God Forgive Us

As a follower of Jesus, I am very comfortable with the idea that Jesus Himself expressed when He told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36) That statement was no effort to relinquish his role as King, for he would follow that with a word to Pilate that too few of His followers remember, “You say correctly that I AM a king.” (18:37)

In the world in which He lived, there were religious people who were Sadducees who thought going to bed with the government (Rome) was the shortcut to success and prosperity. And there were Pharisees who thought that some hyper-legalistic view of the Law was the only way to please God. Put those two fatally flawed ideas together and you have God’s Messiah dying on a cross.

Some things never change. Headline news on the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for today – Saturday, 19 September 2015 – reads “Georgia ready to execute woman.”  Kelly Gissendaner – the woman Georgia is ready to execute – is not God’s Messiah. I get that and am not even remotely confused about that. But a boatload of people who claim to follow God’s Messiah are comfortable sitting by silently as the state executes her.

The short version of her story is that she arranged the death of her husband in 1997. Her partner in that crime worked through   a plea agreement, she went to trial. She was found guilty and sentenced to death. A host of complications – not unusual in death penalty cases – has brought us to this moment where, according to the AJC, a window of opportunity for the state to execute her has been opened for the state between noon September 29 and noon October 6. The state’s normal pattern is to execute such people on the first day of opportunity at 7:00 p.m.

Gissendaner is not shy in admitting that she arranged her husband’s death. But in prison, she has become a committed follower of Jesus and, according to news reports, become a very influential person among Georgia prisoners to actually take advantage of opportunities to reform their approaches to life. Any government official with a modicum of a brain would look at her story and think that perhaps the Georgia prison system would be more redemptive and more reform oriented if we allowed the Kelly Gissendaner kinds of people to continue living and being influential.

But that is exactly the outcome when followers of Jesus think that either going to bed with the government is the key to success or that being hyper-legalistic about “the Law” is the only option.  We crucify Jesus, execute Paul before he gets the chance to be the person God called him to be, and we support the state in its unjust decision to execute Kelly Gissendaner. We do that while patting ourselves on the back about our sense of holiness based upon “following the letter of the Law.”

Please.

A very respected and successful defense attorney in Georgia recently told me that the most difficult places in Georgia to address the issue of justice and redemption were places where evangelical Christians were the majority voters when it comes to electing judges and district attorneys. What sadder indictment of people who claim to follow Jesus could there be? Like the Sadducees of Jesus’ world, we think government trumps God; like the Pharisees, we think life is all about “the letter of the Law.” Put those two things together and we execute Kelly Gissendaner without even a flush of conscience.

For a number of years now the state government of Georgia has been elected by people who, by and large, would be in the category of “evangelical Christians.” The governor will sleep well because he doesn’t have the power to commute sentences. That is little more than the political claptrap that creates the challenges of our age. But he is elected by “evangelical Christians” who somehow have come to the conclusion that justice and redemption aren’t a part of the Jesus story.

God forgive us.

Georgia will likely execute Kelly Gissendaner. That will be a sad day. Her guilt is not a matter of dispute. Apparently the idea of redemption, renewal, and restoration is.

God forgive us.