primary purpose, or at least an accomplishment, of Jesus’s brief life among us, as one of us,
was to show not only “what a life full of God can look like,” to quote Marcus Borg. But also, Jesus showed us
how to live. He didn’t just tell us what God wants from us or hopes for us, but showed us how to live in ways
that work. His life and lessons told us and showed us how life works best, not necessarily easiest, but most
successfully. How to live life with the best outcomes we can hope for in a terribly, sometimes tragically,
imperfect world.
Speaking of living in an imperfect world, it doesn’t get much more down and dirty than what Mother Teresa
saw in her life. She spent much of her life in the slums of Calcutta where, unfortunately, life is not so different
than it is in the worst part of many large cities in the world. But it was here that she lived and served the most
“down and out” people you can imagine. She somehow managed to have and to spread love to those who lived
at the lowest level imaginable, where life is barely sustained, and sometimes isn’t.
Mother Teresa, who knew so much about injustice in the world, once said to a woman who had been terribly
wronged by a loved one: “If we want to love, we must learn how to forgive.”
And a quote from Martin Luther King expands on that when he said, “We must develop and maintain the
capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some
good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our
enemies.”
As I close, I want to say that I believe forgiveness is often a process, not a single act. I am even now still in
that process, but determined to fully complete it . . . and I will.
First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon
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Twenty-six years ago when this all began, I wondered how, or even if, we could ever get through it. But we
did, as the whole family, step-family, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents all pulled together as one, each
caring for all the others. And I remember hardly even knowing what I was doing and asking God for the
strength we would need, whatever that meant. I don’t how or when that was answered but it was. We all came
through it intact, stronger and closer than we were before, a miracle in itself for which I am so grateful.
My first and last words today are the same: Christian teaching over time has often asked us to practice some
things that can be very hard to do. Among these are to love, especially the unlovable; and to forgive,
especially the seemingly unforgivable; to seek redemption, especially for the seemingly unredeemable; and to
offer reconciliation, especially for those who most need to be reconciled.
May God give us strength for what we need to do.
CLOSING:
As we leave here today let’s first try to acknowledge and to forgive our own imperfection, shortcomings,
wrongdoings. We may then be freer to move toward forgiving those who have wronged us in ways great or
small. And finally, we can hope, by calling on strength from God, that just maybe we can all be reconciled,
brought back together, and find peace in the arms of a God of love and grace.
AMEN