Matthew 25:31-40
Restorative Justice recognizes that crime hurts everyone – those who have been harmed, those who have done harm, and the community. It creates an obligation to make things right. The foundation of restorative justice is genuine accountability based on 3 R’s: respect, responsibility and reimlationships.
-Minnesota Department of Correction
We were looking forward to having Jennifer Compeau with us today, but a death in her family meant she needs to reschedule. Jennifer has her own story to tell of addiction and incarceration and of recovery and new beginnings. She’s been awarded a grant from Minnesota ACLU to collect the stories of people in NW Minnesota who have been incarcerated because of addiction and to propose programs which help people into recovery, jobs, family and all those things we all hope for.
Before I knew that Jennifer wasn’t going to be able to be with us, I went looking for information about restorative Justice to include as a reading for today. I was pleased that the first place that popped up when I did a google search was the Minnesota Department of Corrections. I find it hopeful that a state department tasked with jailing people, also works with programs that avoid jailing people, but finding better ways to be, as they say, respectful, responsible and in relationship.
Most of us have some connection with the correctional system – a friend or family member, a friend of a friend, Michael the valve-turner with whom we corresponded when he was in jail in Bismarck. We know how simply putting someone in jail does nothing to correct the problems which led to crime in the first place. Jail isn’t a great place to get treatment for addiction, to finish an education which was hard in the first place, to learn interpersonal skills about how to get along with family or co-workers, to overcome poverty. Restorative justice programs hold people accountable when they harm others AND provide the resources needed to prevent future crimes, giving people a chance to create a better life for themselves and others.
Restorative justice says “people matter.” All the people involved in crime or other difficult situations matter, and they can all be involved in finding a way to make amends and change directions.
Our scripture lesson today says the same thing, “People matter.” People who are ill, people burdened with poverty, people without adequate nutrition, people in jail. That was the list of People-Problems in the first century. We could add to it today – people with mental illness, those with addictions, those victims of domestic violence or sexual violence, those with physical or mental disabilities, those without friends, those without job skills, those without transportation or housing, those displaced from their countries and now refugees… There’s no shortage of people with needs in our world. And if truth be told, there’s also not a shortage of people willing to help.
This past week some of us were glued to the Democrats’ political convention, where we heard over and over stories of people helping their neighbors. It was fun to hear so often, not that there weren’t problems in this world, but that there were solutions, and those solutions often looked like ordinary people doing something to help out.
We’ve spent this summer hearing about some of the many needs in our community. This series started out in my head looking like prophets calling us to action, and we’ve had some of that. It looked like helpers in the community reporting on ways to make a difference, and we’ve had some of that. It looked like all of us talking about our own good ideas for making life better for folks, and we’ve had some of that. The cumulative effect has been a little heavier than I’d hoped, but we are smarter than we began.
I’m pretty committed to Christian community being about helping folks. Family of God is perhaps the church I know most committed to making a difference in the world. But not even Family of God is going to solve all the problems of the world! This is a good time for us to remember that none of us is called to do it all, and each of us is called to do something. How do we know what part of the need is our job? It’s the part that moves our heart and gives us joy.
When we do light signs, those of you who like to talk out loud share the things you’ve done that week. There’s a pretty big variety – driving, cooking, sewing, repairing, weeding. Some of you take part in policy and program meetings. Some of you roll back your neighbor’s trash bin. All of those things and more are light signs. When something is our job, it shows up. We trip over it. We say, “Oh, I can do THAT!” and we do. It comes easy to us. We’re glad to do it.
When something isn’t our job, it seems distant from us. It’s about people we haven’t met or places we haven’t been. We can’t imagine how we would help. How would we make peace in Gaza? How would we design a job-training program for inmates in Stillwater prison? It’s beyond us. But it’s not beyond everybody. It’s somebody else’s job.
It matters that we do what we can where we can. It also matters that we think about what else needs to be done. We’re smarter now than we were in June about what other people are doing in our community. We’re at the time in our political cycle that we dream about policies we’d like to see candidates support. Our energy around these needs matters because it makes space for possibility. It creates hope and room for dreaming, and someday the right person will trip over that need and it will happen.
One of the most important things we did during light signs this summer is say “no” to sponsoring a refugee on our own. Hopefully another church in town is going to step up to that plate this week. But it wasn’t our job. It didn’t give us energy or joy. Because we’re no doing it, someone else will, and we’re ready for the right thing that comes our way, someday. You all know how much I like to feed people. You get in on the action, probably more than you wish you did. But I can’t feed people in Gaza or Ukraine or Sudan. The United Nations does that. World Central Kitchen does that. I give an insignificant amount of money to those folks, along with millions of others, and they do the work. Because they know how and they find joy in doing it. It’s not our job to fix the world. It is our job to do the part we care about most. And then we hear Jesus say to us, “Well done. Thank you.”