David Letterman says of Regis Philbin that he’s the hardest working man in show business. Of course, you all know and I know and David Letterman knows that the hardest working man in show business is James Brown. Bur the argument could be made that Regis Philbin is the hardest working man in show business. He set a Guinness World Record for the most times in front of a television camera – sixteen thousand plus hours. He started back in the 50s in television. In 1962 he was Johnny Carson’s announcer. He was Joey Bishop’s sidekick in the sixties. For the past couple of decades, he’s been on the show “Live with Regis and” somebody – Kathie Lee or Kelly. He’s eighty years old. He looks better at eighty than I did at forty.
His producer on “Live with Regis and Kelly” is Michael Gelman. Regis is going to retire later this month. Whenever Regis needs something or whenever something goes wrong on the show or whenever he has a question, he shouts to the guy who would know, “Gelman! Gelman! Gelman!”
It’s like a catch phrase. Regis would be probably best known for the catch phrase he said on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” the prime time game show he hosted. “Is that your final answer?” When he yells for Gelman, it gets somewhat comical in a way. It was for my daughter a few of years ago when she was younger. If I needed the table set or something, I would yell, “Gelman, the table needs to be set!” She thought it was funny back then. I don’t think she’d think it was funny now.
We all need a fall guy sometimes. We all need someone to turn to for help. Regis turns to Gelman, The Skipper turns to Gilligan, “Gilligan!” Sometimes people turn to God, “God! Why is this happening in my life? God?” Gelman! Gillegan! God!
Sometimes we yell at ourselves. I didn’t realize this until a few weeks ago, but I do this. I went golfing with a parishioner, so, you know, I was working. When I missed a shot and the ball went into the woods or something, I would yell, “Willy!” Willy? Who’s Willy? I have no idea. My Gelman I guess. “Willy!” We all need a fall guy, somebody to yell at sometimes. And I thought that that was what this sermon was going to be about. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s about something deeper, something more meaningful.
According to the Hebrew scriptures, God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land. But Moses objected. “God, you don’t want me, I’m not a very good speaker, I stutter. Take my brother Aaron.” But God wanted Moses. So Aaron helped out Moses. Aaron was Moses’ Gelman, I think, at least for a while. He was the guy Moses turned to. But I think over time their relationship evolved from a Gelman-like relationship to a friendship. They were friends. Moses need the friendship of Aaron to do what he had to do.
Jesus had a dozen Gelmans, people he yelled at sometimes. Perhaps no one more so than Peter. Their most Gelman-like encounter was when Jesus told the disciples that he was going to have to die, The authorities were going to kill him. Peter took Jesus aside and said, “Jesus, that can’t happen to you. They can’t kill you.” And Jesus uttered those famous words, “Get thee behind me, Gelman!” No. “Get thee behind me, Satan!” But their relationship evolved, too. Jesus himself said, “I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.” Jesus became friends with his disciples, including Peter.
When my daughter was three, four, five, six years old, we loved watching “Winnie the Pooh” and reading Winnie the Pooh books. Winnie the Pooh had all kinds of friends, Christopher Robin, Kanga and Roo, Tigger, Rabbit, Owl, Eeyore. Winnie the Pooh said, “If you live to be a hundred, I hope that I live to be a hundred minus one day, so I’m never without you.” That’s what friendship is all about. We want our friends to be there, always, with us.
Walter Winchell was a media figure even before my time, so I’m sure he was before many of your time. He was a newspaper columnist, radio commentator, television commentator back in the thirties, forties, fifties. He wore a hat and he had an unusual sign on for radio. “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America, and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press.” It was a little weird. But Walter Winchell knew about friendship. Walter Winchell said, “A friend is one who comes in when everyone else goes out.” In other words, when everybody else deserts us, a friend stays with us or comes to our aid, helps us out.
I guess most of you know that a couple of weeks ago I was arrested for civil disobedience in the city of Holland. I said I was going to occupy Holland’s City Hall for gay rights after they locked up the building. They locked up the building and I occupied it for about a minute and a half before the police arrested me, put my hands behind my back, handcuffed me, put me in the back of a patrol car, where I had about this much space [indicating a small amount of space with his hands]. Ugh! Very awkward situation. We were driving to the police department and I remembered what we tell our grandsons to say when they don’t have their seatbelt on. I didn’t have my seatbelt on. So I said, “I’m not buckled!” The police officer said, “I think you’ll be alright.”
We got to the police station where they asked me some questions, took a mug shot or two, took my fingerprints, my palm prints, the side of my hand prints, everything. They said that my bail was set at a hundred dollars and I could get out if I could produce a hundred dollars. All I had with me was sixty-four dollars. I left more money at home because I thought I might get arrested. So I called a friend of mine who’s a retired lawyer, and asked if he could come and bail me out. And he said, “Yeah, I can be there, I’m driving back from Grand Rapids, I’ll stop and get some money.” And he did and he bailed me out. We all need somebody like that in our lives. Somebody to literally or figuratively get us out of a sticky situation.
The next day, I got a call from another friend, Helen, who thought maybe I was still in jail and just wanted to find out how I was doing. We all need a friend like that, too. Somebody to check up on us and see how we’re doing.
Now I don’t want to brag, but I have hundreds of friends. On Facebook. I even know several of them. One of my Facebook friends sent out a story about this dog, who had some kind of disease of the eyes and it made him go blind. The dog just stumbled around for awhile until another dog showed up and helped the blind dog go wherever it needed to go, led that dog around. It was a friend. That dog was the eyes of the other dog. And we all need that in our lives, too. We all need somebody to help us along, whether we’re physically blind or spiritually blind, to help us along life’s path. We all need that sometimes.
In the movie, “Little Miss Sunshine,” a little girl wants to take part in the Little Miss Sunshine Contest in California. Her family tries to help her. If you haven’t seen “Little Miss Sunshine,” you should rent it or borrow it or go to Amazon and buy it so you can see it. It’s very, very good. She wants to go to California and her family, who are just a little quirky, they decide to go with her. So they pack up their rickety van that they have, and they take a road trip. Along the way, the little girl, who is about seven, wants to play a game. She plays different games. One of the games she plays is this eye test that she finds and she gives it to the other members of her family, including her older brother, who is in high school, whose dream it is to become a test pilot for the Air Force. She gives him the test and discovers that he’s color blind, so he can’t become a test pilot for the Air Force, it would disqualify him. His world came tumbling down. He was devastated. He freaked out. He made them stop the van. He walked twenty yards or so from the van and sat down. Nobody knew what to do for him or say to him. Then the little girl walked over to him, sat down, put her arms around him, didn’t say a word. She knew that’s what he needed. He needed someone to show him they cared. Someone to show him compassion. Someone to show empathy for his situation. We all need that sometimes. We all need somebody, not to say anything, but to come beside us and put their arm around us, show that they understand, show that they care, show that they have compassion for us in our situation.
One of my favorite songs is a song sung by four superstars – Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John. The song is, “That’s What Friends Are For.” They sing, “Keep smiling. Keep shining, knowing you can always count on me. Oh, for sure. ‘Cause I tell you that’s what friends are for. For good times and for bad times, I’ll be by your side forever more. That’s what friends are for.” That is what friends are for. People who tell us “Keep smiling, keep shining,” People who will always be by our side.
When Regis retires later this month, he’ll leave “Live with Regis and Kelly,” but I don’t think he’ll leave Gelman. I think I know enough about their relationship to know that they go out to lunch together, they go to dinner together, they socialize together with their wives. I think they are more than just “Star” and “Servant.” They’re friends.
I think we all need a friend. We all need somebody to be there for us, to bail us out – actually or metaphorically, to call us up and see how we’re doing, to help us along life’s path, to put their arm around us and show us compassion. And we all need to be a friend. We need to be the ones who bail someone out, call somebody up to see how they’re doing, to help lead someone along life’s path, to put our arm around them when they’re down and troubled. We all need to be a friend too. We all need a Gelman, and a Pete, and a Helen. We all need to be a Gelman and a Pete, and a Helen. We all need a friend and we all need to be a friend.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Two Executions. Two Reactions?
In the Monty Python movie, “The Life of Brian,” Brian lives a parallel life to Jesus. At the beginning of the movie, three wise men come from the East, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They go into the barn where Brian and Jesus were born. Jesus was in one stall and Brian was in another. They go into the stable with Brian and they give his mother gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. She is overjoyed. Then they walk out and they look down the way and see a heavenly light coming from another stall, so they march back in and take the gifts back and give those gifts to Jesus. At the end of the movie, just like Jesus, Brian is executed. He is crucified, hung from a cross. He’s there with a couple dozen other people. One of the people hanging from a cross sings a happy song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” and they all begin singing the song. That’s how the movie ends, with all of them, hanging from the cross, singing this happy tune.
I remember when the movie came out, reading a column written by the late conservative writer, William F. Buckley Jr., who was a devout Catholic. He was outraged by the movie. He said it was blasphemous to take something so sacred in the Christian story and make light of it. I came away from that scene though, realizing that the crucifixion of Jesus wasn’t unique. Jesus wasn’t the only person crucified by the Roman government. That’s how they executed people. It wasn’t just Jesus or Jesus and the two robbers on either side of him. Hundreds of thousands of people were executed by the Roman government in that way. Unfortunately, two thousand years later governmental executions still take place.
In one of the Republican Presidential debates a few weeks ago, NBC news anchor Brian Williams asked Governor Rick Perry about the 234 people who’ve been executed in his state during his time in office. When Brian Williams asked that question, the audience applauded the deaths of those 234 human beings. I think Brian Williams was a little taken aback, so he asked Rick Perry what he thought about that reaction of people applauding about the executions. Rick Perry said something like, (with a Texas drawl) “Now look. If you come to Texas and you kill somebody, you can rest assured we’re gonna kill you,” or words to that effect. That wasn’t a very good impression, but you get the idea. There was applause for that as well.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a letter to the paper in response to a state legislator who had introduced legislation in Lansing banning Sharia law from Michigan. He was responding to nothing in particular, nobody has offered to bring Sharia law to Michigan. I think he was answering those islamaphobes among us, perhaps including that legislator, who have an irrational fear of Muslims. So I wrote a letter in response to that assuring the state legislator that Sharia law, at least in the form of capital punishment, wouldn’t come to Michigan the way it is exercised in Saudi Arabia, because way back in 1846 the people of Michigan banned capital punishment. It was the first governmental body in the world to do that. So I mentioned in the letter that the legislator didn’t need to worry about that aspect of Sharia law coming to Michigan, but if he wanted to, he might contact Rick Perry and alert him to the fact that Texas exercises Sharia law, like they do in Saudi Arabia. I suggested Rick Perry might not be aware that his state takes part in Sharia law and that he might want to change that law to make sure his state is not exercising Sharia law. I had, of course, my tongue deeply planted in my cheek when I wrote this, although a letter writer or two in response to my letter didn’t realize I was being sarcastic and thought I was being serious and wanted to correct me, saying what they do in Texas isn’t Sharia law. But it is. That’s what they do in Saudi Arabia.
A few weeks ago on the same day, two men were executed in America, one in Georgia, one in Texas. In Georgia, Troy Davis, an African American, was put to death for the murder of a police officer many years ago. Troy Davis contended he was innocent up to just about his last breath. Many of the witnesses against Troy Davis recanted their testimony, said that what they’d said under oath wasn’t true. Several famous people came to speak on behalf of Troy Davis and to plead for him not to be executed, including former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Their pleas for mercy unfortunately fell on deaf ears, both in Georgia and in the U.S. Supreme Court. Troy Davis was executed.
On the same day in Texas, white supremacist Lawrence Brewer was put to death. Lawrence Brewer was one of three men who beat up an African American named James Byrd Jr. Then they chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him two miles. Then they took his decapitated body and dumped it in an African American cemetery. Lawrence Brewer never apologized for what he did, never expressed remorse, said that he wasn’t the one who killed James Byrd, but I think what he meant by that was that he wasn’t driving the pickup. As far as I know, there were no pleas for mercy on his behalf. Lawrence Brewer was executed by the state of Texas.
When I heard about the death of Troy Davis, I was saddened. My initial reaction to the death of the white supremacist Lawrence Brewer was one of “Good riddance.” But afterward I regretted my response to Lawrence Brewer’s death and I’d like to explore that with you this morning.
Jesus could have executed someone. Jesus was teaching in the temple, as you might expect a rabbi to do. Jesus was, after all, Jewish. While he was teaching, some scribes and Pharisees brought a woman before Jesus and told Jesus that she had been caught in the very act of adultery. Since it takes two to tango, where the man was in all this we’re not sure. They asked Jesus what he would do, since the law, the scriptures, the Bible, said that she should be stoned to death. Jesus uttered the famous words, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” The scribes and the Pharisees walked away. Jesus asked the woman, “What happened to your accusers?” She said, “They left.” Jesus said, “They did not condemn you and neither will I. Go and sin no more.”
I find a few things interesting in this story. One of them being where the adulterous man was. I wonder if the man wasn’t one of the Pharisees and scribes. It also seems that Jesus proved himself to be not a Biblical literalist. If he was a Biblical literalist, he would have stoned the woman to death. Or at least started the stoning. So Jesus doesn’t take the words of the Bible literally. I wonder what he thinks of those seven passages about homosexuality? But I digress. I wonder about people, also, who wear those WWJD bracelets, who are in favor of the death penalty because Jesus seemed not to be. How do they square that?
At least one Christian follows Jesus when it comes to the death penalty – Sister Helen Prejean. She wrote a book called, “Dead Man Walking,” in which she wrote about her experiences counseling inmates on death row. The book was made into a movie by the same name, starring Sean Penn, who played the inmate, not Sister Helen. He is put to death and there is no doubt he has committed the crime of which he was convicted. I read the book; I saw the movie, and I was privileged to interview Sister Helen Prejean several years ago when I had a radio talk show in another life. She said that none of us should be defined by our worst act. We should be defined by who we are. I like that. I wouldn’t want to be defined by my worst act. I don’t know about you.
Jerry Givens was the executioner for the state of Virginia several years ago. He was the one who flipped the switch that sent the electric current to the death row inmate or pushed the button that allowed the poisons to flow into the inmate’s body. He was responsible for the execution of several people. He noticed on the death certificate where it said, “Cause of death,” it was listed as “Homicide.” Murder. He wondered: does that make me a murderer? Does that make the state of Virginia a murderer? Jerry Givens no longer executes people. He is, in fact, against the death penalty now.
I never have understood people who believe that the government can do nothing right, except when it comes to the death penalty. Then the government can do nothing wrong. Really? It just might be that Troy Davis down in Georgia was an innocent man put to death. We’re not 100% sure. According to a study, from 1973 – 2010 one hundred thirty-eight people on death row were exonerated by new evidence. They could have been put to death. Thankfully they weren’t. How many people were put to death who didn’t commit the crime and weren’t exonerated by new evidence? We don’t know.
Two states, side by side. One employs the death penalty, the other does not. I researched this back when I was going to interview Sister Helen Prejean and I updated my research for this sermon. The two states are Kansas and Missouri. Somewhat similar. They both actually have the death penalty on the books, but Kansas hasn’t exercised the death penalty since 1976. Missouri, on the other hand, has executed at least 66 people since 1976. The argument is that the death penalty will reduce the number of murders in the state; it will act as a deterrent. The logic being (I think it’s a little faulty, but anyway), the logic being that before somebody kills someone, if they live in a death penalty state they’ll think, “Oh, wait a minute. I’m not going to kill this person in an act of passion. I’m not going to premeditate the death of this person because I might be killed myself.” That’s the logic, that’s the reasoning, that the death penalty will reduce the number of murders. So you’d think in Kansas where they don’t exercise the death penalty, they’d have more murders. Not true. Missouri, per capita, has almost twice as many murders as Kansas. So that whole argument is wrong. For those who care about budgets, how much government spends, it costs more to execute someone than it does to incarcerate them for the rest of their life, because of the cost of court appeals.
I am pro-life, at least when it comes to the death penalty. I don’t believe government should have the right to kill somebody. Now that’s just how I feel. You may feel differently. I don’t speak for this entire congregation. I just speak for me. So if you disagree, obviously you have that right. If you agree, what can we do? If you think the death penalty is wrong, what can you do? Well, you might write to the governors of the thirty-plus states that have the death penalty on their books and urge them to get rid of it, because it’s barbaric, because it puts the United States as the only country in the western world that still executes people and puts us on the same level as countries like Saudi Arabia. You might write members of Congress and ask them to pass an amendment to the Constitution banning capital punishment. We might hope that one day five of the nine members of the Supreme Court will outlaw capital punishment because it’s cruel and unusual and therefore unconstitutional. Maybe what we need is the wisdom of Solomon, or the wisdom of Gandhi.
In the movie “Gandhi,” a civil war breaks out. Muslims and Hindus are killing each other. Gandhi goes on a fast to try to persuade the people involved to stop fighting. As he’s lying on his bed, a Hindu man comes to him, weeping, and says that he just killed a little Muslim boy. He believes that he now faces eternal damnation. He wonders what Gandhi can do for him. Gandhi says, “I can help you.” He tells the Hindu man to go find an orphaned Muslim boy like the one he killed and adopt him and then to raise him as a Muslim. The man goes away, presumably to do what Gandhi has said.
I wonder in the case of white supremacist Lawrence Brewer, if instead of being put to death he would have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and then sentenced to share a cell, for the rest of his life, with an African American. I wonder if in ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty years, whether Lawrence Brewer’s heart might have been changed, might have been transformed, might have been renewed. I wonder if he wouldn’t have seen that we are all one – black people and white people and all people – are all one. We’ll never know because, of course, he was put to death.
I regret my initial reaction to his execution, of “Good riddance,” because I recognize that Lawrence Brewer is a fellow human being. He is a person of dignity and worth. I agree with Sister Helen that none of us, none of us, should be defined by our worst act, but by who we are.
I remember when the movie came out, reading a column written by the late conservative writer, William F. Buckley Jr., who was a devout Catholic. He was outraged by the movie. He said it was blasphemous to take something so sacred in the Christian story and make light of it. I came away from that scene though, realizing that the crucifixion of Jesus wasn’t unique. Jesus wasn’t the only person crucified by the Roman government. That’s how they executed people. It wasn’t just Jesus or Jesus and the two robbers on either side of him. Hundreds of thousands of people were executed by the Roman government in that way. Unfortunately, two thousand years later governmental executions still take place.
In one of the Republican Presidential debates a few weeks ago, NBC news anchor Brian Williams asked Governor Rick Perry about the 234 people who’ve been executed in his state during his time in office. When Brian Williams asked that question, the audience applauded the deaths of those 234 human beings. I think Brian Williams was a little taken aback, so he asked Rick Perry what he thought about that reaction of people applauding about the executions. Rick Perry said something like, (with a Texas drawl) “Now look. If you come to Texas and you kill somebody, you can rest assured we’re gonna kill you,” or words to that effect. That wasn’t a very good impression, but you get the idea. There was applause for that as well.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a letter to the paper in response to a state legislator who had introduced legislation in Lansing banning Sharia law from Michigan. He was responding to nothing in particular, nobody has offered to bring Sharia law to Michigan. I think he was answering those islamaphobes among us, perhaps including that legislator, who have an irrational fear of Muslims. So I wrote a letter in response to that assuring the state legislator that Sharia law, at least in the form of capital punishment, wouldn’t come to Michigan the way it is exercised in Saudi Arabia, because way back in 1846 the people of Michigan banned capital punishment. It was the first governmental body in the world to do that. So I mentioned in the letter that the legislator didn’t need to worry about that aspect of Sharia law coming to Michigan, but if he wanted to, he might contact Rick Perry and alert him to the fact that Texas exercises Sharia law, like they do in Saudi Arabia. I suggested Rick Perry might not be aware that his state takes part in Sharia law and that he might want to change that law to make sure his state is not exercising Sharia law. I had, of course, my tongue deeply planted in my cheek when I wrote this, although a letter writer or two in response to my letter didn’t realize I was being sarcastic and thought I was being serious and wanted to correct me, saying what they do in Texas isn’t Sharia law. But it is. That’s what they do in Saudi Arabia.
A few weeks ago on the same day, two men were executed in America, one in Georgia, one in Texas. In Georgia, Troy Davis, an African American, was put to death for the murder of a police officer many years ago. Troy Davis contended he was innocent up to just about his last breath. Many of the witnesses against Troy Davis recanted their testimony, said that what they’d said under oath wasn’t true. Several famous people came to speak on behalf of Troy Davis and to plead for him not to be executed, including former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Their pleas for mercy unfortunately fell on deaf ears, both in Georgia and in the U.S. Supreme Court. Troy Davis was executed.
On the same day in Texas, white supremacist Lawrence Brewer was put to death. Lawrence Brewer was one of three men who beat up an African American named James Byrd Jr. Then they chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him two miles. Then they took his decapitated body and dumped it in an African American cemetery. Lawrence Brewer never apologized for what he did, never expressed remorse, said that he wasn’t the one who killed James Byrd, but I think what he meant by that was that he wasn’t driving the pickup. As far as I know, there were no pleas for mercy on his behalf. Lawrence Brewer was executed by the state of Texas.
When I heard about the death of Troy Davis, I was saddened. My initial reaction to the death of the white supremacist Lawrence Brewer was one of “Good riddance.” But afterward I regretted my response to Lawrence Brewer’s death and I’d like to explore that with you this morning.
Jesus could have executed someone. Jesus was teaching in the temple, as you might expect a rabbi to do. Jesus was, after all, Jewish. While he was teaching, some scribes and Pharisees brought a woman before Jesus and told Jesus that she had been caught in the very act of adultery. Since it takes two to tango, where the man was in all this we’re not sure. They asked Jesus what he would do, since the law, the scriptures, the Bible, said that she should be stoned to death. Jesus uttered the famous words, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” The scribes and the Pharisees walked away. Jesus asked the woman, “What happened to your accusers?” She said, “They left.” Jesus said, “They did not condemn you and neither will I. Go and sin no more.”
I find a few things interesting in this story. One of them being where the adulterous man was. I wonder if the man wasn’t one of the Pharisees and scribes. It also seems that Jesus proved himself to be not a Biblical literalist. If he was a Biblical literalist, he would have stoned the woman to death. Or at least started the stoning. So Jesus doesn’t take the words of the Bible literally. I wonder what he thinks of those seven passages about homosexuality? But I digress. I wonder about people, also, who wear those WWJD bracelets, who are in favor of the death penalty because Jesus seemed not to be. How do they square that?
At least one Christian follows Jesus when it comes to the death penalty – Sister Helen Prejean. She wrote a book called, “Dead Man Walking,” in which she wrote about her experiences counseling inmates on death row. The book was made into a movie by the same name, starring Sean Penn, who played the inmate, not Sister Helen. He is put to death and there is no doubt he has committed the crime of which he was convicted. I read the book; I saw the movie, and I was privileged to interview Sister Helen Prejean several years ago when I had a radio talk show in another life. She said that none of us should be defined by our worst act. We should be defined by who we are. I like that. I wouldn’t want to be defined by my worst act. I don’t know about you.
Jerry Givens was the executioner for the state of Virginia several years ago. He was the one who flipped the switch that sent the electric current to the death row inmate or pushed the button that allowed the poisons to flow into the inmate’s body. He was responsible for the execution of several people. He noticed on the death certificate where it said, “Cause of death,” it was listed as “Homicide.” Murder. He wondered: does that make me a murderer? Does that make the state of Virginia a murderer? Jerry Givens no longer executes people. He is, in fact, against the death penalty now.
I never have understood people who believe that the government can do nothing right, except when it comes to the death penalty. Then the government can do nothing wrong. Really? It just might be that Troy Davis down in Georgia was an innocent man put to death. We’re not 100% sure. According to a study, from 1973 – 2010 one hundred thirty-eight people on death row were exonerated by new evidence. They could have been put to death. Thankfully they weren’t. How many people were put to death who didn’t commit the crime and weren’t exonerated by new evidence? We don’t know.
Two states, side by side. One employs the death penalty, the other does not. I researched this back when I was going to interview Sister Helen Prejean and I updated my research for this sermon. The two states are Kansas and Missouri. Somewhat similar. They both actually have the death penalty on the books, but Kansas hasn’t exercised the death penalty since 1976. Missouri, on the other hand, has executed at least 66 people since 1976. The argument is that the death penalty will reduce the number of murders in the state; it will act as a deterrent. The logic being (I think it’s a little faulty, but anyway), the logic being that before somebody kills someone, if they live in a death penalty state they’ll think, “Oh, wait a minute. I’m not going to kill this person in an act of passion. I’m not going to premeditate the death of this person because I might be killed myself.” That’s the logic, that’s the reasoning, that the death penalty will reduce the number of murders. So you’d think in Kansas where they don’t exercise the death penalty, they’d have more murders. Not true. Missouri, per capita, has almost twice as many murders as Kansas. So that whole argument is wrong. For those who care about budgets, how much government spends, it costs more to execute someone than it does to incarcerate them for the rest of their life, because of the cost of court appeals.
I am pro-life, at least when it comes to the death penalty. I don’t believe government should have the right to kill somebody. Now that’s just how I feel. You may feel differently. I don’t speak for this entire congregation. I just speak for me. So if you disagree, obviously you have that right. If you agree, what can we do? If you think the death penalty is wrong, what can you do? Well, you might write to the governors of the thirty-plus states that have the death penalty on their books and urge them to get rid of it, because it’s barbaric, because it puts the United States as the only country in the western world that still executes people and puts us on the same level as countries like Saudi Arabia. You might write members of Congress and ask them to pass an amendment to the Constitution banning capital punishment. We might hope that one day five of the nine members of the Supreme Court will outlaw capital punishment because it’s cruel and unusual and therefore unconstitutional. Maybe what we need is the wisdom of Solomon, or the wisdom of Gandhi.
In the movie “Gandhi,” a civil war breaks out. Muslims and Hindus are killing each other. Gandhi goes on a fast to try to persuade the people involved to stop fighting. As he’s lying on his bed, a Hindu man comes to him, weeping, and says that he just killed a little Muslim boy. He believes that he now faces eternal damnation. He wonders what Gandhi can do for him. Gandhi says, “I can help you.” He tells the Hindu man to go find an orphaned Muslim boy like the one he killed and adopt him and then to raise him as a Muslim. The man goes away, presumably to do what Gandhi has said.
I wonder in the case of white supremacist Lawrence Brewer, if instead of being put to death he would have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and then sentenced to share a cell, for the rest of his life, with an African American. I wonder if in ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty years, whether Lawrence Brewer’s heart might have been changed, might have been transformed, might have been renewed. I wonder if he wouldn’t have seen that we are all one – black people and white people and all people – are all one. We’ll never know because, of course, he was put to death.
I regret my initial reaction to his execution, of “Good riddance,” because I recognize that Lawrence Brewer is a fellow human being. He is a person of dignity and worth. I agree with Sister Helen that none of us, none of us, should be defined by our worst act, but by who we are.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)