TODAY IN MISSION YEARBOOK
Mission Yearbook: Online Lost and Found Church service for Presbyterian Peace Fellowship shares prayers for those who are incarcerated
Lost and Found Church, an online ministry of Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, recently featured numerous insights from the Rev. Dexter Kearny, of the One Parish One Prisoner program offered throughout the state of Washington by Underground Ministries. Kearny is also a member of Presbyterians for Abolition Working Group.
One Parish One Prisoner trains faith communities “to be welcoming spaces for those coming home from prison,” Kearny explained. Scripture “has a lot to say about prisons,” in passages including Matthew 25 and Hebrews 13. “Paul wrote nearly all his letters from prison,” Kearny noted. “Nearly all the disciples were imprisoned, as were many from Presbyterian Peace Fellowship as they stood up for their beliefs.”
Nearly 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, more than any other country. About 79 million people in the U.S. have a criminal record, and 113 million have someone in their immediate family who’s been incarcerated. Over the past five decades or so, populations at state and federal prisons in the U.S. are up 800%. “Prisons are a sickness in society,” Kearny said, “one which we have been unwilling to heal from.”
He asked those gathered for the online service: What are things you find difficult to bring up in church settings? Kearny went first. He and his spouse, also a teaching elder, had been serving a congregation in the Evergreen State for a few years before they connected with a person who’d been incarcerated. When that occurred and the church welcomed the person, a woman “whose son had been in and out of prison for several years” opened up about that reality, saying that before this person arrived, she didn’t feel she could bring up her son’s history in church. Another woman shared that she herself had been incarcerated as a younger person. “She felt safe because we had engaged with a formerly incarcerated person,” Kearny said.
“We’re all sinners. We’re all on a journey toward Christ’s example of unconditional love,” Kearny said. “People trust us with their stories and their struggles, and it makes us a more honest and healing community. It can be a person formerly incarcerated or a person brave enough to say, ‘I don’t have it together.’ It opens up the space to participate more broadly in the body of Christ.”
One Parish One Prisoner uses John’s account of the resurrection of Lazarus to get faith communities to talk about how to welcome those who were formerly incarcerated. As a discussion starter, Kearny displayed two works of art: “Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life” from the JESUS MAFA Project in Cameroon, and “The Resurrection of Lazarus” by Giovanni di Paolo.
The Lazarus story “lines up really well with the way a lot of people coming home from prison feel,” Kearny said. “They have been cut off from community and now they’re getting a second chance. Are they celebrated and welcomed?” Or, like Lazarus, “are they told [even by family members], ‘You’re too stinky. Get over it and get a job, and don’t cause any trouble.’”
In John’s gospel, Jesus orders the stone removed and for Lazarus to come out. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “All right, community, we’re going to do this miracle together,” Kearny said. Jesus then orders those gathered to unbind Lazarus and let him go. “Jesus says, ‘Get closer. Get so close you could smell him and hug him, and unbind the layers holding him tight,’” Kearny said.
We may consider the “inner work needed to do the healing” among the formerly incarcerated, Kearny said, healing from mistrust, addiction, anger, co-dependency, resentment and running away from problems. Then he smiled. “Of course, in our churches we don’t have any of those problems,” he said. What we do find is this: “When we get close enough to smell and hug, it opens up healing and our own transformation.”
Kearny closed the service by praying for “for those in our prisons, for those who have no hope of release and for those who are moving to their release date.”
“Surround them with a community who will walk alongside them,” Kearny asked the Almighty, “not as someone who stinks, but as someone who’s worthy of a hug.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Josh Park, Manager for Korean-Speaking Councils, Interim Unified Agency
Sung-Joo Park, Relationship Manager, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Let us pray:
Lord God, open our hearts so that we hear your call. Amen.