The woman caught in adultery is a well-known Gospel story. Perhaps we have heard it too often to any longer feel its terror. Officials are purposeful about ragging a frightened woman into public to execute a death penalty plan against her. They put her on display in the Temple area. They intend murder and set upon stoning her to death. Before doing so, the officials taunt Jesus to comply with their law. Their law is based on military justice and it demands her death. Killing her off is the legitimate execution of their militant belief system. But Jesus does not support these militant officials and their deadly belief system. Jesus supports conscience and creativity; he supports love and life. Jesus thus stops them from executing their beliefs and from executing her.
It is deeply disturbing that institutional christianity, specifically in the U.S. presently taunts people into supporting state executions. It thus diverts people from Jesus’ pro-life witness. By that support it is executing the Christian faith; killing it off. In the U.S., state officials are better able to murder people in prisons because of the arguments of one particularly influential official. That execution supporting official is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He is touted by state sponsoring christians as a christian. Antonin Scalia recently and suddenly passed away. The judge was given a laudatory send off by the official state/church military justice system. It is a system that with Scalia’s help, no longer uses stones but instead more refined weapons to torture and murder people. Scalia’s funeral was attended by officials across the execution system. In attendance were congressional cutters of food stamps; judicial comrades criminalizing poverty; corporate CEO’s stealing from workers; Wall Street bankers looting pensions; and military personnel killing Iraqi’s. Also notably in attendance were princes of institutional christianity – the many bishops and priests who consort with the executioners and sanctify their unjust system of military justice. They officiated at Scalia’s funeral thereby bestowing a blessing on the judicial life and deadly values of a man who officiated over executing people for the state. He did not believe in a living witness but instead in a deadly Law: “(T)he Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead—or, as I prefer to put it, enduring. It means … what it meant when it was adopted. For me, therefore, the constitutionality of the death penalty is not a difficult, soul–wrenching question. It was clearly permitted when the Eighth Amendment was adopted (not merely for murder, by the way, but for all felonies—including, for example, horse–thieving) … And so it is clearly permitted today. … when I sit on a Court that reviews and affirms capital convictions, I am part of “the machinery of death.”
The machinery of death has captured the imagination of too many people, including self-titled christians. Very unfortunate, since christians are called by Christ Jesus to be supporters of life. Let us support love and life for Willie Brown, Karla Faye Tucker, Joseph Wood III, Clayton Lockett, Michael Wilson, Dennis McGuire, and so many more.
Prayer: Spirit of Life, we support a life affirming culture.
Question: What will it take for me to relinquish my need for justice and support people’s need for love?
March 13, 2016 Gospel John 8:1-11 Fifth Sunday of Lent