Reading from the Global Scripture
Michael Price, from the Science Bureau of the Monitor
Historically, there are two schools of thought on revenge. The Bible, in Exodus 21:23, instructs us to "give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" to punish an offender. But more than 2,000 years later, Martin Luther King Jr., responded, "The old law of 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind."
Who's right? As psychologists explore the mental machinery behind revenge, it turns out both can be, depending on who and where you are. If you're a power-seeker, revenge can serve to remind others you're not to be trifled with. If you live in a society where the rule of law is weak, revenge provides a way to keep order.
But revenge comes at a price. Instead of helping you move on with your life, it can leave you dwelling on the situation and remaining unhappy, psychologists' research finds.
Considering revenge is a very human response to feeling slighted, humans are atrocious at predicting its effects.[6]
Sermon
All of the world’s great religions teach us lessons about
clemency, forgiveness, balancing good and evil. Like hospitality and other
concepts that are the basic building blocks of community, some ideas are so
ancient that they are everywhere.
The Indo-European language is one example. There has been
much debate about the origin of the Indo-European language, a language that has
evolved into 103 modern languages ranging across, as the name suggests, the
European and Indian continents.
There are two main schools of thought about the
Indo-European language, and the two schools do not coincide gently together.
One group believes that the language’s origin comes out of the Steppes of
Russia, spread by a warring hoard of people on chariots who spread their
language at the point of a sword, about 4,000 years ago.
The other school, somewhat newer, and aided by computer
modeling, asserts that the origin of the Indo-European language is Anatolia, in
modern day Turkey. In this theory, the language is spread not by the sword by
farming tools. Evolutionary biologist Quentin Atkinson of the University of
Aukland asserts that this process began 9,000 years ago and not through
violence but rather farming.
A key piece of their evidence is that proto-Indo-European
had a vocabulary for chariots and wagons that included words for “wheel,”
“axle,” “harness-pole” and “to go or convey in a vehicle.”[1]
Some say that because of technology, these words prove a certain time in human
history that the Indo-European language could NOT have been spread from before,
say 3,000 before the common era.
Atkinson and his researchers started with a menu of
vocabulary items that are known to be resistant to linguistic change, like
pronouns, parts of the body and family relations, and compared them with the
inferred ancestral word in proto-Indo-European. Words that have a clear line of
descent from the same ancestral word are known as cognates. Thus “mother,”
“mutter” (German), “mat’ ” (Russian), “madar” (Persian), “matka” (Polish)
and “mater” (Latin) are all cognates derived from the proto-Indo-European word
“mehter.”[2]
Through this method they deduced that Anatolia is the origin of the language
and report that with the spread of agriculture about 9,000 BCE, the language
spread, too.
Our ideas about justice are ancient, too. Almost every
ancient text talks about justice, what is fair, what is right, how to punish
those who have committed crimes against others. The most famous of ancient
written laws is of course Hammurabi’s Code. Hammurabi is the best known and
most celebrated of all Mesopotamian kings. He ruled the Babylonian Empire from
1792-50 B.C.E. [3]
"Anu and
Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring
about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the
evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule
over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further
the well-being of mankind ..."
So begins the
Law Code of Hammurabi, a list of nearly 300 laws etched into a two and one-half
meter high black diorite pillar, discovered in 1902[4]
This code is believed by many to be the oldest surviving place
in writing where the phrase “an eye for an eye” is recorded.
There has been much commentary by people of faith to this
“an eye for an eye” idea. And for many, even these 38 centuries later, this is
the basis for our ideas on justice. Yes, 38 centuries.
We see this all the time, when someone is the victim of a
crime, they feel violated, they feel fear. I don't know if you personally have
ever been the victim of a crime, but I have.
Back in Detroit, when I was in my early 20’s, I was renting
to own a home there. It was also a time when I was working three jobs to pay
for school along with the rest of the expenses of life, like food and shelter.
I came home one night, after job number 3 to find that my home had been
burgled. Someone had been in my house,
the house that I loved, worked for, cleaned, and kept up to the best of my
ability, even though I was so busy trying to improve my life.
Among the things that were stolen were my computer and my
instruments, which were very high end, professional level instruments from
Paris.
Also missing was my pet cat, Nikolai.
I found that I couldn’t stay in the house. I couldn’t sleep
there at night, every little noise made me jump. In robbing my house, they had
stolen my sense of home.
And so I fled, as many who feel powerless do.
Now having your home burgled is awful, but it is not the
worst crime ever committed against a person. I know this, but still it is a
horrible memory.
I tell you this story to demonstrate that I understand a
little of what it means to feel victimized, vulnerable and powerless.
This is a universal set of feelings for those who have been
the victim of a crime. Whether that be someone hitting your car in a parking
lot and not leaving their contact information, all the way to more serious
sufferings like sexual assault and murder.
Every crime leaves behind someone who is traumatized.
And those who feel traumatized want justice.
Many of us are tempted to go back 38 centuries to Hammurabi
to look for justice.
The Ancient Hebrew texts of the Books Exodus of Leviticus
make reference to this phrase “and eye for an eye.”
In the New Testament Book of Matthew, when Jesus gives the
Sermon on the Mount, in Chapter 5, he is said to have offered some of the
following:
The Beatitudes
He said:
3 “Blessed
are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
These are called The Beatitudes. They are very well known,
of course, and they are in part the origin of some of the movement called
“Liberation Theology” in Latin America, which is a topic for another sermon.
But also Jesus makes reference to the Code of
Hammurabi. From the Book of Matthew,
Chapter 5, verses 38-42:
38 “You
have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But
I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right
cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if
anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If
anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give
to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow
from you.
Though many of us struggle with people who quote from the
Bible, I hope that you will see here some of the goal of gentleness and justice
that many of our Christian friends and neighbors think of when they think of
their faith.
And of course, in our own times, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King talked about Hammurabi’s code:
"Violence
as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is
impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all.
The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It is immoral because
it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding...".[5]
Winning his understanding is very much what the process of
Restorative Justice is about.
The origins of Restorative Justice are murky at best. Like
the Indo European language group, there are camps that are in serious debate
about the origins of this process that is becoming more and more into use in
our modern era.
There are those who speak wistfully of the ancient tribes
of man using restorative justice in a time before harsh codes of law where
introduced. There are those who believe at least the modern origins of
restorative justice come out of Australia with ties to the Aboriginal people
there.
The origins of restorative justice are of interest of
course, but not the point of this morning.
Restorative justice is a process whereby a victim of a
crime and the person convicted of that crime mutually agree to meet to try to
understand each other, bringing what can feel like an utterly inhuman act, into
focus on a human scale, and in the process, hopefully provide healing to both
the sufferers of the crime and the people who created the crime.
I’ll confess that when I first heard of this process, I
wasn’t very convinced of its effectiveness. It seemed sort of soft to me, and
frankly, I didn’t really see the point. In my imagination, I saw people in a
room, angry and hurt almost beyond measure, berating a person who’d killed
their loved one. I thought it would serve only to further traumatize everyone
involved.
And then in 2006 there was a shooting at the West Nickel
Mines School, where a gunman entered the school, shooting 10 girls, 5 of whom
died, and then committed suicide.
It hurts my soul to have to say this phrase “This was back
when a school shooting was shocking to the nation.”
Part of what moved my understanding of the power of
restorative justice was the response of the Amish community to the killing of
their children.
Much in the same vein that I resist the temptation to
romanticize the origins of restorative justice in ancient times, by grabbing on
to the coat tails of the whole “noble savage” school of history and story
telling, I do not want to overly romanticize our Amish neighbors. They are not
two-dimensional characters in a play. They have real life and struggles just as
we do.
Which is what makes their response to the shooting so
remarkable.
The community reached deeply into its theology of passivism
and non-violence, turned to their understanding of faith and responded out of
that. Their response was to visit the home of the parents of the man who’d shot
their daughters and say to them “You too have lost a child today.”
It was an act that struck me to my core.
And thereafter I began to see restorative justice as an act
of compassion for all involved. Acts of compassion are not easy. They require a
deep rootedness in a desire for doing what is right.
At the time when Hammurabi wrote his code, an eye for an
eye was a ruling defining the amount of retribution for crime. Limiting the retribution, no longer could you
escalate the punishment in a way that well out-stripped the original offense.
Eighteen Hundred years later, Jesus preached about that
same definition, saying that it’s time had passed, that an eye for an eye, that
retribution need not be part of the transaction for an offense.
And two thousand years after that, Rev. King taught us that
retribution in equal amounts leads to equal suffering on all fronts.
Recently I was at a wedding where the Greek Orthodox Bishop
used the story from the Book of John where Mary, the mother of Jesus, makes
Jesus turn water into wine at a wedding.
It had been the tradition, which I’m sure never happens any
more, to serve the good wine first, and then as people became drunk and unable
to tell the difference serve up the wine of lessor quality. The Metropolitan,
as bishops are known in Greek Orthodox churches, then instructed my friends who
were being married, to save some of the good wine for later. Not to use up all
the good stuff at the beginning of their marriage, leaving only the meh stuff
for later.
It occurred to me that this of course was really good advice,
but what the Metropolitan did not tell them was this: If you are the recipient
of the good wine, you must be open to enjoying it for it to be enjoyed.
If you are too embittered by life to accept and enjoy the
good wine when it is offered to you, you might as well be drinking the two-buck
chuck.
In order for restorative justice to work, the victims
cannot be so embittered that they can only see the process as a way to exact
revenge on those who have hurt them.
May we all be wise enough as we go through life to
recognize when someone is offering us their best. May we be gracious in
accepting those imperfect gifts, and may our own meager offerings be gladly
accepted with deep generosity of spirit.
Blessings to you on this, our shared journey.
