The Bungee Cord. 9-22-25

Hello,

Maybe you have heard of a judge named Frank Caprio. He was a municipal court judge in Providence, Rhode Island. He gained his fame through televised court sessions that involved relatively small crimes: parking tickets, traffic violations and the like. I ran into his court proceedings on Facebook. He was soft spoken, gentle, and a careful listener. He treated people with respect and showed a soft heart to people who were struggling just to keep their heads above water having grown up in such a household. He didn’t reward laziness or manipulation, but instead rewarded honesty, diligence, and perseverance. He even had a fund, named in honor of his mother, that would pay fines owed by folks who had fallen on hard times.

Judge Caprio died recently from cancer, and at his death it was said of him that he believed, “Mercy can lift a life higher than punishment ever could.” I am not certain from where Judge Caprio developed that belief, but I, who share that belief know where I have developed it: from Jesus the Christ. Though I certainly deserve my “temporal and eternal punishment” (words that I confessed every Sunday in the worship service as I grew up), God has chosen to show me mercy and forgiveness. Because of that, the pain that I have caused myself, others, and even God does not hold me in its grip, squeezing the life right out of me until I yell, “Uncle!” Instead, God took all the pain that I and the world could muster and squeezed the breath right out of it so it could no longer stake its claim on me, or anyone. Punishment may have limited power to hold people in line, and vengeance might serve to balance the scale of pain in people’s lives, but neither one of those things can do anything to lift people out of their pain. It is mercy, like a rescuer reaching into a deep well into which you have fallen, has the power to raise a person up from the holes we fall into in life, and the hole which we will be placed into in death.

When I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s, I was a pastor in an “inner city” church. Due to its location on a major thoroughfare in an economically struggling neighborhood, there was a regular traffic pattern of people knocking on the church door in search of help. Believing as I do, that mercy has the power to lift people up, I found myself the target of many who would come asking for “the young pastor”. I soon discovered that my “mercy” was being misappropriated. I, like them, became much more streetwise and realized my “help” wasn’t really helping them.

So, I took it upon myself to find places that could help them, for example, community food shelves and homeless shelters so I could refer them there, and I decided that I would treat them the way that I have been treated by God, with dignity and respect. I sat down with them and listened to their stories, even though I knew that their stories were often filled with deceit. (Such is the case with my stories I speak to God.). I didn’t try and decipher out the truth in their stories, but rather truthfully empathized with what I heard. Although I am sure that some of the storytellers thought me to be a naïve fool, it was my hope that they experienced in me a depth of care for them that comes from Jesus Christ, the source of my care.

I don’t know what became of almost all of those with whom I sat down and listened, but it is my hope that maybe for that brief moment they found themselves lifted by Christ’s love, a love that died and rose for them.

“ Mercy can lift a life higher than punishment ever could,” Judge Frank Caprio….and Jesus Christ.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger