A new perspective

By parishioner and volunteer, Emily Lyons.

“He was despised, and we held him of no account.” —Isaiah 53:3

As the organizer of the new prison ministry effort at Saint Philip’s, I was inspired to offer some of my reflections on how the lessons of Holy Week could inform a faith-based approach to working with and advocating for those in prison. I’m not a biblical scholar, so I hope that readers who are more informed on these topics will set me right if they find any heresies or errors in my exegesis.

On Palm Sunday, we heard St. Mark’s account of all the events surrounding Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, from his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem to his burial. We continue to memorialize these events throughout Holy Week. However, when we are confronted with the enormity of the crucifixion itself and what it signifies, many of the other details recede into the background.

As you contemplate the passion story this week, I invite you to direct some attention to these details, which remind us that the crucifixion is the culmination of a criminal proceeding. Jesus is arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Although Pontius Pilate expresses doubt about the charges for which the Sanhedrin have convicted him, by upholding his death sentence he affirms Jesus’ status as a convicted criminal. It is as a convicted criminal that Jesus is subjected to humiliation and abuse by his jailers and by the jeering crowd at the foot of the cross.

We approach the passion story already knowing, as Jesus knows, that his death is preordained and required for the salvation of humanity. Viewing the story through this frame, we understand that Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution, beyond being a mere miscarriage of justice, represent the fulfillment of prophecy. At the same time, the manner of Jesus’s death, especially when we consider it in light of Isaiah 53, indicates how important it is for us to consider what it means for him to be made a criminal in the eyes of the people.

Although the image of the crucified Christ is central to our tradition, the very centrality of this image serves to decontextualize the cross as a brutal regime’s instrument of capital punishment, instead emphasizing Christ’s sacrifice in a way that allows us to connect intimately with his personal suffering.

Certainly, the crucifixion of Christ is a singular event, because it is through Christ’s death that we are redeemed. And yet, crucifixion was a common punishment in the Roman world. The account of the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus that appears in all the gospels attests to this.

I am aware that there is nearly two millennia’s worth of commentary on this subject, which I’m not qualified to speak to, but as someone who majored in literature, I’m inclined to see these criminals first as symbols. Dying alongside Jesus, they stand as reminders of the duality of his nature, fully human and fully divine; or, we could read the opposition of the unrepentant criminal and the penitent criminal as described in the Gospel of Luke as symbolic of the competing impulses to sin and the desire for redemption that define our human nature.

But suppose we consider the crucified criminals not as symbols, but as real people. For what crimes were they sentenced to die? What circumstances impelled them to these crimes? Were they wrongly accused? Did their loved ones keep vigil for them while they died a slow, agonizing death?

For me, reflecting on the crucifixion of the two criminals does not diminish the centrality of Christ’s crucifixion. Rather, I find it deepens my ability to connect to the story. It is a powerful reminder that, just as Christ was obliged to become a convicted criminal for our sake, even the most unrepentant criminal reflects the image of Christ.

Moreover, this line of thought urges us to consider that, when Jesus said that what we do for those in prison we do for him, he was not speaking metaphorically. He was not speaking of people in prison as a separate class to be treated as objects of charity and pity. He was speaking of the fundamental humanity common to us all.

I recently had a conversation with someone (shoutout to Tyler!) that brought me to a clearer understanding of the meaning of prison ministry and my orientation to it. I realized that “prison ministry” might carry the connotation, and the baggage, of evangelism.

As Fr Robert has often noted, and as Bishop Smith sermonized during his recent visit to Saint Philip’s, the idea of being an evangelist is an uncomfortable one for many Episcopalians. I know it is for me, which is why I want to dispel the idea that prison ministry is about “saving the souls” of sinners in prison. I find this framing objectionable for several reasons.

One, it promotes the very flawed idea that all people who are incarcerated are guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted. By extension, it assumes the inherent moral righteousness and fairness of the criminal justice system—a dangerous assumption. Furthermore, it assumes that all people who are incarcerated have been charged with crimes and have been subject to due process. This is far from the case—right now, thousands of migrants are in detention in facilities in Arizona and elsewhere, with no assurance of when they will be released or access to resources that might help them secure their release.

Finally, it assumes that incarcerated people can only gain redemption through the intervention of more “worthy” representatives of Christ, an assumption that reinforces the idea that people in prison are somehow different or more spiritually imperiled than the rest of us.

I don’t mean to dismiss all faith-based programs that serve incarcerated people. There is a definite need for such programs, and I know that they can make a meaningful, lasting difference in the lives of the inmates and the volunteers who participate in them. Also, I don’t intend to project an unrealistic, romanticized picture of people in prison, or to minimize the fact that there are people in this world—some in prison, some not—who are guilty of atrocious, soul-destroying crimes.

I simply want to emphasize the fact that we are all sinners. Not one of us is less in need of salvation than another of us. Moreover, not one of us is less deserving of salvation than any other of us. Those of us who are comfortable in our liberty, who do not fear the police or courts or prisons because we imagine that they serve our interests and are meant to deal with some other type of person—we are the ones most in need of evangelism.

I believe that centering the humanity of people in prison needs to be the foundation of prison ministry at Saint Philip’s. I think there are many ways that we can do this, including growing in our awareness of the many ways that the prison system dehumanizes the people that it touches, and reckoning with how we are implicated in that.

I pray that as we remember Christ’s passion this week, we remember also the many who suffer and endure abuse at the hands of those who are supposed to serve justice. It may help for us to continually reflect on the way Christ was made a criminal and dehumanized. I pray also that this reflection may encourage us to work for justice for those in prison. In concerning ourselves with justice “for the least of these,” we concern ourselves with justice for all people.

If you are interested in learning more about prison ministry, or getting involved, please email me at elyons@arizona.edu.

Our next meeting will be announced soon in the Bell &Tower.

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio