Heard a story on NPR yesterday about the drug shortage for executions. Drug manufacturers are no longer making some of the drugs in the cocktail, and nothing has yet been found that gives a swift, painless death.
Utah is considering bringing back firing squads.
Will we dress prisoners in orange prison jumpsuits and put guns to the back of their heads?
Or will we put them next to a wooden fence a la western movies?
Will other countries show video of our executions as examples of human rights violations?
Truth is, I hate the death penalty in any form. I simply cannot reconcile it with the gospel. But somehow hearing a conversation about turning to firing squads strips the veneer off the "painless death" and gets right in my face with the disconnect of love your neighbor as yourself...love your enemies...
Do we only practice radical hospitality until it gets a little hard, really hard, or are we called to practice even when it demand our all? The argument seems to go that some humans are not redeemable, they are psychopathic and cannot be fixed. True. But do we get to kill them? Does that put them out of their misery or does it put us out of ours?
This is a hard call, this radical hospitality. I don't see any other way than to treat every human as precious in the sight of God. Our call is to keep them safe, keep others safe. No question we still live before the kingdom is fully realized here on earth.
It seems to me we can't dismiss anyone as irredeemable. God is God and who are we to limit God's work with a bullet to the brain or a drug in a vein...or a gated community, or assumptions that some just aren't able to succeed, or zoning that limits our exposure to struggles people face, or the refusal to think of ourselves or our "group" as less than perfect.
Many days I can ignore the truly difficult demands of radical hospitality and talk about coffee. Today God is in my face, asking if I am serious about living the gospel.
I want to be.
Grateful that in my failures, redemption is mine as well.
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