Church At Its Best
FROM THE RECTOR
When have you seen the church at its best? When have you witnessed the Body of Christ—the people who are the hands, feet, and flesh of Jesus in this world—doing something that embodies the incarnate God most clearly among us?
Although I catch glimpses of it from time to time, the place where I see the church living into that Spirit-inspired identity most fully on a regular basis is in the basement of the correctional facility across the street from St. Paul’s. There is no place, no program, no effort I take part in that more completely reflects who we are as Christians and what it means to belong to God in Jesus Christ than the weekly Eucharist we offer at the NWACCC every Sunday night.
Each week, somewhere between ten and thirty women walk down the stairs and file into Pod 16 at 5:00 p.m. to hear God’s word, to sing songs of praise, to pray for themselves and their families and the needs of the world, and to share in the Communion of Christ’s body and blood. Four or five volunteers are there to greet them, pass out bulletins and songbooks, ask for volunteer readers, and play whatever hymns that the women request. The priest leads worship, preaches a sermon, and presides at the folding-table altar, upon which a loaf of bread and an empty chalice are placed. (Communion wine is not allowed, so we use our imagination and trust that God will accept our limited offering.)
When I am there, the good news of Jesus Christ takes on a deeper, richer, more powerful dimension than I experience at St. Paul’s on Sunday mornings. Where else does the unconditional, limitless power of God’s love in the resurrection take on more significance than the basement of a correctional facility where women, whose addictions have resulted in their incarceration, gather to hear the hope of liberation from all that binds them? Those of us who, from the comfort of our pews, hear the good news that God has sent the Anointed One to set the prisoners free understand that to be a metaphor for salvation, but I suspect that those words were not intended as an analogy but an actual declaration of what God will do when God finally sets all things right.
Still, I must admit that I rarely want to go to that prison service. More times than not, when I get to that part of Sunday afternoon when I must get up, put back on my clerical outfit, and climb into my car to drive to the church to pack up for the service, I would rather relax, watch television, cook dinner for my family, go for a walk, finish a nap, or do just about anything besides go. It is inconvenient in almost every way. But, every time I go, without exception, I encounter with those women and the volunteers the power of Jesus Christ breaking into this world. I am always glad that I got off the couch and went.
In Matthew 25, in the parable of the last judgment, Jesus tells his followers that, when they visit one of the members of his family in prison, they are actually visiting him. I think we should take those words as a literal imperative to deepen our relationship with Jesus by spending time with those who are incarcerated. As perhaps the greatest example of “out of sight, out of mind,” those whom we have locked behind bars are among the most easily and conveniently forgotten members of society. Even those whose incarceration is just and reasonable are children of God whom God holds in God’s loving heart. How else will we know the limitless nature of God’s love unless we push back against the limits the world would place upon it? How can we know that we belong to God in unbreakable ways if we never encounter those on whom the world has mostly given up?
If you want to learn more about our weekly prison Eucharist, ask any of the clergy at St. Paul’s, especially Kathy McGregor, our Deacon. If you want to know about the Enneagram Essentials work that we sponsor at the NWACCC, ask Kaye Bernard. If you want to learn about the Prison Stories Project, which gives voice and creative expression to the women across the street, talk with Kathy McGregor or Jane Blunschi. If you want to help those who are at risk of incarceration for minor offenses or drug charges or change the way our community handles those issues, ask Mac Mayfield about our warrant clinics or the work of Justice for All. If you want to support efforts to break the cycle of addiction, poverty, and incarceration among women who have experienced trauma and exploitation, ask Haley Hixson or Anne O’Leary-Kelly or Kristi Palmer about the work of Magdalene Serenity House. If you want to give children who have an incarcerated parent the opportunity to go to summer camp, talk with Kristi Palmer about Dick Johnston Children’s Camp at Camp Mitchell.
Our church is committed to work of recognizing the humanity—the made-in-God’s-image nature—of those who are or who have been incarcerated. There are many ways that you, too, can be a part of that work. It is not easy or convenient. It will require a significant contribution of your heart, your money, your time, and your love, but I promise that you will recognize Jesus in the people you meet along the way. This is our church at its best. Come and be a part of that.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan D. Garner