Jeremiah Calling

            We don’t like bad news. We especially don’t like being told we’ve got it wrong. That isn’t some modern, twitter-age shortcoming of we humans. It goes back to the beginning of creation. We don’t like people to tell us our assumptions are wrong.

            So God approaches this guy named Jeremiah and God says, “I need you to tell my people they’re off track. I’m dropping the hammer on them Jerry. They’ll be over-run, exiled, and feel abandoned and hopeless …” And Jeremiah hears God but doesn’t say, “Whoa Big Guy. I’m not telling them that. I’m not gonna be the bearer of bad news.” No, he does what God tells him. He goes to the King and the leaders of Israel and delivers God’s message … and they throw him in a well.

            Yeah, we don’t like being given bad news. We don’t like being told we aren’t “all that.” We like to think we are moral and just even as the evidence begs to differ. We react in outrage at cultural disagreements and demand “justice” – which really means punishment – for a host of crimes, yet we don’t consider the ramifications of our tough talk or tougher code of conduct. And then Jeremiah shows up and tells us we’re wrong and we get angry.

            Almost thirty years ago, a mid-forties, released Federal inmate began a second act in his life writing and speaking about the transformative power of God and the believer’s duty to minister to the outcasts and apply God’s principles to their lives. As long as the released inmate kept his words focused on the fallen repenting he was applauded. But, when he took on “conventional wisdom” on issues of wealth and law and order, well it was Jeremiah all over again. It’s always so much easier seeing the splinter in the eye of the poor, black kid charged with drug dealing or robbery than it is to see the plank in our own eye. Chuck Colson wouldn’t let people of faith do that. And, his words from the eighties are as relevant today as they were then.

            “The delusion which vote-hungry politicians perpetuate – that crime can be cured by simple panaceas – is dangerous. It diverts us from the real issue and makes the problem worse …

            The only way to combat the demagoguery … is for Christians to work for laws, which apply biblical standards to criminal justice issues. Though the Bible does not prescribe prison as punishment, restitution is called for often … And most important we must clearly discern the truth about the nature of man …”

            I work with prisoners as a prisoner. Yes, I broke the law, as did almost every other prisoner I have met. And people must be held accountable for their actions. Society cannot condone one who steals from their employer and violates work place trust. I broke the law, I am guilty, and I must be punished, I must be held accountable. But Colson asks, where is the correlation between holding me accountable and making my employer whole, and showing the sufficiency of the law. Prison does not do that. Anyone who thinks good comes from places like this is deluding themselves.

            Justice is not a tool which the majority – or the ones in power – can exert based on their own biases. Justice – true justice – is manifested in the righteousness of God. I say this without any reservation: “WWJD,” What would Jesus do? He would forgive the remorseful murderer and embezzler and say, as He did to the law-breaking adulterous woman, “go and sin no more.” But those who in their self-righteousness allow and support a soul-breaking, vile, violent system like the corrections apparatus in America, he would compare to the Pharisees who are still blind.

            Harsh words; harsh judgment. The truth is sometimes harsh. I’ve been in here almost six years. I’m not a “better” person because of prison, but in spite of it. I am the man God understood me to be all along. And my mistakes and my transgressions – while many – were not enough to separate me from the love and redeeming grace of God.

            Right now this facility is awash in drugs – any kind of drugs. You can buy weed, pills, heroin, and more on the yard. Does anyone with an ounce of sense think that volume of drugs comes in through the visitation room? No, they are brought in by dirty officers and staff supplementing their state pay on the backs of the incarcerated. It is a corrupt, dirty system and we hide behind words like “justice” and “corrections” when those words mean nothing inside prison.

            During the Second World War American General George S Patton’s Third Army raced across Europe and into Germany. It was elements from the Third Army who first came across the Nazi concentration camps. General Patton contacted the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower, who personally viewed the atrocities. He then ordered citizens from surrounding German towns to walk through the facilities. “We didn’t know what was going on,” was a familiar cry from the German populace.

            “We didn’t know.” I know what that means. Until I found myself on the other side of the jail door I had no idea what prison was. Then I saw it first hand – the dirt, the violence, the waste of time and life. There is a reason, I am convinced, that Jesus included “you never visited me in prison” in His parable about the wise kind who divides His flock between those who minister to the exiled and those who don’t. He’s telling us “we didn’t know” is not an excuse.

            There are two college professors who come here each week to teach classes. Both are remarkable women. They could be on campus teaching. They choose instead to teach the men here. And it’s not easy. Teaching a class inside requires special preparations. Nothing comes in without prior permission. Then, there are the pat downs and the metal detectors just to get inside the fence.

            And their first few times in, they don’t know what to expect. There are men in class who 

haven’t been outside the walls for twenty or more years; there are men who have done horrendous things to land here. Still, these two women – and at least a half dozen other men and women from the local college – come here and teach; they educate men whom most of society has written off. They do it and they find meaning in their calling; and, they make a difference in spite of the walls.

            Prison has never made someone a better person. But, someone who’s willing to teach you – even in a place like this – they can, they do, make a difference, in spite of what prison tries to destroy. And what of the rest of us? In 1981, Charles Colson, went from successful White House lawyer to Federal inmate then lay minister and writer with Prison Fellowship wrote a stirring and controversial op ed piece on the public’s apathy toward the violence and degradation running rampart in America’s prisons.

            In the piece, he described in graphic detail the rape and murder of a young violent felon in Illinois. He marveled at the lack of interest this tragic story generated. Where, he wondered, were people of faith? He wrote this:

            “Our Christian conscience must force us to act. We must go to public officials – judge and legislators – and demand in the name of our Lord that reforms be made – jails cleaned up, sentencing practices changed …”

            Jeremiah ended up in a well for telling the people of Israel what they didn’t want to hear. And Jesus, well He was castigated by the religious elite in His society for associating – even seeking out – the thieves, harlots, and lepers. They tried to silence His voice with a cross. It didn’t turn out the way the elite expected in either case.

            Russian literary giant Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who chronicled his imprisonment in the Soviet Union in The Gulag Archipelago, wrote the following:

            “I can say bless you, prison, for having been in my life. For there I caught a glimpse of God’s view of His world and His passion for justice and righteousness.”

            There is bad news: Virginia is spending over $1 billion each year to imprison nearly 400,000 men and women, over half of whom are guilty of nonviolent crimes. Half of those behind bars lack even a high school education. One-third suffer from some sort of alcohol, drug, or mental health disease yet there is little to no treatment available behind bars. Of those who leave each year, one out of three will return within a year of release.

            Inside Virginia’s prisons every street gang has a presence. New members are recruited weekly. Drug use, theft, rape, and even murder occur with much too regularity. Bizarre, quasi-religions based on racial separation, flourish.

            It isn’t a pretty picture. But people still come out here and try to make a difference. People like the two teachers I mentioned. And there is good news. Prison will never help you succeed, but some people in here will succeed – in spite of this place. If you read this blog remember those men and women behind bars. Maybe they deserved to be punished; then again maybe the punishment doled out in prison isn’t deserved. What is the obligation people of faith have when they hear about life inside prison? Jeremiah’s calling with the answer.