Carla J. Bailey, Senior Pastor
Matthew 18:21-35
September 14, 2008
Some time in the next few years, depending on the outcomes of trials and appeals, three executions may be carried out in New Hampshire by the state of New Hampshire. Public officials, people who work for the state, will administer lethal injections to three men who have been convicted or are in the process of being tried for capital crimes. One of those cases is being tried right now – it is the case against John Brooks who is accused of hiring Joseph Vrooman and three other men to kidnap and kill Jack Reid, a handyman and trash hauler Brooks had hired to move some personal belongings. Prosecutors say Brooks, who believed Reid had stolen from him, delivered some of the hammer blows that killed Reid in a Deerfield barn in June 2005. If he is convicted, John Brooks may be the first New Hampshire execution since 1939.
A second capital case is in process against Michael Addison, charged with the shooting of police officer Michael Briggs in October of 2006. The case against Mr. Addison is in the pretrial twilight zone of motions, decisions about media coverage, what can and can’t be brought into evidence and so on. If he is convicted, Michael Addison may be the second New Hampshire execution.
A third execution in New Hampshire would be of Gary Lee Sampson who has confessed and was convicted in federal court of killing three men in 2001, Jonathan Rizzo and Philip McCloskey in Massachusetts and Robert Whitney in New Hampshire. A federal jury gave Sampson the death penalty in 2003. Though the both the conviction and sentence are still in the appeals process, the trial judge ordered that Sampson be executed in New Hampshire, the closest death penalty state to the scenes of the crimes. If the appeals are unsuccessful, New Hampshire will be obliged to construct a death chamber to carry out the judge’s order. The 1939 execution in New Hampshire was by hanging. The space used for hanging is no longer available for executions as it was renovated to serve as the chaplain’s office.
When I preached about this issue ten years ago, a Time/CNN poll had revealed that our nation’s citizens favored the death penalty by a margin of close to 4 to 1. Those numbers have changed slightly to something closer to 3 to 1, largely because of the growing realization that our imperfect justice process sometimes relegates people to death row who are innocent, which logically leads to the conclusion that there have been some innocent people killed by our state governments. For a time, some governors placed moratoriums on executions in their states until reasonable assurance could be established that the persons to be executed are, in fact, guilty of the crimes for which they were charged.
There are other forward and backward steps. The Supreme Court has handed down two recent rulings concerning the death penalty – one that determines that lethal injections do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment and the other prohibits the death penalty to be carried out against a convicted rapist when the victim of the crime, even if a minor, was not killed. Here in New Hampshire, the Senate Judiciary Committee recently killed a measure seeking a death penalty study commission. Apparently it is too hot an issue to study while capital cases are pending.
You know, ever since Jesus uttered from the cross, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”, Christians have had to grapple seriously with the matter of forgiveness. Frankly, we’ve not done all that well. Today’s parable, recorded and over-interpreted by Matthew, illustrates the difficulty perfectly. Matthew’s version of the story about the servant who had been forgiven his debt, only to impose on a fellow servant an even harsher punishment than the one he had just escaped, illustrates our collective difficulty with forgiveness.
There are a few things you should know that might make the story more understandable though not easier to accept. First, the king was owed an impossible debt by the ungrateful servant. Probably, that servant was a manager of funds in the king’s business, an accountant perhaps, who mismanaged the wealth of the master to such an extent that the money owed would equal what we would think of as millions and millions of dollars today. One talent was worth fifteen years of wages. Multiply that by ten thousand and you begin to see the impossible situation the servant faced. Even so, in spite of his mismanagement and his dishonesty, his master forgave him.
The servant didn’t believe the “crime” was very serious, did he? He didn’t really need to feel any responsibility for what he had done, so neither would he feel as if the forgiveness he had received was of much significance. The master would scarcely miss the money he had lost to this dishonest servant. Think now of John Brooks, Michael Addison, and Gary Sampson – accused and in one case convicted killers. The crimes for which they are being tried are heinous. It may feel, if they are not executed, that they have assumed the role of the forgiven and ungrateful servant. Certainly they took an incalculable amount from the families and the communities of their victims. It certainly could be credibly argued that the lives each of them took are of more value, greater significance and worth than theirs.
I’m going to suggest something here that your minds are likely to recoil against – until we recognize the magnitude of the forgiveness we have received from our dying Savior from the cross, we will never be able to understand that the death penalty should not be imposed on John Brooks, Michael Addison, or Gary Sampson. Is that illogical? After all, none of us have murdered anyone.
Two things need to happen for us to recognize ourselves in this parable and be transformed by it. First, we need to acknowledge that we ourselves have committed truly significant sins, if not sins of commission, then certainly sins of omission. Second, we need to respond to the forgiveness God pours upon us all, even that ungrateful servant of whom Jesus spoke, with a change of heart and behavior and even more, with the commitment to do all we can to stop the chain of violence that is forged every time an execution takes place in this country.
Probably, you cannot think of anything you have done of the magnitude Jesus described or I am suggesting. Neither can I. That is, if I think of myself individually, only as something that Carla Bailey herself has committed. I have done some pretty insensitive things, hurt people dear to me, made callous mistakes, withheld information, offered too much information, and so on. But if I think of myself as a participant in a larger culture, a greater group or institution or nation, then my sins, however small individually, take on greater significance. On the wall in my office hangs a simple sentence – “the death penalty makes killers of us all”. If that is true, then the debt Jesus described pales in significance next to mine.
So, has God forgiven me for my complicity? Yes, I believe that Jesus’ words from the cross were meant for me. So shall I respond in kind, by doing all I can to see to it that I do not participate, as a resident of New Hampshire, in the murder of three men on or headed for death row?
Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court. He was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.
On July 16, 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stayed Troy Davis’ execution, stating that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused”. The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis’ guilt will remain unresolved. A judge has determined that the recanting of the witnesses does not need to be heard after all and therefore, the execution of Troy Davis is set to proceed.
If and when he is executed nine days from now and we remain silent, we will have all become complicit in his murder, in which case Jesus’ dying words should be amended to be, “Father, forgive them, for they know exactly what they are doing”. I don’t want to hear those words from my Savior. Neither do you. Amen.