Proper 14A: 11 August 2002 Sheldon Hutchison--St. Thomas, Sunnyvale, CA

As many of you know, I’ve been spending the past 10 weeks this summer in Clinical Pastoral Education or CPE working as a chaplain in the County Jail System. I was anxious to preach today—especially today—one, because it’s my first Sunday not spent in the jail for a while, and two because today’s readings from Jonah and Matthew are ones I’ve used time and again in my own ministry with prisoners. I think that the insights these readings have for those folks apply to all of us as well. And so I’ll press on…

In the Gospel today we see Jesus using a practical joke to teach a lesson. Well, he had to have a sense of humor, I think, but here we get to see it more overtly. It’s been a long day, preaching to the multitudes hungry to hear his words. He’s tired. As is his habit, he goes off to pray. And he needs some time alone—he sends the disciples ahead in a boat. Well, once he’s refreshed himself a bit he heads off—across the water. So as he gets near the boat, there’s Peter waving and shouting “Call me, call me,” to Jesus. Poor Peter. Boundless enthusiasm, but, well, also voted the least likely to “hold back,” if you know what I mean. So there’s Peter, enthusiastically waving and shouting, probably rocking the boat and making the other disciples, well, annoyed. Remember, it’s been a long day for them, too.

Okay, that’s the basic scene. Look at it from Jesus’ perspective. Peter’s waving and carrying on, the boat’s rocking, and undoubtedly at least one disciple is saying, “Peter, sit down, will ya? I’m getting seasick, for cryin’ out loud!” Jesus looks at a spectacle of boundless enthusiasm in a person of limited faith. If he doesn’t laugh out loud, you know he’s chuckling under his breath. But this is also one lesson he can’t pass up. “Yep, Peter, come on out. Walk on the water toward me. That’s fine, just like that…” Step-step-step, then kersploosh! Peter’s going down fast. Jesus, by now most likely unable to contain himself, reaches down and pulls the hapless disciple up, helping him into the boat.

But the scene goes way beyond the comedy of the moment, too, and our Gospel presents it for the lesson it passes on. Jesus tells Peter, in effect, “You know, you’ve only got ‘so much’ faith. As you’ve seen, when it’s limited it can run out. That’s maybe just one aspect of being human. So the swimming lesson is here to point out, Peter—and for the rest of you disciples as well—that your own faith is never all you need to rely on. If you don’t want to drown, don’t go swimming where there aren’t hands to pull you out. If you’re living your faith, don’t go it alone. Hey, remember that ‘love your neighbor as yourself commandment’? You were never meant to go it alone. You also aren’t meant to let others go it alone. Faith is something that is lived out among others and most of all with God.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve told this story in the jails. I’d say that nearly every single inmate knows the scripture that was read today. But they normally see it as most folks do, a majestic story of the Son of God, walking on the water. And they clearly see Peter’s failure; perhaps because we’re all so unworthy, that none of us have “that” much faith. Jesus, though, becomes accessible here with the sense of humor I think he had. C’mon, he knew what the outcome would be. Yeah, maybe the moment was ripe to teach a lesson, but dunking Peter—that was meant to get everyone—except maybe Peter—into a lighter frame of mind and to get them to pay attention. It’s the same thing in jail. The inmates are usually both surprised and amused at this way of looking at this story. I’m sure that some of them really identify with the joke.

But most of them identify even more strongly with the message. One of the greatest fears I encounter there is the fear of getting out—having another chance to screw up and wind up back in the jail. God how they hate that place! For them the message is something they already know, but the Jesus of the Gospels is now telling them directly. “Want to stay off drugs? Get into a community, a program, a church, something other than hanging around with you ‘friends’ who sold you the stuff that got you here in the first place!” Drugs, alcohol, family problems, health problems, psychoses of all kinds—no one, least of all these people, was ever meant to be left to try to overcome these problems all alone. That—in reality—they have to do so far too often is an issue that you and I have to wrestle with.

Okay, a little bit about jail. And only a little bit. The whole enchilada would take days, especially when its reality begins to conflict with our society’s expectations.

First of all, whether you like it or agree with it, jails and prisons are—in reality—places where people are dumped, to be kept away from “decent” society, to be allowed to be forgotten, to be cleansed from our memory or our further responsibility. The inmates are, to those living outside the razor wire, dead to us, for all intents and purposes. And I suppose that, having been left for dead, the Gospel directive by Jesus in Matthew 25 about visiting those in prison makes little sense. But one of the things you encounter in working with prisoners is that their spiritual “death” happened long before they were first lead away in handcuffs. Many were killed—spiritually, at any rate—in childhood or adolescence. Killed through sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. Killed as they were introduced to drugs and violence as kids. Killed when their parents left for long prison terms or were themselves the victims of violence. Killed by being unwanted, uncared for, discarded. Not everyone in jail fits this profile. Only nearly everyone. And you can add to the list the large class of prisoners that are going away for long periods of time, including three-strikers. 25-to-life is a virtual death sentence, almost always given to someone spiritually damaged or killed long before. But don’t get me wrong. Many crimes are way too painful to let slip by, to not take responsibility for as a society.

So I could describe this all, in one very real sense, by saying I’ve spent my summer in hell. A real hell, one that was created specifically to be hell and it does an outstanding job. I can call it that because it was created to be that, and because both the prisoners and those guarding them realize this fact.

But—in a way—I’m getting ahead of myself. Understanding the depth of pain and despair that inmates share is something that usually takes time. The first impressions are perhaps the most striking. My wife Eileen helped me see this more clearly toward the end of my CPE. One Sunday she came along with me out to Elmwood, to tag along with me as I did my work. Like most work days, we began with an attempt to respond to the Inmate Request Forms the chaplain’s office receives. I picked up several of them, loaded my bag with literature and Bibles, and we set out for a medium security lock-down facility called M3. Now M3 is the sort of place that houses prisoners awaiting trial and sentencing for a wide variety of crimes, including a lot of “third-strikers,” people who will likely leave that place to die in prison. Well, we concluded our first few visits of the day there, and as we were leaving, Eileen asked, “Is this normal? Is that what it’s usually like?” I thought about the visits and the prisoners we’d seen. “Yep,” I said, “It’s entirely normal.” Eileen was coming to grips with the sheer humanity of the experience. From what most people would like to think—from newspapers, TV, movies and the like, you’d expect most inmates would be violent, snarling beasts that look like they need to be chained and in cages. Instead, the reality is almost always different. The beast’s face turns out to be human. The human—if he or she brings it up—admits doing wrong. Beyond that, the concerns we chaplains face are real, human, and often soaked through with a sense of despair, guilt, shame, and hopelessness. If an inmate gives you any glimpse into his or her life, you go away with the overpowering realization of why you’re there in the first place. You are quite likely the very first person in that inmate’s life to ever sit quietly and listen without judgment or accusation.

An impression like this might seem at first to be merely “idealistic.” You know, “What a great bunch of folks! Let’s have them all over for dinner!” No, that’s not the point at all. There are many inmates who need the “structured life” of jail or prison to keep them from easy access to drugs and gangs while they “grow up,” as it were, or whose mental problems demand that their access to other people be limited. But I assure you that what I am saying is no more idealistic than the teachings and sacrifice that we remember here today and every time we pray or worship.

There is so much that could be said…so much! But for now I’ll leave you with two vignettes, two stories that I know I can never forget. Maybe these will help you understand, maybe not. The first person I’ll speak about is David. An older man who’s spent 24 years on San Quentin’s death row, whose case was overturned on appeal and who is now back in the Main Jail awaiting yet more appeals as Santa Clara County seeks to reinstate the death penalty, largely out of a sense of pride. In his years on death row, David came to his own spiritual awakening and has become—as he readily admits—a rather different person than the one arrested years ago. The part of the jail he’s in doesn’t permit much inmate-to-inmate contact, and so David has been doing his ministry of Bible study and evangelism by talking quietly to the other prisoners through the air ducts. Part of this ministry involves trying to wean young gang members away from the destructive path they’re on, and from time to time he gets threats from senior gang members. Yet—often enough—even those threatening voices will also ask David to pray with them. I consider him my best man on the inside.

The other story is one that is, for me, extremely difficult to write or talk about, but it so clearly sums up the experience that I’ll add it anyway. The fellow’s name is Greg, and he’s 19. I first met Greg on 8A in the Main Jail—the acute psych ward that also serves as a real life “chamber of horrors.” Greg was there because he had become depressed and suicidal. His crime was minor, but he was and is also going through advanced Huntington’s disease, made worse by years of drug abuse starting in childhood. Over the summer we talked and talked and talked. Not so much about God, religion or spirituality as we did about music, cars, girls, and so on. I saw Greg regularly enough that he finally—through slurred and difficult speech—began to tell me about his family and his life. For jail it was “normal.” He was in Juvenile Hall at 14 for a stabbing. His mother—who did not want him—openly spoke to him about her feelings and physically and psychologically abused him. When she was killed in an auto accident he felt nothing. Such was his life. And now the doctors were giving him a few months to live, a little longer than his remaining sentence. Greg was facing a debilitating disease and death. After a month or so on 8A he was moved to the infirmary ward on 2B, and I was really glad to visit him there, in slightly better surroundings. When I came into his ward he was sitting on his bunk, eating a peanut butter sandwich and smiling. We talked about life again, and about hope. We talked about his release date, and I said that I’d miss him. He said that he’d miss me, too, and that I’d shown him that there was still love in the world. We talked a few minutes more, but I left for other rounds when I could. The weight of what he said—in that place—was simply too much to bear, and it still is.

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