“Jailhouse Rock”

Ephesians 5:15-20

August 16, 2009

Many a time it matters more not what you are doing, but from where you are doing it. Several Olympics ago we all heard about an inexperienced bobsled team competing in its first Olympics. Sure, bobsled is not a sport for faint hearts, but there are many teams competing in such events and that’s not really big news. What was big news is that the team was from Jamaica, a country seldom known for winter, yet again winter sports. John Candy starred in the movie version of their story, “Cool Running,” and it was a hit because of the humour not only of the actors, but of the entire situation. We paid attention to a team of not very great bobsledders because they were from a country who had only heard of snow, not experienced it.

Paul wrote a number of letters to churches and individuals where he had previously been working. The Letters of Paul to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon have traditionally been grouped together as the Prison Letters, written when he was a prisoner in Rome around 60-62 A.D. There is no argument that this is what happened to Paul, although his eventual execution is known not from the Bible, but from the oral traditions passed down by the members of the early church. There is considerable doubt whether Paul personally wrote these letters, for while there are a number of scattered comments throughout these letters about his being “a prisoner for Christ” and other allusions to being in prison, a fuller description and rationale of what he was doing there is never offered. He talked about important things, but he could have discussed them easily with no reference to prison. And that is the point, for the fact that he was a prisoner in a jail that would make us shudder colours in subtle ways what he says. Therefore, today I wish to talk about the situation, not the words themselves, about how being in prison says something about who we are as Christians.

I assume it is a dangerous question to ask how many of you have been in a jail. I have gone to jail a number of times, but on every occasion they let me back out the door with little argument. Most of us do not view jails or prisons as respectable places, yet they are part of our basic and earliest callings as Christians. One of the most famous of Jesus’ parables is when the Son of Man sits in judgment on his throne in heaven and declares to those on his right hand, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

Paul wrote from prison and two of the most famous works were written from real prisons - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran who was imprisoned by the Nazis and hung two days before liberation in 1945, wrote Letters and Papers from Prison. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote a relatively short Letter from the Birmingham Jail, an epistle targeted at Christian clergy who had previously criticized King for introducing an outsider’s element into the Civil Rights Movement. King was held in prison in Birmingham, Alabama, during one of their freedom marches.

Karl Barth, the greatest theologian of the 20^th century, served as the pastor of a Swiss Reformed Church in Safenwil, Switzerland, for 10 years until he was called to teach theology at several universities in Germany. After Hitler assumed power, Barth’s outspoken opposition resulted in him being escorted out of the country back to his native Switzerland and he taught at the University of Basel for nearly 30 years. It was said that if you wanted to hear Barth preach, there was one sure way - end up in the Basel City jail. Barth preached there for years, perhaps the most famous set called Liberty to the Captives, in which he made the point that the prisoners sitting in the prison chapel pews were more free spiritually than many people on the outside.

I have several jailhouse tales that I believe show a different side of prison life and how it can end up as an astonishingly clear proclamation of the Gospel. Melvin was a Grade 12 student member of the youth group in the San Francisco Japanese Methodist congregation I served in while in seminary. Melvin walked a different path than most of the other youth, but it was he who made the point of introducing Molly and I to the wonders of classic Japanese cinema at the old Toho Theatre in Japantown, as well as the drums. Melvin was a gentle person, but he liked guns, collected them, but a little too much as it turned out.

One Sunday morning before I had headed off to church, the church secretary called me at home, saying, “Melvin’s in jail!” What? How? Seems someone had stolen some of his guns, and then there was a drive-by shooting - though no one was hurt - and the police traced the serial numbers back to Melvin and so Melvin was in the San Francisco City Jail on a charge of attempted murder.

There are no courses in seminary on how you go visit a person in jail, so I had to learn by doing. First was to find out where the jail was located - not in a nice section of town and it took me quite a while to find my way there. It was a four story warehouse and I went in the ground floor, told them who I was, who I wanted to visit and was given a pass and a ride up an elevator with bars at every landing. Finally, on the third floor I was shown to one of those rooms just like you see in all the movies - plexi-glass window with the inmate on the other side and you talked by a telephone. Melvin was properly scared and didn’t know what to do. I promised him I would find a way out for him, so I contacted Legal Aid and the next day they did spring him on his own recognizance. Charges were eventually dropped, but the black mark snuffed his chances of enlisting in the Air Force. Melvin was sincerely grateful and when we were invited to move to the church manse from our seminary housing, he quickly volunteered to move us. It took two long trips with his car packed to the gills, but it was accomplished. I thought about Jesus’ statement about himself, “I was in prison and you came to me,” and knew now what that meant to Melvin.

The Hampshire County Jail in Northampton, Massachusetts, Molly’s hometown, was built in the 1850’s and used at first for Confederate officers and prisoners of war in the American Civil War. It was an old venerable and crumbling institution. They had great food, by the way, and many a UCW or Council of Churches meetings would be held in their basement cafeteria catered by the jail kitchen staff. It was quite the adventure entering the jail for the meeting. Unfortunately, they never kept the people behind we requested.

This was a jail in the old sense and not attractive, but the most intriguing thing about it was the warden, a round little Irishman, John Boyle. John and his wife lived in an apartment in the jail and I was once invited in. No outside windows, but homey enough. John talked about “his boys” and was certainly paternalistic and kind.

Periodically, I would conduct a worship service on Sunday afternoons and after the last one I did I talked with John Boyle about canoeing in Maine. The next morning he died of a sudden stroke. John Boyle made one think a little deeper about the nature of jails, prisoners and freedom. I was a prisoner and you came to me, and John came and stayed and lived among the prisoners. He showed them what it meant to live free.

Tom Long is the professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and a pretty good one himself. When he came to teach at Candler he and his wife decided to join Central Presbyterian, a big downtown church. The minister invited all the new members to a dinner and then afterwards asked everyone to say why they had joined this church. One fellow mentioned the spectacular music, another the youth group for her teenagers, a third because he didn’t like his pastor in the last church and he likes this one. Then they came to Larry, who openly talked about his drug and alcohol addictions, but had turned things around, sober for three years and now works in an outreach center helping people like him. He joined the church because the people were so supportive, they had saved his life. Long commented, “We had come for the music and the parking, he had come for the salvation!”

A little while later Long heard that Larry was in jail, so he decided that since a fellow member of the body of Christ was in that situation he should visit him and so he did. Similar kind of prison to the one in San Francisco, and he sat down at the plexi-glass with Larry on the opposite side, phone in hand. “How are you doing, Larry?” Larry answered, “I am actually doing pretty well. Just before Christmas I’m working at the outreach center and I realize that there is an outstanding warrant still active for me, something I did long ago. I figured with my new life it was time to finish the old one, so I turned myself in. Actually, I have a little outreach center going on in here. I write letters for some of the inmates to their wives or girlfriends, and lead a little Bible study. I get out the week before Easter and I just can’t wait to be in church for Easter!”

Long was blown away. He saw on the other side of the plexi-glass a person who was truly free, and knew that he was free. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!

Preached by Robert Kitchen

at St. Andrew’s United Church

Regina, Saskatchewan