Here is a link to a video of the sermon on Jan. 5, 2025 at First Congregational UCC, Madison.
I am fascinated by the last lines of that Gospel story.
“They left for their own country by another road.”
In other words, they went home another way.
I want to tell you about a few people who went home by another way.
I want to tell you about how their journeys affected my journey.
I think perhaps journeys like theirs may have affected many of you here as well, even if you do not know the characters in these stories.
It was almost 30 years ago, the late afternoon on Nov. 4, 1995 when Jackie Millar was napping at her friend John’s house near Reedsburg. She heard sounds in the garage and got up to investigate.
Two young men, Craig Sussek, age 16, and Josh Briggs, age 15, were trying to steal her red Honda in the garage. She asked them what they were doing. They pulled out their guns and told her to lie on the floor in the house. Craig covered her head with a pillow and then used a .22 pistol to shoot her in the back of the head.
She nearly died, but she did not. Even though her body is significantly impaired, her spirit – that is not impaired.
On her own, she was engaging in a kind of restorative justice – one of the hallmarks of the Prison Ministry Project that started in this church 19 years ago. Her story became part of the foundation for what has happened with restorative justice.
Madison’s Judith Gwinn Adrian wrote about that meeting in her book, Because I Am Jackie Millar. “When I met Craig for the first time in prison,” Jackie recalled, “I had barely gotten seated when he wanted to tell me that he was the one responsible for shooting me. He wanted to tell me that, through the tears. He did not do it to boast. He did it for himself, to live with himself.”
Jackie offered him a hug. She offered him forgiveness. She stayed in touch with him.
“I wanted to survive,” she said, “so I forgave Craig and Josh. But I don’t forget. I will remember until the day I die that they tried to eliminate me…Forgiveness is, in part, a gift I give myself.”
And Craig now says, “I started to embrace a better future for myself when the lady I shot and almost killed came to see me in prison. She told me I had value, she told me I had worth, she told me I was a kid who made a bad decision, she told me I wasn’t the worst of society, and that I was redeemable. When Jackie said she forgave me, I made the shift to better myself, a path I’m still on today.”
I served with Craig on the JustDane board in the past two years. I had no idea of his connection to this story until early last year. He has a good job, got married in September of 2023, bought a house in Oconomowoc. Jackie’s courageous act that became restorative justice transformed his life. It set him on another road home. As she told her story to many others, it also sent her on a road not always traveled by those who are victims of crime.
Let me tell you the story of Mario. This story was told by Fr. Greg Boyle. Greg started Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles in 1988 to give gang members a way to take another road to a new kind of home.
Greg described Mario as the most tattooed individual who has ever worked at Homeboy. There are tattoos from head to foot, down his arms, of the name of his gang. He even had tattooed his eyelids. One says “the” and the other says “end,” so, as Greg put it, when he is in his coffin, there will be no doubt that this is the end.
His life growing up was horrific, filled with stories of terror and torture. He became a tough guy on the streets and served time in prison.
But now, in Greg’s words, “If you asked anybody who is the kindest, most gentle soul here, they wouldn’t say me – they’d say Mario.”
A woman stood to ask him a question. Mario was trembling. “You say you have a son and a daughter about to enter their teen years. What advice, what wisdom do you give them? “
Mario says – almost crumbling – “I just … “He holds face in hands. “I just don’t want my kids to turn out to be like me.” His sobbing overcame him.
There was total silence in the room.
Then the woman stands back up at the microphone and says with tears – “Why wouldn’t you want your kids to turn out to be like you? You are loving, you are kind, you are gentle, you are wise. I hope your kids turn out to be like you.”
A thousand total strangers stood and they wouldn’t stop clapping. All Mario can do is hold his face in his hands. This roomful of strangers had returned him to himself. They were reached by him, which returned them to themselves. They, too, had taken another road home.
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These guys were no strangers to domestic violence. Many had grown up in violent homes, others had themselves been perpetrators of domestic violence. The chaplain there at the time – Deb Mejchar, who has done a lot of work with the Prison Ministry Project - had helped them explore the issues around that and they decided to raise money to help.
But wait. How did the guys at Fox Lake raise $1,000 for DAIS? Keep in mind that prison wages at the time ranged from a low of 8 cents an hour to a high of $1.50 an hour, with the average around 30 cents an hour. It is no small thing to raise $1,000.
Yet Deb helped to get the men involved in a wide variety of projects to do good for one another and for the community beyond the walls. They did food fundraisers and straight-out donations to raise the $1,000.
When the folks at DAIS asked me to come along for the check presentation because I had been involved in a men’s group there, I was sort of reluctant, but OK.
Did I ever underestimate the power of that day!
Military veterans formed an elaborate and disciplined honor guard to present the colors. Two men sang a jaw-dropping version of the National Anthem. Native American drummers played and chanted “Women’s Healing Song.”
A prison rock band concluded the afternoon with a poignant original composition by Aaron Harris called “Don’t supposed to be this way,” mourning the pain of domestic violence. “Love can never be the same,” he sang of the broken hearts.
As the program ended, the men filed past my partners from DAIS and me so we could shake their hands and thank them for their efforts to help others. Unnerved to visit prison? Not on this day.
I learned about walking a different way. A bit later that year, Jerry Hancock and my pastoral colleague Bonnie Van Overbeke invited me to become part of the restorative justice program of the Prison Ministry Project. Just one session, they said. You know how Jerry can lure you in. Build on that masculinity stuff you do with DAIS. I think that was probably because of my striking resemblance to Hulk Hogan.
I have had a pretty limited role compared to many volunteers, some of whom are here. I go in once during some of the restorative justice sessions to help men think about what it means to be a man in our world, in prison. I was pretty nervous about this until I started meeting with the guys. And they astounded me. They were seeking a different road and I was learning a new way as well.
I’ve done about 12 of these sessions since 2018 and after each session, for each visiting speaker, the guys write thank you letters. I’ve gotten over 100 of these.
“I want to start off by saying thank you and I appreciate your taking the time out of your day and coming to meet us and hear a few things about us because most of the world has forgotten about us, nobody hears us or sometimes even sees us and this group lets us know that it’s still people in the world who cares about us and not judge us by our mistakes because everybody makes mistakes and you just have to learn from them and not make the same mistake twice.”
What I hope – what I think all of us hope – is that as folks go through the restorative justice process, they will find the new way home. It does not matter whether home is the place they eventually will go outside the walls or a new way of being inside the walls.
Derek from the Columbia Maximum Security Correctional Institution in Portage wrote last October: “I grew up believing I had to be a predator or prey. I chose the former…After some deep thought, I have to say I have to stay involved in efforts like the one you and I are engaged in now. I have to remain in spaces that are safe for everyone to meet on common ground and have these hard discussions…I have to work on resolving conflicts without feeling lesser or weaker for not establishing dominance. I have grown by finding this awareness about myself.”
He is finding the road.
Gus from New Lisbon Correctional Institution, a medium security facility, wrote also last October: “Right now I am 26 years old and it was no more than three years ago that I had to learn that every situation doesn’t deserve a response and sadly, I had to learn it the hard way.” He said he has a huge family that dearly loves him. ”So all I go through now I think of them first, and think how much more I would lose out on with them if I reacted to everything said to me.”
And John about two years ago wrote from Fox Lake – also a medium security facility: “This is my first time being in prison and I definitely don’t want to return…I want to be the man I was minus the alcohol. When I achieve that, there is no limit as to what I can do.”
When the three magi made their journey following the star across vast distances, they knew they were seeking something special, but they did not know what.
They went to the king – Herod – because he had the power.
They found a baby, who it turns out had power beyond what they could ever imagine.
And then they knew that they could not go back to Herod’s power, a destructive, murderous power, but had to find another way. And they did.
Jackie Millar and Craig Sussek found another way.
Mario found another way.
The men at Fox Lake found another way.
Wally and Derek and Gus and John are finding another way. And so are many others.
What is the new road we might walk this year?
How might we help others seeking another way?
How might we let them help us?
The Magi offered a path. We can follow it.
Amen.
