The Things that I Learned in Prison (Ephesians 2:1-10)

I’ve done some form of prison ministry on and off since my late teens. In doing so, I learned that many inmates could put high end restaurants to shame with their creativity and results achieved with such limited ingredients and tools. The desserts that can be achieved by strategically combining the contents of an average vending machine and the main courses that they produce with only ramen packets, a hot plate, a limited set of household staples, and no fresh ingredients will boggle your mind. Necessity long ago got declared the mother of invention, and no human can tolerate the same institutional food for year on end. This (plus a lot of time on their hands) has produced some true culinary marvels.

I learned that even in prison, there are fashion-based status symbols. Sure, everyone has to wear the same basic outfit, and everyone has the same limited access to a shockingly few items at the commissary. However, at least in Texas, inmates can buy footwear from the commissary – a small number of athletic shoes and work boots. Thus, the type, newness, and cleanliness of one’s shoes takes on the prison equivalent of sneaker culture.

I learned that we’ve found ways to nickel and dime inmates for even basic creature comforts. Want to send a letter? You need to buy stamps.  Want to call somebody, instead? Even a local call will cost you. Want to send an email, a normally a zero cost thing in the free world? That will cost you, as well. Want to video chat with your family? That costs too. It creates a real Catch-22 because connection to a support network both inside and outside the prison walls leads directly to folks having more positive outcomes both in prison and after release.

I also learned about the reality and power of God’s redemption.

I met a man who openly admitted to murdering his family. He found God within the walls of a prison. The encounter left him utterly changed. He began to minister to his fellow inmates, write Bible Studies, and earn a degree in theology. The redemption of his soul radiated through the utter newness of his life.

I walked into a worship service in the community room of a prison, in Virginia, that just felt different. They sang of God’s grace, as I had thousands of times, but that grace felt palpable in the air. Perhaps, in a space where you can no longer hide from yourself or others the reality of your sin, it frees you to celebrate the tremendous gift that God has given you.

I listened to middle aged, suburban dads preach to teenagers locked up in a juvenile prison. Instead of striking a tone of paternal moral superiority, these men talked openly of their own sin, failings, and susceptibility. I had never heard church members talk so openly about their own need for redemption. Most of the adults at church that I had known covered up their sins with a thick veneer of their Sunday best. I knew that I needed God’s grace and could finally understand the universality of that need.

Ephesians 2 points out the absolute need for God’s grace and its fundamental availability. The larger arc of the letter seeks to united Jews and Gentiles with their need for grace, opportunity to receive said grace, and how their lives can be transformed by the power of God’s grace. Our snippet begins that argument with a beautiful and punchy summation of the Good News. As we all start, we are inescapably “children of wrath.” Our own sinfulness and the powerful evil forces of the world combine to set a trap that we lack capacity to escape. Christ changes that.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.  (Ephesians 2:4-7 NRSV)

In Christ, we all have the opportunity to receive God’s grace, experience redemption, and live a new life. We love to add theological complications and nuances, but Ephesians effectively sweeps those away. You need grace. In Christ, we get given that grace. Gracious living can look totally different from what came before it.

Of all the things that I missed in my theoretically Christian upbringing, this stands out as the most egregious omission. It’s not that no one talked about grace, or salvation, or redemption. Occasionally, we would end up a youth retreat, where someone would spend the weekend spewing hellfire and brimstone at us. I came out of my experiences in the church with an understanding of my own sinfulness, and I certainly knew a lot of nice, moral acting people. However, everyone appeared to approach church life as if that’s how everyone had always been. We might talk about the wonders of God’s grace, but no one acted like they needed it.

It took venturing into one of the few places, where everyone there has to almost wear their sin physically, for me to face the reality of redemption. It’s not that inmates are somehow uniquely sinful. They perhaps did things that our legal system frowns upon, but we all do things that God frowns upon. Instead, the realities of prison life serve as their own kind of Scarlet Letter announcing your sinfulness to all that you encounter, including yourself. Although this way of life sounds painful, it creates an opportunity for a more honest religious community. No one gets to put on a veneer of sinlessness, so the power of God’s redeeming grace has an opportunity to shine forth.

You don’t have to go to prison to have this kind of faith community. It merely takes honesty about our own need for redemption. In telling that more honest story, we make God’s redeeming grace more real for the people around us. In receiving these real human stories, we can glimpse the power of God’s grace. To leave all that out and continue to paint on the veneer robs us all of the chance to see reality and power of God’s redeeming grace.