Christians for the Abolition of Prisons
Set the Prisoners Free—Luke 4:18
During this pandemic crisis, we are thinking about and praying especially for those who are incarcerated, and at particular risk from the coronavirus.
The California Coalition for Women Prisoners has made a helpful syllabus of resources relevant to the current situation, prison health care in general, and other topic. Please check it out!
by Rev. Wilson Pruitt
Ours is a hyperbolic age where every meal is expected to be the best and every inconvenience is the worst. A world where my 4 year old has a BFF because his older brother has a BFF, and that second F, for both kids, lasts about 4 days max. The critic James Wood once mockingly reviewed a book, saying that it “exhausts negative hyperbole.” The past few weeks have exhausted negative hyperbole for many people. We are out of it. Plans and pensions and expectations have been changed at the root. Businesses, restaurants, all of institutional sports, schools across the country and the world: shut down. Many places in the world have pared down to the essentials and taken the time to discover what is essential: what do we need?
Lent is a season of getting down to the root of a matter. Fasting is a practice of discerning what we need and leaning on God. Many people have now had social-distancing mandated fasts.
A population that we have as a society shamefully socially distanced is our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our children in jail or prison. As we look at the hospitals, road crews, grocery stores, pharmacies still open, this may be an incredible to look and see that we do not need those isolated cells. In fact, by keep imprisoned populations so tightly together, should an outbreak of the coronavirus take place behind bars, it will be catastrophic. Some farsighted folks around the world have started releasing some folks in jail, but that is not enough.
Paul writes in the Letter to the Ephesians
Ephesians 5:8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light-
Ephesians 5:9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.
Ephesians 5:10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
We don’t need to live as a people in darkness. We don’t need to keep people locked up. We can see the light this season of lent that reconciliation is possible, that hope is possible, that grace is possible for all. As our governments try to respond to the crisis, let us not forget the shackled neighbors that Isaiah calls us to break free.
This is part of our series of posts on texts from the Revised Common Lectionary, offering preaching topics and inspiration through intentionally abolitionist readings.
The book of Exodus is my very favorite in the Bible, particularly because of what it reveals about God’s nature: both through the revelation of God’s name and God’s response to the cries of God’s people in bondage, and through God’s longsuffering response in the wilderness.
The pattern, which we see in Exodus 17, goes like this: the people desire to turn back to Egypt, to give up on liberty because of the risk and danger it entails. And rather than punish them, God provides for them. Here, we see that in response to their crying out, God provides water from the rock.
Of course, this mercy is not an entirely consistent pattern in the texts. In Numbers 11, we see God (after providing food in response to the complaints of the Israelites!) send a plague upon them. And even in today’s story of Massah and Meribah, the associated psalm, Psalm 95, reminds us that God is not entirely merciful upon this generation:
95:8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
95:9 when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
95:10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.”
95:11 Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”
Yet at the same time, in the telling of Exodus, God’s nature is clearly revealed: when the Israelites ask, “Is God among us or not?” God answers firmly: “Yes!” and meets their needs.
Perhaps there are two lessons here. The first is about the merciful nature of God, who does not respond to evil and unfaithfulness with abandonment, but always first with God’s own faithful provision.
The second is about the difficulty of claiming liberty, a challenge that the Israelites keep failing. How often do we, as we try to build a more just and liberated society, find ourselves falling back into reliance on patterns, systems, and attitudes of punishment and control, because we don’t know what else to do? And when we do that, where can we see God providing for us a new way forward, what we need to continue the gradual fight for the liberation of all?
Lenten blessings from Christians for Abolition!
During Lent our blog is continuing our series of meditations on lessons from the Revised Common Lectionary.
We also have a new devotional, Healing Justice and the Paschal Mystery. As Lent points us toward Holy Week and the narrative of Jesus’ passion, this devotional – built around the services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the Great Vigil of Easter – envisions Holy Week and the Passion narrative as a sort of restorative justice process, and considers ways you can use the liturgies of Holy Week to deepen your own practice and understanding of restorative justice. The five pages of this devotional are suitable for use during Holy Week or for ongoing study during the weeks of Lent.
This is part of our series of posts on the texts appointed for the Revised Common Lectionary readings.
by Rev. Wilson Pruitt
John 3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.
John 3:2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”
Nicodemus comes by night so as not to be seen. When we start to explore the full extent of God’s power of reconciliation, it can move against the wisdom of the world that often portrays itself as ‘christian.’ Nicodemus was a faithful Jew, a Pharisee, a student of Torah. He saw something amazing in Jesus, but he also knew that there were others in Jerusalem who would feel threatened by Jesus.
The status quo always has its defenders. The status quo of criminal justice is literally filled with millions in this country who think that their ideology of good guys and bad guys is all that is saving our children from suffering. This does not even get into those who explicitly profit from the status quo system, but people whose ideology is trapped in this manichaean good vs. evil that cannot see how far God’s grace can go.
Jesus spoke in the public square the truth of God’s love. He was not ashamed of who he was or what God was doing. Yet he also met with those who had to come in the night. He did not berate Nicodemus for coming at night. Jesus welcomed him and explained the reality of new birth. He answered questions again and again, even to the point of the radical claim of John 3:16, a claim that the carceral state cannot abide. Some may come in the night. Some may come in the day, but God’s radical love and reconciling mercy is there for all, whether those currently in prison or those currently impersonating others. God’s mercy is there and we must offer it, in the night and the day.