Incarceration carries stigma.   If a person is incarcerated, whether justly or unjustly, the very fact that the person is jailed or imprisoned convinces many if not most of us that the person did something illegal that warranted the imprisonment.  Although the common law claims that a person is innocent until proven guilty, many times it seems to operate in exactly the reverse order.  Judgments in people’s minds, which carry cultural and racial biases, affect not only how people who are incarcerated are treated but also who stands a better chance of being or not being incarcerated.   These cultural and racial biases are actually embedded in some of the laws and policies that govern our country.

This may all sound very political, and perhaps it is. However, we often distance the Scriptures that we read and hear proclaimed in churches on Sunday from their relevance to the current issues that affect our lives, even when the scriptures themselves are more than capable of saying something about these issues.  For example, in today’s scripture passages, we hear from two prisoners – one who is actually writing from jail, and another who will eventually end up in jail.  Both are put to death, and as Christians believers, most of us would say that the imprisonment and death of these two was unjust.  I am speaking of Paul and Jesus.

Paul is writing to the Church of Ephesus (Eph 4:1-6) from prison:

Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace;
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.

Paul identifies himself as a ‘prisoner,’ but qualifies that his imprisonment is ‘for the Lord.’ His address to the Ephesians has no tone of resentment at all, but indeed is both encouraging and responsible.  Despite his physical separation from this church (of many) that he had visited and spent time with in the past, Paul is joyful sounding  in this address and is exhorting the church to remain accountable and unified.

There is something very different about this imprisonment ‘for the Lord’ than what we may see in our world today with regards to incarceration. What kind of ‘imprisonment’ is this, which for Paul actually has this curious air of freedom?  It is as if the physical confinement of Paul is of no concern to him, because his life is centered in the body of Christ, who is over all and through all and in all.  He is drawing from the relationship he has with and in Christ and this grants him a freedom that no prison cell can destroy.

In Luke’s Gospel passage (Lk 12:54-59), Jesus speaks interestingly about how the failure to be in relationship with one another will end up in imprisonment:

“Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?
If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate,
make an effort to settle the matter on the way;
otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge,
and the judge hand you over to the constable,
and the constable throw you into prison.
I say to you, you will not be released
until you have paid the last penny.”

Jesus could very well be describing some of our own criminal justice issues here. I would not say that he is impugning the legal system so much as revealing what happens when we abdicate relationship in favor of legalism[i].  This ‘law’ that he seems most interested in is the ‘law’ of relationship, which for Jesus is really the only law, since it is Love – quite simply God!  His description of how one who cannot ‘settle the matter with one’s opponent’  will ultimately be handed over or passed on from one ‘authority’ to another, eventually landing in prison not to be released until ‘you have paid the last penny’ sounds very familiar to those who have had experiences in our own legal system.

Some of us experience this ‘passing on’ or ‘handing over’ on a regular basis, within the criminal justice system as well as in other areas of life. I am not saying that there is no need for incarceration, but I am suggesting that the reasons why we incarcerate many times may be determined by something that has more to do with isolation, private agendas, protection, and ingrained cultural mindsets and biases (racism as an example) than justice based on communal accountability.  The justice system here serves as a literal symbol of what runs deep through all veins of society’s life.  When we do not seek ways to creatively interact with those we consider ‘opponents,’ then we pass each other over into the ‘system’ which does not operate primarily from the standpoint of relationship.  We quite literally incarcerate each other.

There is a paradox in incarceration, which we perhaps do not consider. When we are incarcerating each other primarily from unchecked bias and privileged mindsets, we become prisoners ourselves.  We become imprisoned in fear and resentment that as we have seen, erupts into violence.  The ‘opponent’ mindset takes over and the divisions surface – right/wrong, black/white – and then we relinquish our personal responsibility and leave it to someone or something else to ‘handle the dispute.’  Once we have divorced the possibility for real accountable interaction – what I am calling relationship – then we fail to see each other as each other – we fail to see our connection as beloved creations of God who is Love.

So what would it take for us to release each other, or to put it another way, to be ‘imprisoned’ for the Lord? For Paul, this type of ‘prisoner’ means to be held completely and totally ‘captive’ by the overwhelming love of God present in the Body of Christ – and that is all of US?  This is a captivity grounded in nothing other than the all-sustaining Love of God as lived now in the Body of Christ!  This is the captive prisoner that sets us all free.  Isn’t that part of what we mean when we say that Jesus ‘saves’ us?  Jesus, as the prisoner, held completely within the Love of God the Father, sets us free!   Ah, but the cost…Death!

Something has to die in order for new life to be born. Perhaps the way we imprison each other is what must die!  This is what we must SEE and actively address!  Until we first realize and then address the ‘mass incarceration’ of the body of Christ, the path to new and more life for all will look more like Luke’s description of resentful ‘penny-pinching’ legalism than accountable compassionate justice that flows from and through the entire Body of Christ!   To be held lovingly ‘captive’ within the Body of Christ is to be the prisoner who frees the prisoner.’ Thanks Paul!  Shall we start/continue to shed the chains?

[i] Remember Jesus himself said that he came to not abolish law but to fulfill it to the last letter (MT 5: 17-18).