The Other Lottery

The Other Lottery
A Sermon preached at St. Luke's Church
by The Rev. James B. Craven III
on the First Sunday of Advent, 27 November 2005

In the name of God - Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Amen

     It has been awhile since I railed against the over-commercialization of Christmas, and I’m not sure I have ever done it here at St. Luke’s. It accomplishes little, not unlike trying to roll the tides back, but as long as the Corps of Engineers spends zillions trying to do just that, why not give it a go? We begin thinking of Christmas during the final game of the World Series, as the mall decorations generally go up the next day. Thanksgiving was three days ago, yet the Christmas parade in Raleigh was eight days ago. And the 12 days of Christmas? Just try to find any Christmas music on the radio on December 26, the day we first see discarded trees by the side of the road. If you have a short wave radio though, the traditional 12 days of Christmas does seem to be honored more in Europe than in North America.
    It is not easy to avoid being caught up in all of it, as we are so very far removed from those first Christians, pre-Christian Jews really, those who had long awaited the Messiah, a liberating King who would free them from the rigors of Roman military occupation. Of course a different sort of king was born that first Christmas at Bethlehem, but that’s another story for another day. It is so difficult for all of us not to be overwhelmed by all of it. I can take about 40 minutes at the mall this time of year before I want to scream, any time of year for that matter.
    There are those who do better at resisting all the nonsense and who understand perhaps better than many of us here the true meaning of Christmas and the loveliness and anticipation that is Advent. Last week I took my car in to be worked on, and to my surprise ran into an old friend working at the dealership. I had not known he was there, or even in Durham, and in truth could not recall his name, though we recognized each other. Guess how he greeted me, “Getting ready for Thanksgiving and Advent, Father?”
    As I have been away from it for several years now, some of you may not know that I spent the first 17 years of my ordained ministry in various prison communities, and I use that overused term community advisedly. It is no knock on this parish church or any other to say that in my experience our sisters and brothers who are incarcerated understand community, and the love and support inherent in Christian community, better than many of us do. What little they own, they hold in common. They help each other learn to read and write, they grieve with one another, laugh and cry with one another, and they affirmatively do not like starting the Christmas observance too soon. Singing Christmas hymns at the joint starts on Christmas morning, but it lasts for 12 whole days. One year we had a young Pima Indian from Arizona who moved the wise men in the crèche set a few inches every day until they arrived at the manger on January 6. Love just absolutely permeates the prison Christian community, in a most tangible way I cannot adequately describe. And by and large it lasts. I am really proud of our prison alumni. We read about the recidivists who make the evening news and the front page, but we hear little of the great majority who come out and lead exemplary lives, continuing the habit of love in community acquired while inside.
    Not all come out though, and that leads me to the lottery, which has certainly been in the news of late here in North Carolina. Not the dollar a ticket at the convenience store lottery, which has already this year revealed the fact that there are maybe three or four people in all of state government who have no conflict of interest, but a lottery of a darker and rather more transcendent sort. There are 170 odd men and women on death row now in North Carolina and the third execution in a month is scheduled for next Friday at 0200. Almost without exception those on death row have committed horrific crimes, but so too have many who have not made it to death row. You may have read of Anne Miller, who a month ago in Wake County got 40 years for slowly poisoning her husband to death with arsenic, the last dose of which she personally injected into an IV line at his hospital bedside. Robert Petrick is on trial here in Durham now for allegedly strangling his wife, weighting her down with chains and dumping her body into Falls Lake. He has not yet been convicted, but it looks pretty bad for him, and he is not subject to the death penalty. Anne Miller and Robert Petrick won the lottery, while Steven McHone and Elias Syriani did not. McHone killed his mother, whose dying words were “He didn’t mean to do it,” and 2/3 of her family asked the Government to commute his death sentence to life without parole. McHone was executed November 11. Syriani killed his wife, whose four children all asked the Governor to spare their father’s life. He was executed November 18, and yet another execution is set for December 2 at 0200. Is there a quantitative difference between these cases? Only the difference between a winning lottery ticket and a losing ticket. No wonder the Governor was such a proponent of the other lottery.
    Our sisters and brothers on death row are like us in many ways, but also in large part very different. A young man I know well there was given beer in his baby bottle to keep him quiet, was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by his father, and was so multi-addicted and strung out that he cannot remember the events of the two murders he was convicted of committing.
    The Episcopal Church has opposed capital punishment for almost 100 years now, and we hope to have soon a list here of some death row inmates who have no family visitors and receive no correspondence. Remember that Peter and Paul were on death row for an extended period in Rome, and Jesus too was on death row at Jerusalem, but only overnight. Corresponding with folks on death row is a two-way street. It has the potential to brighten their day and yours. I find it helps to remind myself that that man or woman, now condemned to die, was once an innocent small child, a scared first grader, a Girl Scout, a high school football player, and above all a valued child of God and our sister or brother.
    Now please don’t tell me I am being either soft on crime or uncharitable toward the victims of crime. All I ask of the Governor, and our President, is that the sentences of those on death row be commuted to life without parole. And I too have been a victim of crime. I was once held up at gunpoint and told to kneel down with my back to the gunman. And on another occasion I was in a 100 mph car chase with armed Klansmen late at night on a Louisiana highway.
    I can tell it either way about the $1 a ticket lottery we will apparently have underway here next spring, though so far I must say it sure resembles a ship of incompetent and not terribly ethical fools. The death row lottery though is nothing short of obscene. If you doubt me, ask “What would Jesus do?” Would the living Christ have told the four children of Elias Syriani, also the children of his victim, that their father too must die? We must each answer that question for ourselves, as the Governor must, in his heart of hearts, and guided by his faith and his conscience, answer it for himself. I fear he may well be in denial though, denial the cheerful defense.
    Isaiah reminded us 2700 odd years ago, in words we heard earlier, that we are the clay, God is the potter, and “we are all the work of your hand.” And all does not just mean all of us here at St. Luke’s, it includes all of humankind, including all the incarcerated and the women and men on death row. You may remember a poster some years back that showed a young child saying “I know I’m somebody, cause God don’t make no junk.” And as Paul reminds the at times difficult and unruly church at Corinth, Jesus Christ “will sustain you to the end.” Sustain who? All of us, the whole family of God.
    And finally, in the Gospel today, from Mark, Jesus reminds us to be alert, to watch and be ready for the kingdom of heaven, to be prepared. That’s all well and good, but we are all of us capable, thanks be to God, of walking and chewing gum at the same time. So while we wait, may we always remember, and never forget, our responsibility to be Christ to each other, to be the hands and feet of Christ in the here and now, in the time of this mortal life, and not to curse the darkness, but to light candles for all of our brothers and sisters, to hasten the coming of the day when the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and that all discord in the family of God be healed. In Christ’s name we pray.
                                Amen.
St. Luke’s
27 November 2005