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Sermon 11/15/2009
Prison Justice Sermon ~
by Reverend Betty Edson
November 15, 2009
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
I am really delighted to be here today! For many reasons. One is that
I love Tom Kinder! And another, close second, is that I know that
under his leadership, and by God’s grace, you are a very vibrant
church, that cares about justice, in an active way! So I was very
pleased to be asked to come, as the Chair of the Department of
Mission’s Prison Justice Committee, to talk about that issue. There
are many things in God’s weary world that we could and no doubt
should be concerned about, but prison justice, it would be fair to say,
is not apt to be a high priority for most of us. So it may be of interest
to you to know how I happened to center in on that. I expect that
many of you know or have heard of Hal Harrison. Hal was one of
our Vermont Conference ministers for probably 25 years - and he is
much loved. What many people do not know, and I have Hal’s
permission to say this, is that one of his two adult sons has been in and
out of jail many times, due to issues connected to drugs and alcohol –
a real heart-breaker for their family. From time to time, over the
years that he served us, Hal would comment casually that this was an
issue no-one seemed to be interested in; so as the time for his
retirement rolled around, some of us who were - or had been on - the
Department of Mission, made the decision that bringing the whole
prison situation to greater awareness was the least we could do in
appreciation for all that Hal has done for so many of us – and thus
the Prison Justice Committee was born, about four years ago.
It has been an interesting journey; and if we have learned nothing
else, we have learned that this is a HUGE and complicated issue, with
more handles one could grab than our small group has wisdom, time
or energy to do! Much of the three and a half years has been spent in
raising our own consciousness – we’ve had a meal at Dismas House,
the very effective half-way house in Rutland; we’ve met with the
Commissioner of Corrections; some of us attended the annual
workshop event of The Church at Prison, which is a very active, very
faithful - and very fundamentalist - ministry in Vermont; we visited
one of the state’s Justice Centers; and we’ve had various speakers
come to our meetings. What seems to be coming out of all this is
three-fold. First, there is our website which you can reach, by going to
the Vermont Conference Website, clicking on Department of Mission,
and then clicking on Prison Justice. Secondly, we are trying to do
advocacy, when appropriate. And lastly, we are making an effort to
increase people’s interest in volunteering along the whole corrections
spectrum. In that regard, we’ve held three workshop days, one in
Springfield, one in St. Albans, and one in Windsor this past April.
For these events, we have a light supper and some presenters about
various volunteer possibilities, and then we tour the correctional
facility in the area. We are aware of at least a few instances in which
people who have attended have chosen to become involved in some
way after that; and, as well, one of our members, Jeanne Zammataro,
has brought new energy to our group and has, pretty single-handedly,
pulled off having mainstream Christian worship, happen in the
Springfield facility. So I guess you could say we’ve made SOME
progress, although it sometimes seems like very slow-going.
My biggest question, when I decided to write this sermon was how to
go about making it a real sermon, an interpretation of God’s word, as
opposed to just giving a lecture on the subject. So I’d like first, to
establish a Biblical context here.
One of the passages I chose for today was the one from Luke 4 that
begins, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because I have come to
bring good news to the poor.” It is one of my most favorite scripture
passages, one that I made a point to learn by heart. You will recall
that it takes place right after Jesus has struggled in the wilderness with
temptation. He comes back from the desert, he goes to worship at the
synagogue in his home town, and he is asked to read scripture. He
chooses this passage from Isaiah, from the Hebrew scriptures, and we
might say that it is his mission statement, as he starts his three year
ministry. Significantly, it is a message of justice. It talks about giving
sight to the blind, but it also talks about Jesus being good news for the
poor, about letting the oppressed go free, AND about proclaiming
liberty to captives. As noted, Jesus is reading here from the Hebrew
scriptures, so justice, from the get-go, it would appear, is God’s
business – and therefore ours.
From the New Testament, there is this verse from Hebrews, which I
did not ask to have read - “Remember those in prison as if you were
in prison with them,” and there is the wonderful passage from
Matthew (that we did hear) where Jesus says to those he welcomes into
the kingdom, “When I was in prison you visited me,” and when they
ask, “When? When? When were you in prison and we visited you?”
he says, “When you did it unto the least of these, you did it to me.”
So we might say that the call to prison ministry and justice is actually
spelled out for us.
Lastly, we heard the story of the Prodigal Son. It is a beautiful story,
reminding us that God’s forgiveness and willingness to welcome us
and work with us are all-encompassing. It is important for us to
internalize the message of that parable. I am especially interested in
the part about the older son, because he is you and me. We make our
mistakes, but, for the most part, we see ourselves as good citizens, and
it is, therefore, easy for us to sit in judgment of those who are in
trouble with the law. Given media hype and TV drama, we have a
mental picture of “criminals,” and it’s a scary one. One woman who
went on one of our prison tours commented on how the inmates
looked like really nice young men. Well, not all of them are! But
there are a lot of people locked up who have made a mistake, possibly
even a bad one, but who are, nonetheless, redeemable; and God’s
arms are open to them, as well, if they are trying to get back on track.
Hopefully you received a little fact sheet, with your bulletin, and I will
mention only a couple of the facts on it, to whet your interest. The
U.S. has 5% of the world’s population; yet we incarcerate 25% of the
world’s prisoners - one in 100 American adults. The cost nationally to
us, as tax-payers, is $60 billion dollars annually, and in Vermont
alone, $100 million. That represents a five-fold increase in just twenty
years. Of note here is that the great percentage of these crimes are
non-violent crimes, and they are frequently related to addiction.
During the period when we have been “tough on crime,” the rate has
gone down, but although Canada did not increase the percentage of
people it incarcerates over that same period, its crime rate also has
gone down. It is VERY important to crack down on violent crime,
but our over-all getting tough policy has gotten tough on the tax-
payers, without really significant public safety benefit.
I want to share with you a very interesting experience that I had two
summers ago. The Brattleboro Justice Center invited people from
somewhere in the Midwest to do a simulation, in which I took part, of
what it is like to rejoin society after incarceration. There were
probably 50 of us participants, and we were each given a packet of
materials, which included our supposed identity, as a specific released
prisoner. I was supposedly a man, about 45 years of age; I was a sex
offender, although my crime had been consensual sex with a woman
who would soon come of age. Not good, but not really what we think
of as pedophilia either. I was required to wear a green arm-band to
indicate that I was a sex offender. In my packet, I had a social
security card; the chance for a job, because I had had welding
training in jail; temporary housing; maybe $35. in cash; a check for
about $1000. which represented a small inheritance I had received
and money I had earned in jail – and some other things, including a
list of what I needed to accomplish during the first month after my
release.
We were all sitting in the middle of an auditorium, and around the
edge were various stations that represented the agencies we would
need – parole board, church, Food Shelf, Thrift Shop, bank,
vocational help, and that sort of thing. The idea was that, when the
whistle blew, we were to take the list of tasks from our packet and
start working on them. Fifteen minutes later, the whistle would blow
again and we were to return to our seats immediately. This would
happen four times, to represent our first four weeks as free people.
Well, when the whistle blew, I headed right off to the Parole Board
and registered. My list said I needed an ID, so I went to that table
next. That was going to cost more cash than I had, so I was told that I
would need to go cash my check. The line was LONG. JUST as I got
to the teller, the whistle blew. Once back in my seat, the leader asked
the “policeman” if there needed to be any arrests, before we started
week two; and to my great surprise, I was arrested and sent back to
jail for a brief period. I had failed to register as a Sex Offender.
Well, once released from jail (after two minutes, to represent a couple
of days), I IMMEDIATELY signed up as a sex offender, as you may
imagine, and then got back in the line for the bank. Again, I didn’t
quite make it - and again I was arrested, because I had failed to go
back to the Parole Board for my Week Two appointment! At the end
of the four fifteen-minute periods, I had managed to get through the
tasks that I was supposed to do in the first week!
What was interesting, though, was what was going on inside of me
during these experiences. When I went back to the Parole Board, once
week three started, the very nice Parole Officer, who was a man who
really had been in jail, and was now on the straight and narrow, and
who, I am sure, treated me more kindly than a real Parole Officer
might have, said, “Why didn’t you report last week?” “Oh, my
gosh,” I said, “You wouldn’t believe it! There was no way I could
have done everything!” “I don’t think you’re taking this very
seriously,” he said, and I could feel the tears coming up into my eyes.
Thus did I learn that my wiles, the way I get through life successfully,
by laughing and trying to be pleasant and making light of things,
didn’t work in this situation. Standing in line for the bank, the third
time around, I remember thinking, “I can’t do this. I really can’t.
I’m absolutely overwhelmed. I’m going to go to the church and say to
the pastor, “I really need your help,” but when I looked over to the
church table, it was closed; and I expect that that is not unusual,
either, either literally - or symbolically, due to the fear and/or apathy
of many congregations. The second time I was returned to jail, one of
the men who was in jail with me, looked at my green armband and
said to the guard, “Get her out of here. I don’t want to be in the same
room with her.” The guard refused to comply, but said that actually,
it was time for me to be released; and as I stood up to leave, this man
looked at me with hatred and said, “Well, stay away from MY kids!”
I don’t get angry easily, but I could feel the anger rising, because I
knew what my crime had supposedly been, and that it had nothing to
do with molesting little children. At the end of the four time periods,
the leader asked how many of us had arranged for permanent
housing. I hadn’t even managed to get to talk to my temporary
housing person! The leader asked those of us who had not managed
to arrange housing to assemble at one side of the auditorium, and it
was most of us. “I just want you to be aware,” she said. “you are
now homeless.” It was a VERY powerful exercise.
Our present system really does a very good job of setting people up
for failure; yet we continue to put far more money into building
bigger and bigger prisons than we do into rehabilitation programs or
programs that might help a person through such a transition. I have
had the privilege, as a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee to
the Corrections Commissioner, to meet both the previous
Commissioner and the new one, and both are good men, who, in my
opinion, have a progressive philosophy, but there are many legislative
and fiscal restrictions which limit what they can do.
One thing I’ve learned over these last years is about the manifold
frustrations that are involved for families of people who are
incarcerated. Although family support is a significant plus in efforts
to rehabilitate, visitation is next to impossible if “your” prisoner has
been sent out-of-state, as about 500 Vermonters have been; and
family members who are able to get to Kentucky or Virginia may
discover that this nets them a two hour visit, and that’s it. Here at
home, someone can visit a prison all summer long in shorts, and then,
with no warning, they can arrive one day to learn that anybody
wearing shorts will not be allowed a visit. Though it is not a
significant problem in Vermont, there are frequently exorbitant phone
fees charged to inmates, because prisons make deals with phone
companies and receive a percentage of the money.
Well, there is much that I could tell you and much that you could
read, and believe me, I do not have any easy answers. I guess my
hope today is, quite simply, to encourage your interest in the issue.
Doing something like adult basic education or helping conduct a
worship service in a correctional facility is very interesting and
enlightening, but that may not be the right answer for everyone. If
you are at a place in your life where you are open to another
volunteer job, however, there are many possibilities across the
corrections spectrum – court diversion; parole and reparation boards;
writing to prisoners; helping with Camp Agape, the camp for children
with incarcerated parents; or working with a victims’ rights group.
My guess, however, is that I am speaking to a group of people who
are already in over their heads as to volunteer or other commitments,
but even if that is the case, there is still the possibility of learning, of
increasing our awareness. There is a wonderful and quick read,
entitled “Do Not Pass Go” which is a book written for middle-school
kids. It’s about a young boy whose dad is in jail, and how he
struggles with that. There is Wally Lamb’s book The Hour I First
Believed, which is a novel, but which addresses some of the issues
around incarceration; and our website offers lots of links to articles
that can raise our consciousness.
The LEAST we can do, I think, is be well-enough informed that we
don’t make knee-jerk decisions. I am still very upset that Randolph,
my home town, was unwilling to even put to a vote the possibility of
having a work camp there. Folks from the Work Camp in St. J did
amazing work at the UCC Atkinson Retreat Center in Newbury over
the years, with NO problems and, as a matter of fact, some very
positive interactions between people putting their lives back together
and the citizens of that town, but my feeling is that the stereotype won
out in Randolph, and we didn’t even consider it.
In closing, let me bring us back to what I believe to be the bottom line,
theologically. The Bible verse that springs to mind is the one about
taking the log out of one’s own eye, before worrying about the speck
in the eye of one’s neighbor – the whole idea that every one of is, at
the same time, both Prodigal Son and Older Son. We are, most of us,
essentially good, but we know, if we are really honest, that we are also,
each of us, sinful and flawed. What I am going to read is a piece from
a funny little book called A Book Of Noodles that I bought at a
rummage sale, back in the 60’s, and it was, at the time, an eye-opener
for me. Here it is. “I always thought: there’s one commandment
Moses brought down from the mountain that I could NEVER break.
Thou shalt not kill. Inconceivable that I would use a gun or knife or
anything to KILL someone. But . . . is this the one? Is this the one
that covers killing somebody’s joy, enthusiasm, incentive, faith in
himself or herself, or faith in others? Killing hope? Reputations?
Making a killing in business?? Not a gun or a knife, but a look, a
snicker, a comment (or NO comment), paying a starvation wage,
wielding your authority as boss or parent or teacher or (pastor). Kill
– with a ball point pen or sharp tongue, you can strangle, shoot down,
choke or stab. It may take them 37 or 53 years to die, but you have
killed them (just the same).
May God help each of us to remember that there, but for God’s grace,
go we; may God help each of us to stand fast on the need to protect
society, but move beyond stereotypes to good policy that will do that
in a more just fashion, and will implement programs that might,
where possible, help those who have made mistakes become
productive members of society. We sometimes say facetiously, “You
can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives.” I say to
you, very seriously, we are all part of the family of God, whether we
like it or not, and these are our brothers and sisters that we are talking
about.
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