The Need of a Physician

Michael Foucault chronicled the transition of civil punishment. He researched the change that occurred when we went from a dungeon to the modern prison. There were two key changes in this transition.

The first was the difference between the body and the mind. A dungeon was a place of physical torture. In the dungeon you injure the person to rid the body of evil. Beat the devil out. The body was corruption. If we tame it like a wild horse, then the wrong doer would be made right. Tame. No longer violent, unpredictable, compliant. In the dungeon a wrongdoer is beaten unto something good.

This philosophy was left behind when the prison was designed to be a place of mindful reflection, not physical torture. In the modern prison, the devil was not so much a factor, nor was the body.  The new prison was a matter of thought and mind.  The earliest designs of modern prisons were meant to provide time to think.  Error, wrongdoing, violence, all sorts of vice were a lack of understanding.  If you were given time to ponder your misdeed, you would gain enlightenment and the power of reason would free you. 

              The first version of this prison was designed by Quakers.  Seeking a non-violent alternative to the dungeon, the Society of Friends constructed a large observation tower and then a ring of cells which could all be observed from above.  Known as the pan-optican, the tall tower surrounded by a ring of prison cells was an all-seeing eye.  A guard could look down into every cell from above.  They could observe every prisoner all the time.  This observation was to ensure safety for the inmate confined in a solitary cell. 

              The Quakers believed in solitary contemplation. In silence similar to their worship, a prisoner would achieve a new perspective.  The errors of their ways would appear, a better clarity on how to live would emerge.  We do this today with children.  We put them in a chair away from others in a classroom and tell them to "think about what they did" or "see how their behavior is not appropriate."  Although it might work to bring a squirely child into a moment of calm, or give a teacher a break, the basic theory of the Quakers and solitary confinement proved wildly wrong. 

              In the private, solitary cell ever observed by the all-seeing eye of the guards, the inmates went insane. It turns out solitary confinement is as great a form of torture, perhaps greater, than inflicting physical pain.  The unending isolation, while ever being observed, drove people insane.  To their credit the Quakers and others after them modified the solitary cell and pan-optican with a balance of common area and shared cell.  A blend of observation and privacy.

              As a historian Michael Foucault didn't give a verdict.  His analysis didn't suggest a change for the better or the worse between the dungeon and the prison.  The change was simply a shift for us to consider, bring to mind: where before we saw evil, wrongdoing as in the body, now we see it as in the mind.  Social ills, the persistence of violence, greed and abuse in all its forms is a matter of education.  To right wrongs, to solve the ills of society, the wrong doer is put in a place to consider what they did believing such restriction of life and liberty will foster a new way of seeing and acting.  People need to come to their senses, think about the consequence of their actions.  This thinking will restore the wrong doer.

              While many today, if not all, would be quick to reject this theory, the idea of restricting the movement of a felon so to correct behavior is yet our philosophy and policy.  We may not believe it works, but it is still our working theory.  People serve time, do time, and the time is a corrective; the criminal is in the correctional system. We know this is ineffective, but we persist. We can sense the futility but what is the alternative? 

              Having taught in prisons I would with all modesty suggest that the futility of this is clear to all concerned and this futility is the ruin experienced by prisoner and guard, inmate and warden.  The sheer futility of all is madness. 

In the gulags of Russia there was a form of punishment called moving dirt from right to left.  The intent of the punishment was madness. Dostoyevsky described this.  If a prisoner in Siberia was to be punished, they were made to dig a hole and then another and then another, each time filling in the last hole with dirt.  They would move dirt from right to left.  The madness of this punishment was a great deterrent.  If you walk through a modern prison, today, you can see and sense the futility, madness as it is an elaborate, expensive form of moving dirt from right to left.

              Most Presbyterians have a hard time telling you where to find the local jail.  They’ve never been; don't know. We are not unique in this.  Sociologists working with educators use this lack of practical knowledge as a baseline of caste.  They ask teachers if they know how to get someone out of jail.  Only a few know.  This lack of knowledge, what to do when someone is arrested, is a way of demonstrating how they may not know the world their students live in. 

              Even though we are skeptical of the value, we have the most people in prisons in the world, our incarceration rates are a shame we leave unspoken.  We don't believe it works, may not even know where to find a prison, but we employ this method more than anyone.  Even though most Presbyterians will never walk through a prison, we do live and embody the modern theory of imprisonment.  We believe in the isolation of shame, the power of shunning.  It may not be a solitary cell with a pan-optican, but we are quick to share our observations to isolate and correct behavior.  In many ways social media is just a new form of Quaker correction.  Mostly, though, we yet believe that if people only understand right from wrong, they will live better.

              I am not sure if this is a consolation or an ironic tragedy, but all these factors are at play in our reading today.  Jesus called Levi to follow him.  He called a tax collector, a man who should be shunned and treated with shame.  To make matters worse, Jesus goes to a party at Levi's house where all his tax collector friends were invited to dine. 

              The party upsets the Pharisees.  And their displeasure is the revelation of the reading.  Why were they upset?  Did they want an invitation?  Did they consider such a party a risk to society?  No.  Although it is likely they would all know a Levi and had a quiet relationship with a tax collector, they knew where Jesus was dining all too well, they were upset because this was in public.  Jesus is dining with the sinners for all to see.  He is with people they would meet quietly.  Jesus put the rule of shame aside.

              Shame is to be done quietly, privately.  Shunning is supposed to be subtle, invisible.  In truth these forms of correction are never truly private as rumors spread and the snub is all too often quite clear.  Yet, there is an unspoken rule, a working theory of correction, that if we treat people with derision, if we offer our disdain privately, quietly, then they will get the hint, they will realize, "Oh, what a fool I am, what terrible deeds have I done.  With the clearing of a throat or a lingering stare, I am now made right. I see the light."  This doesn't work and it is madness, but we do it.  Trust it even.  This is our working theory of social correction.

              As an aside, if you want to see this theory at work today, drive around.  Each honk of the horn, each waving of the hand, each rant not heard by the offending driver is this theory at work.  Doesn't work, but we persist in our honking and waving and ranting.  That will fix them.

              Jesus offers a different path, a different theory of righting wrong, of confronting sin without shame.  His method is neither punitive nor shameful.  He offers a cure, a healing.  He forgave sins.  Forgiveness is his theory.  Instead of shame he offers dignity; instead of shunning, he goes to the party.  Instead of violence he offers undeserved compassion. In each we can glimpse a theory of correction, a method of grace.  Levi doesn't need shame, he needs healing.

              Like all teachings of Jesus, it sounds good, sounds nice really.  In theory, all would agree you gather more flies with honey, the carrot is better than the stick, faith casts out fear.  Who can argue with these?  But how Jesus treats Levi and his friends and how he speaks to the Pharisees is more than a method of encouragement or enticement.  Jesus is looking at Levi and his friends as in need of healing.  He doesn't coax Levi to a better life, he frees him with forgiveness.  And with this freedom Jesus reveals the real need of the physician.

              A journalist friend likes to say, his job is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.  This always makes me a bit nervous as he considers me a bit too comfortable.  And quite often I have heard pastors say, I need to speak prophetically.  It's my calling they will profess.  Which I take to mean God says I get to poke people in the eye.  My ministry is to poke the bear.  And, if truth be told, I would imagine everyone here in some shape or form believes in the need to shame, to shun, to deride.  To put down; to treat people with contempt.

              I won't speak for journalists, nor will I speak for you, but I can offer a word to the preacherly sensibility of prophetic declarations.  Exposing our racism, our sexism, our greed, and violence can be thrilling, make you feel like a mighty voice of change, revolution is in the air.  Such declarations can make you feel powerful.  And too often from pulpits such declarations are boomed as if from on high.  This can make for great drama.  The only problem with this is: it’s just not what Jesus did.

              Jesus spoke prophetically to the Pharisees.  True.  His declaration of healing to the broken, the messiah as coming for the sinners not the righteous, this was a prophetic verdict.   He was revealing the path to freedom.  Yet his prophecy was not how bad people were, how much doom was at hand, his prophecy was how futile was our use of shame, our impulse to shun and punish. We know it doesn't work, but we persist.  Offering derision has no power compared to offering dignity, but we choose disdain over dignity. 

              I risk adding to the fault, but I would say, our greatest shame is our trust of shame. 

              When Jesus asks, who needs a physician, the Pharisees must have sensed the irony, the contradiction.  These were very smart people, very powerful people.  They knew their disdain for Levi was futile.  They knew that shunning the wrongdoer didn't yield anything but hypocrisy and madness.  But they were trapped in a theory of punishment they knew didn't work.  We know the correctional system doesn't correct, but we continue to incarcerate.  We know pointing out flaws in others doesn't make life better, but we continue in our self-righteous critique.  We know dignity is better than shame, but shame is just easier.

              The kingdom of God, the truth that lies buried in us, a forgotten memory, hidden treasure of our soul, the kingdom of God is found, uncovered when we trust dignity more than shame.  Amen.