P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT — AND A LITTLE BIT MORE

Have you ever thought to yourself, “So-and-so has really hurt me, really stuck it to me. But if I can do ‘X’ to him back, that will even the score”? And ‘X’ was either some dirty deed in return, or some marvelously fiery, eloquent, razor-sharp speech, delivered in front of not only your enemy but about 150,000 cheering supporters, or some equally ideal penalty. The absolutely perfect punishment, tailor-made by you — with many hours of careful thought put into it. Does this ring a bell? Friend, I think I can hear a whole choir of bells going off at this very moment. We’ve all done this. It’s called nursing a grudge, and quite a few of us have R.N. degrees — in fact, we have M.D.’s and Ph.D.’s in grudge-nursing. As we said it in our series title, I’VE GOT TO NURSE THIS GRUDGE BECAUSE IT’S SICK!

Do you remember a classic old line from the 1973 comedy caper entitled The Sting? It won the Best Picture academy award that year, and maybe audiences liked it so much because this was essentially a story about seeking revenge. The crooked New York banker, Doyle Lonigan, had ordered a couple of his thugs to get rid of a Chicago con artist named Luther. And the entire film then revolves around a plot where Luther’s partner, Robert Redford, and Paul Newman try to get revenge by conning this Lonigan out of half a million bucks on a fake horse-racing scheme.

Well, it’s a 30-year-old story now, but maybe you remember that at the very end of the movie, they do indeed sucker Mr. Lonigan out of his suitcase full of cash. And Newman turns to Redford and asks him: “Well? Is it enough?” In other words, is this bucket of cash enough to make up for your friend Luther being killed? Has vengeance been satisfied? Are you happy now?

And Redford slowly shakes his head. “No,” he says finally. “It’s not enough.” Then he laughs. “But it’s close. It’s real close.”

And do you know something, friend? That line before the final credits in The Sting really says a lot to us about our desires for revenge. The bottom line is that you can’t get there. You may get close, but no way can you balance the scales. You can’t really get even. There is no “there” there, as the old saying goes.

In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey has a chapter entitled “Getting Even.” Some of the stories he shares leave you reeling; they absolutely do. But about halfway through, he includes a line or two from the great writer, Lewis Smedes. Here it is, word-for-word:

“Vengeance is a passion to get even. It is a hot desire to give back as much pain as someone gave you.”

Isn’t that it right there? You give me 50,000 volts; I want to give you 50,000 volts. You cause me “X” amount of hurt or shame; and I won’t sleep at night until I’ve come up with a plan to pay you back right up to the ounce. But Smedes tells us how futile this is. Notice:

“The problem with revenge is that it never gets what it wants; it never evens the score. Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops, never lets anyone off.”

And of course, the history of this planet is a blood-spattered story of how people simply cannot get off the escalator of revenge. If you want to balance the scales, you never can. You can’t get “parity”; no chance. Because, of course, as soon as you even clear your throat to begin the payback process, your enemy — thinking the exact same thing about you too — starts it up again. You can’t catch up. It really is like the old nuclear policy between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.: “M.A.D.” “Mutually Assured Destruction.” I have so many MIGs; you have so many MIGs. I have this many nuclear missile silos; you have them too.” Building up, building up, madder and madder and madder.

Just one page later in Yancey’s book, he quotes from a theologian named Romano Guardini, who sees our entire human race on this one-way escalator:

“As long as you are tangled in wrong and revenge, blow and counterblow, aggression and defense, you will be constantly drawn into fresh wrong. . . . Only forgiveness frees us from the injustice of others.”

We mentioned yesterday the heart-wrenching book, Dead Man Walking, by a Catholic nun who worked both with Death Row inmates, and also with the families of the victims. And she poses the question: What price could possibly make up for the fact that this man, this rapist, destroyed your teenage girl? He brutalized her, he terrorized her, he killed her at point-blank range. And now we ask you, the victim’s mom: Would a certain dollar amount balance the scales? That’s the stupidest question in the world. Would a certain number of years in prison, a really bad prison, make things right? I have heard of stories where broken-hearted moms fantasized endlessly about that evil man, that monster, languishing in a horrible cell. Not just languishing, but with black-shirted guards endlessly whipping him with chains and whips and scorpions. But it would never be enough. Their fantasies — usually unfulfilled even as they were — would never bring satisfaction.

How about death itself? Would “an eye for an eye, a die for a die” be enough to actually balance the scales and bring peace to a wounded heart? With amazement, Sister Helen Prejean writes that even the electric chair was not enough to fully pay back for these heinous crimes. Listen to this stark testimony:

“Vernon begins to cry,” she writes. “He just can’t get over Faith’s death, he says. It happened six years ago but for him it’s like yesterday, and I realize that now, with Robert Willie [the killer] dead, he doesn’t have an object for his rage. He’s been deprived of that, too. I know that he could watch Robert killed a thousand times and it could never assuage his grief.” And this next line is so telling. “He had walked away from the execution chamber with his rage satisfied but his heart empty. No, not even his rage satisfied, because he still wants to see Robert Willie suffer and he can’t reach him anymore. He tries to make a fist and strikes out but the air flows through his fingers.”

That story shakes you up, doesn’t it? And I’ll tell you one thing: it helps to put our own grudges into perspective, doesn’t it? But friend, I know that my own pet hurts are still very precious to me sometimes, and yours are as well. You may not be waiting outside the gates of Death Row, eager to light off sparklers. But there’s someone out there right now, most likely, and you’ve been waiting a long time for a fair amount of hurt to land on their heads. And yet the court transcript is painfully clear: you can’t get there from here. There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of revenge.

The Bible doesn’t say it just like that, but it does tell us not to even try to get even. Notice this from Proverbs 20:22:

“Don’t take it on yourself to repay a wrong; leave that to the Lord.”

And just one chapter later:
“The wicked will eventually bring on themselves the suffering they have caused others, and transgressors will end up paying for what they have done to the righteous.”

Well, I know as well as you do that no matter what the Word of God tries to tell us, something inside of us is going to tell us to keep scrambling up the down escalator. Even if we can’t ever get to the top. Even if we can’t exact perfect revenge. We’ll take imperfect if we have to. We’ll settle for fifty cents on the dollar if necessary. “Even if it’s an unfinished journey, I’ll enjoy the drive,” we think to ourselves. “Boy, will I enjoy it!”

But friend, even that isn’t true. This Vernon, the broken-hearted dad in Dead Man Walking, found that nothing but misery accompanied the road to revenge. There was no happiness for him, even sitting in a little room at Angola at midnight, watching a man walk the “green mile” and then die in the electric chair.

And it’s the same for all of us. Even here at this ministry, we’ve all seen the results of simmering, unsettled anger. It’s exacted a cost . . . every time. It’s ended badly . . . every time. It’s brought sorrow and spiritual hurt, never satisfaction. Every time.

But back to this verse in Proverbs. Notice again:

“Don’t take it on yourself to repay a wrong; leave that to the Lord.”

Listen, friend. If a perfect payback is needed for some enemy of yours, only God can really deliver. Only God can truly punish to perfection. Only God can fix it so the scales of justice balance right down to the penny. And He will. He promises that He will. In His time and in His way and with His wisdom and unstoppable might. But we’ve got to let Him do it. We’ve got to let Him show His might and keep His promises in His own way.

And that’s forgiveness right there. Giving it to God and then walking away from the escalator. “Not my will, but Thine be done.”