It's strange how things sometimes come together as if there were a guiding hand behind them. Just as the full horror of the events in Soham was beginning to dawn on us, we were sitting down with our Confirmation Group to talk about Jesus' part in God's initiative to save us from our sins; and the House Group had reached "Blessed are the merciful" in their guided tour of the Beatitudes.

It is not for me to say anything about what happened in Soham - the police must do their work and the law must take it's course- but perhaps the time is right to think a bit deeper about what we mean by justice and mercy, sin and salvation, and to see whether those ideas can offer any hope and any suggestions for a society which has become acutely aware of the cost of wrongdoing, and the need to do something to tackle it.

Crime, wrongdoing, sin; call it what you will, there are some things that no decent society can tolerate. The big question is, "What do we do about them?"

Two things... we need to put the wrong right, so far as this is possible, and we need to put a stop to it altogether

Where we get into difficulties is in deciding how to do these things, and in particular what part punishment plays in the equation. And where I suspect I shall have most of you reaching for your hatchets is in suggesting that punishment, on it's own, has no part to play at all.

Pure punishment does not put the wrong right, nor does it reduce the likelihood of the offender committing another crime (some people argue that it actually increases it - if we smack our children then they will grow up thinking it's all right to smack others).

What does go some way towards putting the wrong right is to let the wrongdoer see the damage he or she has done, and to make them take on the desperately hard work of trying to rebuild the trust and the confidence which their action has destroyed.

Understanding the impact of their actions on other people is one of the ways of making potential wrongdoers think again before they offend. The other is the fear of what will happen to them if they do. It is the fear of punishment which deters people from doing something wrong, not the punishment itself, and if our present approach is not working it may be because those likely to commit crimes are not sufficiently afraid of the possible consequences.

But this doesn't necessarily mean that we need to hit them harder. St Paul knew a thing or two about what changes people's lives and his advice to the Church in Rome, persecuted as it was, was:

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head."

In other words, we are much more likely to convict people of the wrong in their lives if we show them what is right; than if we give them another taste of the bitterness they have come to regard as normal.

And then comes the mercy.

Many people when first confronted with the pain they have caused others will just want to shoot themselves. Mercy is what holds on to them until shock grows into sorrow, sorrow into repentance and repentance into accepting forgiveness.

The Church from St Paul onwards has been built on men and women who have been confronted (by God, in love) with their sins; held through the shock of seeing themselves as God sees them; given a chance to work out their repentance and then assured of forgiveness and a new start in life.

St Paul was an accessory to murder, yet he was given a new name as a sign of his new start. Who knows what names God has for those whom we call "hopeless", "unforgivable", "fit only for the gallows".

God's justice is tough all right, tough on Him and tough on those who want to be like Him. I pray we may be strong enough to play our part
Alan
1st September 2002