"Now as Saul was going along and approaching Damascus , suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?' He asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' The reply came, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.'"
--Acts 9: 3-6
"When they had finished breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon bar Jonah, do you love me more than these?' He replied, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my lambs.' A second time he said to him, 'Simon bar Jonah, do you love me?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you kow that I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Tend my sheep.' He said to him the third time, 'Simon bar Jonah, do you love me?'....And he said to him, 'Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my sheep.'...After this he said to him, 'Follow me.'"
--John 21: 15-17, 19
Back in the fall I began making a monthly visit to Randolph
Correctioinal to see an inmate there.
His name is Stefan, and he's been incarcerated since 1977. He is the first to admit that he's guilty of
the crimes that landed him in prison, but he'll also tell you that when he
entered prison at age 20 he was angry at the world, a broken human being, and
since then he has not only found meaning and purpose--mainly through his work
with the prison's art and woodworking shop--but he has found a new relationship
with God. He got confirmed several years
ago by a bishop who befriended him on a weekend prison ministry retreat, and he
prays and studies Scripture everyday thanks to a Prayer Book and Forward Day by
Day provided by Good Shepherd. Stefan is
one of the best examples I have ever seen of the transformative power that God
wields in relationships: the relationship he had with that bishop, the relationship he has with the prison's chaplain, and the relationship he has with me when we share the Sacrament and have conversation. I can tell you that he is not the same person he was when he entered
prison all those years ago.
Some may say that folks like Stefan are beyond redemption,
especially given that he has been up for parole each of the last 20 years and
has been denied each time. Surely there must something inherently evil and terrible about such a person. But what we
hear in Scripture today is something different, for we hear the call stories of two individuals on whom so much of our
faith is based--Saint Paul and Saint Peter.
These are two guys that we could easily say were beyond redemption, yet Jesus shows us otherwise.
We hear the story of Paul's conversion on the road to
Damascus from the Acts of the Apostles.
At that time he was called Saul.
He was a Pharisee, and a staunch
opponent of the Jesus movement--or The Way, as they called it. There's strong evidence that suggests he was
responsible for the death of Stephen, who is regarded as the first martyr of
the church, and here we find him heading to Damascus to round up any Jesus followers and drag them back to Jerusalem. This
is not a saintly individual. Yet Jesus speaks to him, causing this guy who had intended to enter the city like an avenging angel, to be led by the hand, blind
and helpless. And from that
vulnerability--and the welcome of a Jesus follower named Ananais, who had every
right to reject this persecutor of his faith--Saul's life is over, transformed
into something new, and Paul's life begins.
In our reading from the Fourth Gospel the resurrected Jesus
appears on the beach to his disciples and has breakfast with them, and
afterwards he calls over Simon Peter and asks him, 'Simon bar Jonah, do you
love me more than these?' Three times he
asks him, and three times he gives him a charge: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my
sheep. Simon the fisherman, who is a coward and denied
ever even knowing Jesus, who ran away in Jesus' most vulnerable hours, who was
always quick to show off in front of the other disciples, who dared get between
Jesus and his mission and for that Jesus called him 'Satan' is the guy Jesus is calling to shepherd his flock. He is to be Peter, Kephas, the
Rock, the first among the bishops of the
church. Having listened to the story up
to this point, we would hardly peg this guy to be the one to shepherd Jesus' people, nor would be think him likely to head out into the streets of Jerusalem and ignite the first fires of the Church on Pentecost. Yet
Jesus' call transforms this coward into the Rock.
Were Peter and Paul beyond redemption? It's easy for us now to say 'Of course
not!' But hindsight is 20/20, after
all. Their actions, on paper, suggest
otherwise, at least by our standards.
Because our standards are pretty harsh.
Remember O Brother Where Art Thou? There's a great line in that movie that goes: 'Baptism may have put ya square with the Lord
but the state of Mississippi is a little more hard-nosed.' By our standards their actions are deplorable
and beyond redemption. But Jesus'
standards are not ours. Peter and Paul
are proof enough for us that nobody is beyond redemption.
When we say that certain folks are beyond redemption we
diminish the power of the cross. What
Jesus did was not just for those who followed him at the time, and it wasn't
for those whose sins were, how shall we say, minor. The love he poured out on that cross was for
all, for the worst of the worst. For
Peter, for Paul, for Stefan, for you and for me. None of us is without blemish, yet we are
all redeemed. Not because we deserve it,
but because that's how grace works. And
God's grace is poured out on everyone, not just those of us who are eager to grasp it.
The Diocese of North Carolina designated this past Sunday as Prison Ministry Sunday, which seems fitting given the stories we're hearing, stories of
individuals that were not chastised for their sins but embraced and loved and
called to be something more. Jesus does
not hold up Paul's role in Stephen's murder, nor does he remind Peter of his
abandonment. Jesus does not deal in
punishment. Our hope, our prayer, for
our correctional facilities is that reconciliation and reform, not punishment
and dehumanizations, will be their goals.
This is why prison ministry is so important, because it is sometimes the
only place where broken men and women can find a sense of hope. When we make someone feel less than human we
take away that hope and we kill any chance of rehabilitation. But when we treat even the worst of offenders
as a brother or sister, the way Ananais treated Saul, we can begin to stop the
cycle and plant seeds of reconciliation.
It is possible.
There was a woman in Georgia named Kelly Gissendandr, who was killed by
the state last year for her role in the murder of her husband. During her time behind bars, Kelly got a
degree in theology from Emory and worked to bring hope to the other women on
death row. She never denied her guilt,
but she did stress that she was no longer the same person she was when she
first entered prison. She reconciled with her family, who pleaded that her life be spared, saying that she was proof that the system can actually work to rehabilitate people and bring them to reform and newness of life. Testimonials from
other inmates spoke of her kindness, her remorse, and her certainty that Jesus
still loved her, which gave them hope where they never had any. Nobody is beyond redemption.
Kelly Gissendaner hugs a loved one after receiving her theology degree from Emory.
There is a church just over the South Carolina border whose
sign reads: Dirty rotten sinners
welcome. It hammers the point home even
better than our generic 'All are welcome', doesn't it? This place makes it very clear who has a place there. After all,
those who are well have no need of a physician.
Jesus does not call perfect people but broken ones. That's what the cross and Easter are all
about: life and hope coming from death
and loss. Those standards may not work in the world, but Jesus has, blessedly, changed the standards and turned them on their heads. The world around us holds up our sins against us, and as far as many are concerned we are defined by worst thing
we have done. But in Jesus we are more
than the worst thing we have done, more than our past sins--Peter and Paul make
that point for us. Jesus can
take even the worst of us and use him or her--as he used Kelly in Georgia, as
he uses Stefan here in Asheboro, and as he uses countless others in
correctional facilities the world over--to show what forgiveness and grace
really look like.
