Revd Wendy Carey
20th November Matthew 25 35-40
About twelve years ago, I was leading a
Bible Study at Bullingdon Prison in Bicester.
It was a special day, because as well as the dozen or so prisoners who
could usually be expected to attend, there were four new clergy in their first
year of training, who had come to see what Prison ministry was like. The morning went well; one of the prisoners
had prepared to share the leadership of the study. Everyone joined in, and it was about as good
and worthwhile a Bible Study as you might wish to attend. The curates were impressed, and as I escorted
them back through the locked inner gates to the Prison gatehouse, one said 'But
you've chosen the most respectable ones, the nicest ones, to come and meet
us.'. Little did he know, but most of them were serving long sentences, two of
them, including the pleasant, quietly spoken one who had prepared and co-led
the session were Lifers, and one was serving a nine year sentence for very
serious crimes that would have shocked them deeply.
The theme of this year's Prisons Week is
'can you see me, or are you just looking'?
We are challenged by Jesus' parable to look at ourselves and at others
through fresh eyes, and without preconceptions.
The curates who met the prisoners at Bible Study met them without being
given their labels, 'car thief'
'burglar' or 'murderer'. Too
often when we are just looking, rather than when we are really seeing, we only
see what we think we ought to see, and it becomes harder to discern the person
behind the label.
Think about the labels we each carry
through life, and how they make us feel. In my life I’ve been wife, stay at
home Mum, teacher, woman priest, pensioner, bus pass holder, and many
more. Some of them make me feel angry,
because they turn me into a stereotype, none of them fully represents the
person I am. What are the stereotypes
used to describe who you are, and how do they make you feel?
Jesus’ parable about the Last judgment,
when people are finally divided like sheep and the goats, is thought provoking,
and asks the question whether we are just looking or really seeing the
truth. An intriguing point about that
parable is how unaware the people being judged were about where they fitted in. The sheep did not know they were sheep, the
goats didn’t know they were goats. Both
asked ‘when did we do these things, or when did we fail to do them?’ We only know truly where we fit in, when we
are seen through God’s eyes, God who truly sees us, and is not just glancing
idly in our direction.
The God who sees us, sitting here in the Church of Christ
When I was ordained Deacon in 1993, my
license was a joint one, to be Honorary Curate at this Church, and Assistant
Chaplain to Woodhill Prison. For four
and a half years I had the perspective of bringing together two places in the
city, one, high profile and ‘respectable’, the other low key, and probably
little thought about, unless you happen to be related to someone who works or
resides there. When you come into this
city, you can see the cross on the dome of this church from a long distance
away. We are set on a hill, and visible,
Woodhill is set away behind earth banks, few signs direct you to it. Perhaps the people who are there today,
either as prisoners or staff are ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Today, on Prisons Sunday, we take a closer
look, and try to see reality.
To help you look more closely at our
prisons nationally, a few facts.
- When I began work at Woodhill as it opened in July 1992, the
prison population in
- A very large proportion of offences causing that imprisonment are in some way alcohol or drug-related
- It costs about £38,000 to keep someone in prison, that is, more than it costs to send someone to a top public school
- A disproportionate number of prisoners have been in care as children or young people
- About a third of male prisoners, and over half of female prisoners have mental health problems
- The majority of women prisoners have school aged or younger children
- Prison Officers, please never call them Wardens, do a most complex and demanding job, keeping our prisons under control and safe, a job that is very little recognised or celebrated.
And two facts to
make you think, I hope – first, that more than 50 per cent of prisoners will
re-offend within two years
And second,
proportionately more prisoners will have been victims of crime, than an average
section of the community – some of them being victims at a very early age.
If we are just
looking, and not really seeing, we may easily make the decision that we can
judge who in life is successful, admirable, blessed. But Jesus’ parable of judgment tells us to
stop and think again. We do not know
what it is that we may have done, to honour the Christ in those about us – Lord
when did we see you and come to your aid.
Nor do we know when we might miss seeing the Christ among us – Lord,
when did we see you and fail to come to your aid?
I spoke about
the two buildings, The Church of Christ the Cornerstone, and Woodhill Prison as
two very different places, this building, set high in the centre of the city,
the prison on the edge, concealed. But
I’d like us to begin this Prisons week by thinking for a few moments of the
things we have in common.
First, we are communities of hope. Both buildings, and the people who come to
them, have the expressed intention that what happens within this place will further
the ends of justice and peace. The
Chapel of Woodhill prison is called the Chapel of Hope, and I have seen hope
expressed there against all odds, and in really tough and challenging times. As you think about our prisons as places of
hope, I’d ask you to pray for Prison staff.
Most Prison Officers, Governors and administrators begin their prison
service with high ideals. They have to
struggle to keep them, through disappointments, difficulties, and sometimes
betrayals. Please pray for them, especially
in the week ahead.
Next, we are communities of faith, in
the context of a society where faith is not always openly on view. At Cornerstone we struggle to make sense of a
context of the shopping and business centres.
Open expressions of faith may be rare, but there can be a recognition of
the alternative values that faith can offer.
Similarly, there is little open recognition of the place of faith in the
busy and routine of a prison, yet the prison chaplaincy can offer a quiet place
of renewal and refreshment to both prisoners and staff. Please pray for our prison Chaplaincy Teams,
offering hope and new and positive directions through faith. Pray for the team at Woodhill
We are communities of reconciliation. Neither Cornerstone nor Woodhill can serve
its purpose unless we bring change and reconciliation into people’s lives. One of the saddest things about the waste of
lives and waste of money represented by imprisonment, is the re-offending rate. Only by helping people to take a realistic
look at their own lives, at the harm we may have done, and the way back to
wholeness of life, can we bring healing.
Such realistic recognition of the offer of new life is not just the work
of the prison, it is the work of the church as well. As we confess our sins week by week we
recognise that we too need to realign our lives to the life offered in Jesus
Christ.
And so, finally,
we are both, Cornerstone and Woodhill, communities
of forgiveness. Many of our
prisoners have committed crimes that make it all too easy to consider them as
beyond our understanding, or beyond God’s forgiveness. Yet it is for forgiveness, after true
recognition of the harm done by sin, that we both exist. And when the end time comes, God will be our
judge about whether we reached out to the Christ in our neighbour.
I would like to leave the last words to a
prisoner. Paul, imprisoned at Woodhill
in the 1990’s wrote this:
A prayer for Forgiveness
I
ask for forgiveness
and
yet
I
don’t feel forgiven.
It
seems that by sinning
alone
I am driven.
I
believe in God
and
his son
Jesus’
death
And
for my sins
he
sacrificed
his
last breath.
So
why do I feel
so
unworthy and unloved?
Maybe
because all
my
selfish actions
I
know God has seen.
I
want
I
need
To
be cleansed from within.
And
to feel reassured
that
God has wiped away my sin.
I
don’t care
whether
I’m rich
or
poor.
I just want
the
Lord
to come through my door.
Doesn’t
he know it is open?
