Measure for Measure

from my message on Mother's Day, May 11, 2014, from Luke 6:37-38

(putting on an apron while standing behind the communion table)  I will not be doing a cooking show today.  But I want to tell you about my Grandmother Johnson and her cooking.  My grandmother loved me.  I know she loved me because when I would come to visit her in Marble Falls and later in Burnet, she would make me my favorite dessert--her lemon pie.  It wasn't a lemon meringue pie, more of a lemon chess pie.

Now Cathy was my fiancee'.  She loved me.  She wanted to show her love for me.  So when we were visiting grandmother in Burnet once, she asked grandmother if she could get the recipe for her lemon pie.  Grandmother said, "Yes, just as soon as you marry my grandson!"

After we were married, Cathy spent some time with  Grandmother Johnson in her kitchen to learn how to make the lemon pie.  The recipe wasn't "take 3 cups of flour;" it was "take 3 handfuls of flour."  Every time it was the same.  Not 4 tablespoons of butter, but 4 pats of butter.  Not 3 tablespoons of salt, but 3 pinches of salt.

(stepping away from the communion table)  Grandmother Johnson wasn't exact, wasn't going for precision.  She was generous...overflowing...not just with her measurements, but also with her love.

How do you want to be judged?  How will you judge others?  What will be the standard for measurement when it comes to forgiveness?

There was a famous play....you may have heard of it....Measure for Measure.  Who was the author?  Yes, William Shakespeare.  Cathy and I got to see it in this past year at St. Edward's University.  I will give you the Spark Notes version of the play.  It is set in Venice.  The Duke hands over authority to Angelo.  Then the Duke goes into hiding, posing as a friar.  He is like the all-seeing god.  Angelo is very strict, moralistic. He cracks down on all crime in the city, especially that of a sexual nature.  A man named Claudio is arrested because he has gotten his fiancee' pregnant before marriage.  Claudio is scheduled to die for his crime.  Claudio's sister Isabella is pure and chaste.  In fact, she is slated to enter a nunnery.  She goes before Lord Angelo to plead for her brother's life.  Is there anything she can do to save him.  Lord Angelo says he might think of a way...wink, wink.  What would you do to save someone you love?  How do you measure sin in someone else but not yourself.  At this point, the Duke, still posing as a friar intervenes.  He gets Marianna, a former lover of Angelo, to go in Isabella's place.  Angelo is supposed to forgive Claudio and to marry Marianna...but oops...it doesn't happen that way.  Angelo doesn't forgive Claudio.  I can't tell you the ending, but it is a happy one.

There is a famous couplet from the play, "Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure.  Like doth quit like, and measure for measure."

How do you want to be treated?  How will you treat others?  What measure will you use for yourself?  For others?

Before the Jewish faith came along, there was an ancient practice of reprisal.  If someone knocked out your eye or your tooth, you might kill the perpetrator.  If someone killed a family member of yours, you might respond by killing all of their family.  So when the Old Testament and the Jewish faith propose "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," it was putting a limit on reprisal.  It was actually showing mercy.  Then Jesus comes along and pushes the boundary even further as we have in our passage today as he talks about giving and forgiving.

What is the measure?  Mercy without justice may simply be permissiveness, anything goes.  Justice without mercy may simply be cruelty.

I think Jesus may be talking about a quality called restorative justice.  I read a paper by one of our church members going for her master's degree.  Restorative justice is a set of principles that looks beyond meting out punishment to that of restoring relationships.  It understands that it is more than a law that gets broken, it is a community that gets torn.  It understands that we can't simply warehouse criminals and pretend that the problem has been dealt with.  Restorative justice gives voice to all the parties involved.  In fact, the verb tenses in our passage illustrate this; they are all plural.  Y'all don't judge, you all don't condemn.  You all give, y'all forgive.

I will give you an example from 2 villages in Africa.  A mother had her son murdered by a young man from another  village.  The village elders came together with the family members.  It was decided that the murderer would be adopted by the mother of the man who was murdered. This new son would take care of his new mother and live in her house and provide for her.

I have another example from my former church.  There a mom had her son murdered while he was working as a convenience store clerk.  It was all caught on closed circuit security camera.  It was played all over the news at stations in Corpus Christi.  The perpetrator, another young man, was easily caught.  He was tried, sentenced to death row in prison.  My church member established a relationship with her son's murderer.  She began writing to him.  Then calling him.  She finally got on his visitor list and went to see him many times.  She forgave him.  She pleaded that he be spared, but the State of Texas executed him.  She felt like she had lost 2 sons.

I have no easy answers for you.  Restorative justice is messy, difficult.  In some cases of abuse, the parties may need to be remain separated.  What can we as a church do?  Some women from this church are involved in the Women's Storybook Project.  They go once a month to the prison in Gatesville.  They help the moms incarcerated there to read a book on tape to give to their children at home, so the children can go to sleep hearing their mom read to them.  Some people from this church are involved in Kairos minnistry, which means they from relationships with persons in prison, so that when the persons has served their time, he or she will have a network of support.  They help the former prisoners to find work and to find a community of faith.

What is your measure of forgiveness for yourself?   For others?  In our Bible passage, it talks about a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing.  You see my apron. Imagine it is a robe.  You go to the market and ask for a measure of flour.  The vendor fills up the cloth pocket made by lifting up your robe in front of your belly.  You want a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing the edges.  No air pockets.  No shorting the amount.  Generous.

In the kitchen at Laurel Heights UMC where I served in San Antonio, these verses were placed upon the wall. We had a community meal there every Wednesday night.  I hope that all the food there, in fact all the ministry there was done with these verses in mind.

Isn't this why we come to worship?  Why we come to Bible Study and practice prayer?  We need to fill up on the full measure of God's love for us, so that we can give that same measure to others.  What measure do you want for yourself?  I want a measure that looks like Christ, living, dying, and rising from the dead.  I want a measure that has a God who loves us in spite of ourselves, in spite of our undeserving, in spite of our ungratefulness.

The measure by which God forgives us is the measure that I want to give others.  Measure for measure.  Amen.