Retributive Justice
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 11:45-56
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032826.cfm
To be in captivity or occupied by another nation’s control causes a lot of anxiety for a group of people. They lack freedom and are in search of hope for a redemption of their people. It’s not an easy place to be in. The Jewish people had a long history of occupation and captivity, and their God gave them times of deliverance. It’s amazing through all of it that the Jewish faith and people remained through it all. They knew what it was like to be a nation without a nation and a nation with a nation. They knew what it was like to wander the desert without a homeland, to be in servitude in another land, and to be in servitude in a land they believed to be their own. Their scripture provides stories of when they thrived and when they were persecuted and how God remained true to them throughout these different times.
In today’s gospel, Caiaphas, the high priest, gives the leaders hope that their fate is about to get better if they have Jesus put to death. He prophesied that Jesus was not only going to die for the prosperity of the nation of Israel but his death would lead to the gathering of dispersed children of God. For them, what Jesus was doing was very displeasing to God and was causing a schism within the people. If they were to end Jesus, it would return them to how things should be, a unified people in the right relationship with God.
How often do we scapegoat people or groups of people today? We desire a God of retributive justice, but Jesus offers something different. We’re the ones who associate retribution with God. Jesus tells his followers to not resist evil people with evil, to turn the other cheek, and to forgive and show mercy in place of retribution. In my opinion, that’s part of why we killed Jesus. We want retribution and Jesus was offering love your enemies. We wanted exclusiveness, and Jesus offered inclusion. We wanted stoning and persecution, and Jesus gave us mercy. We wanted hierarchies and prestige, and Jesus offered the last shall be first and the first shall be last. How can you have justice if you're setting the guilty captives free? How can the world work if people aren’t punished?
Agape love, or unconditional and sacrificial love, is hard for us to comprehend. To most of us it even sounds heretical. It’s good enough and easy enough for God but doesn’t apply to us. In the kingdom God is calling us to, it is enough and it cannot exist without it. Yet we remain always pushing against it, and God keeps calling us to wake up. God seeks our transformation, not our punishment. God’s justice is likewise transformative, not retributive.
