Behind Invisible Bars

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "

The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"

Matthew 25:37-40

Today we spoke with Mr. Kevin Bourne-McRae, a great gentleman (and that's not because he actually paid for our coffee!) who used to be the state director of Prison Fellowship Australia in Wester Australia. Through our meeting we managed to find out how we could be a part of that very important ministry.

The reason that Kevin was and not is the state director of Prison Fellowship WA is because they ran out of funding that the council decided that they could not afford a full-time staff member in that position. When you consider that there are so many committed Christians in this city, many of whom attending churches that can afford huge monthly maintainance and operational bills, one should wonder why such an essential, life-changing ministry can be so lacking in funding. How can this happen? Kevin points to the apathy and the judgmentalism of many Christians as some of the reasons, in whatever form. Whilst he himself is a Christian, he is just appalled by how judgmental Christians are. A sentiment that I can very well relate to. Apparently some 'Christians' have even remarked that ex-convicts should not be allowed into church, lest they steal anything or harm anyone. How arrogant is that! Why, people are people; they can steal, lie or cheat whether or not they have been to prison!

And that is just the problem. So many Christians do not understand -or even choose to forget- that in the eyes of God we are really no better than prisoners: we are sinners. Like us, convicts have also had a life in which they make choices, some are good and some are bad. Just because we are at church singing songs and they are behind steel bars at Casuarina doesn't mean that God loves them less. C.S. Lewis apparently once said something to the effect that it is not that we are holier, but it is that we are more forgiven.

Once we forget the meaning of grace, we lose perspective of our true place as someone undeservedly redeemed into a loving relationship with God, and begin to believe that it is by our own merit that we have become worthy of even being called 'Christians'. When this happens, we begin in a conceited manner to see certain people as spiritually inferior to us because they have not 'earned' their spiritual merit as we have. And this is what has happened to these Christians who regard convicts and prisoners with a sense of self-superiority, if not fearful prejudice, when perhaps in a way those criminals are more urgently in God's heart than we are. After all, it is the sick who need a doctor, not the healthy (Matthew 9:12).

If we had been there two thousand years ago, when that emaciated Man was being paraded through the streets of Jerusalem, we might as well be amongst those who pelted him with rocks because we felt it was the morally correct thing to do (chillingly foretold in Isaiah 53:4). Ironically, of course (I love the world; it's just so full of ironies), He went through all out of the grace that we think we deserve but really don't. Yes, the perfect Son of God, the Judge of the world, became a criminal so that we could be free of our crimes (Isaiah 53:5). All of us!

In many ways prisons are the physical representation of the lowest point of how low humanity can go. Yet we realize that it was to that lowest point that God himself came down and met us where we were, so that He could save us from the pits. This, not self-driven morality or good reputation, is the central message of true Christianity. This is grace.

When we choose to close our eyes to the reality that there are so many people in prisons so desperately needing God, and God desperately wanting to save them, we become imprisoned ourselves. But while convicts are held in their prisons against their will, we choose to remain in ours. While their prisons are made of steel, ours is invisible, a prison made of apathy and arrogance. And we choose to enter this invisible prison when we ignore those in physical ones.

Sadly, Kevin told us that some prisoners, even though they have shown signs of change and repentance in prison, return to their old ways as soon as they go back into the big, bad world. This is because out here they find that they have nothing and no one that would care about them. The easiest way out would be to return to their old buddies. What, then, should the Christian church be in this reality? The ex-prisoners' old friends accept them as they are, but are we ready to do the same? If God accepted us as we were, why can't we do the same for these people?

www.pfi.org.au

www.forgivenforlife.com

www.seansellers.com