I Was In Prison...

It's been a minute since I've been able to write. 

But this just dropped on me like a ton of bricks.  Lately I've been involved in conversations about "righteousness" and preserving the integrity of our church.  I'm with that.  Many of the folks advocating for reclamation of righteousness tend to be fairly traditional and conservative in their reading of Scripture.  Despite the fact that my reading is a bit more progressive, we are all generally able to agree to disagree, and to come together in Christian love.  That's wonderful. 

But for me there's always a bit of a disconnect.  Yes, some people will be liberal and some will be conservative and they earnestly believe they are rightly dividing The Word.  And I'm pretty clear on my position:  We can't stand on the infallibility of The Word unless we are standing on the Original Word, the one written down in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.  Absent an ability to understand those languages, what we stand on is faith in another human being's interpretation of The Word.  The "Authorized Version" that so many people cling to was commissioned (not exactly authorized) by King James VI of Scotland, who would become James I of England.  There's a lot of baggage in that commissioning and in the work that was produced.  We need to acknowledge that baggage (the whole idea Puritan influence and the ideas of religious superiority) in order to better understand the product that was produced. 

And that's what sorta comes up for me right now. Righteous living is great.  It's a wonderful thing.  But we have to acknowledge or differentiate between "righteous living" as synonymous with social conservatism (or obeying the Levitical holiness codes) versus Righteous Living as a function of the New Way offered by Jesus.

Which is what struck me:  Jesus said "I was hungry, ... I was thirsty, ... I was a stranger, ... I needed clothes ... I was sick, ... I was in prison ..." Jesus, having taken on mortal form, puts himself right in the midst of our human needs, our human failings, and our human frailties.  When our bodies need sustenance or our spirits need companionship, those are the times that Jesus identifies with us.  Not only does he identify with humans, but he calls those in need his brothers and sisters. Interestingly, He goes on to speak about "the righteous" who are cursed because they did not meet those brothers and sisters at their points of need and who go away to eternal punishment, versus the truly righteous who did respond to "the least of these" and who go on to eternal life -- who are granted access to Almighty God.

So here's the deal:  to say "I was in prison" presupposes that failure on some level is part of the human condition.  I  was in prison -- and still deserving of your fellowship.  I was in prison -- and still deserving of God's Grace.  I was in prison -- yet I was still part of the brotherhood of humankind.

And to GET to prison, I had to either break some law or (as is the case with too many of our urban youth) be unjustly accused of breaking some law.  But to get to prison, I had to fall outside the established societal boundaries.  EVEN IN THOSE SITUATIONS, we don't lose our importance to God, we don't become disenfranchised from the human family (Rom. 8:38-39). 

What am I trying to say?  Just that all humans are in some sort of prison -- our spirits are trapped in bodies and that's not a natural condition for a spirit.  But in this natural world, many people sin and fall short of the glory of God.  Some get caught for that and end up in prison.  Some may get caught and not end up in prison.  That doesn't make them any less deserving of our love; we need to understand that they are still our brothers and our sisters.  Not only should we not disparage them, but we need to reach out and help them.  to be truly righteous, it seems to me, is not to shun or shame someone who has fallen short, but to reach out and help them to stand tall again.  To be truly righteous is to realize that, but for the Grace of God, we would be hungry, naked, thirsty, strangers, sick, and in prison.

While our souls and spirits may have been set free by the Christ who dwells within us, we are NOT relieved of the duty to minister to those who are still imprisoned. 

I was in prison -- how will you respond?