SERMONS

Rev. Laura S. Tuach, Assistant Director of Partakers
Christ Church Cambridge
Proper 24
Text: Luke 18:1-8
10/19/04

Title: Cry Justice

It is good to be here and as Mark said in my introduction, I am from this area, I received my training in this neighborhood, I and now commute here every day as our offices are housed in the basement of First Church Cambridge just a few blocks away. Partakers is a faith-based, non-profit organization that strives for reconciliation between prisoners and society. Our specialty is gaining access to higher education for prisoners, and recruiting volunteers, church folk, to mentor them as they study toward a college degree. This relationship, this education, proves to be crucial and an effective way to bring about that reconciliation.

In preparing for today's sermon, I couldn't help but think of Joe, a prisoner who was sentenced to 10 years in isolation after a violent incident between with a correctional officer. It's been four years and his days are marked by hours of legal research as he prepares for his case to come before a judge. Much like our central character, Joe is persistent and refuses to be between down by his circumstances. He has learned many lessons during his 20+ years in prison, but most of all he has learned that rehabilitation is not a top priority for our Corrections system.

You see, Joe and others like him "bother the judge" because the system is broken and they know it. They keep coming back, just as the widow did, because they truly believe that they do not deserve the sentence or treatment they have received. And in many cases, they are right. They are not all claiming innocence, but they are demanding fairness. And unfortunately, not all cases are examined equally and justice is not always served the way they would like.

This parable could easily lead a prisoner or a parishioner to believe that if we pray with indignant persistence -- we will get what we want. That if we knock until our knuckles bleed we will convince God that our prayers and God's intentions are exactly the same. But is this really the purpose of prayer? To wear God down until we get our way? If truth be told, in my life, it is often the other way around. The more I hope to wear God down, the more I am worn down by God. Worn down until I finally get it.

This parable helps us to see that prayer is not simply about asking and getting what we want, but it is really about communion with Christ. The judge's reaction to such persistence reveals something profound about the character of God. Jesus says, "Will not God grant justice to the ones who cry out day and night? I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them." To know Christ deeply in prayer we must begin with the understanding that Jesus' life was characterized by connecting with the oppressed. He sought out the sinners, the tax collectors, the lepers, and the widows the way we seek out the powerful. And in doing this work, he prayed himself - he prayed a lot. Jesus teaches us that not just any prayer will do - justice must be at the heart of what we yearn for. And when our prayers reflect this desire, we are vindicated.

So, are all prisoners the widow fighting for justice? And are their cries valid? In my biased opinion, the answer in many situations is yes. Now I do not know about each individual case, but I do know individuals and their stories. I also know just how broken the system is. So their claims for fairness and humane treatment are more than valid.

Sisters and brothers, our prisoners are poor. Our prisoners are victimizers and victims. Our prisoners are addicts. Prisoners are primarily young black and latino men and women. Minorities make up 26% of this country's population and yet they comprise over 70% of the prison population. Over 80% of prisoners are addicts and too many of them are serving long, costly mandatory minimum sentences.

Last year in Massachusetts, less than 1% of a 460 million dollar Corrections budget was designated to educational programming. And it is a known fact, that the single most effective way to rehabilitate and reduce recidivism is education. Spending on Corrections has increased dramatically over the past 10 years and just surpassed our spending on public higher education in the Commonwealth. Friends, it is now more expensive to house one prisoner in a medium security facility for one year than it is to go to Harvard from September through May.

Much of my work is visiting congregations like yours and educating them about the Gospel imperative given by Jesus to visit prisoners, to pray with them, and to break the bonds of oppression. Much of my work is also helping volunteers navigate a relationship that challenges their stereotypes, their assumptions, and their reliance on the easy answers. I get to witness prisoners and parishioners encounter one another, accompanied by Christ. I am privileged to walk with them through countless transformative moments when the boundaries of race and class are crossed. When I visit congregations, I see faithful people, just like you, begin to understand that visiting prisoners, mentoring them as they study, and advocating for reform is a living, breathing persistent prayer for justice.

I am not here to paint a romanticized picture of prisoners, or to tell you that prison ministry is without challenge. I am here today as a Christian woman who tries to follow Jesus in real-time. Here as someone who wonders if her prayers for reform in the criminal justice system really make a difference. But I believe that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice", just as Dr. King did.

Joe may never see the justice he is working for and we may never get the exact answers to our prayers, but the Jesus story shows us that there is redemption and new life for us and for him. That justice and goodness are at the heart of God, that God is at the heart of all people.

So as you approach the rail, take the bread and the cup, pray fiercely for Joe. Pray fiercely for Jamel and John, Susan and Martine, and Vincent, and Heather, and Angel. Pray with them as if you yourselves were in prison. Demand justice in your own life and promise to use you what you have been given to bring it about for others.

And do not lose heart, for I tell you, God is good and God is faithful, and will grant justice to those who cry out day and night.

Amen.

CHRONOS and KAIROS TIME

By Patricia Lee
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Marblehead

I have been given eight minutes to speak with you about restorative justice; so I am very conscious of my watch. I want to do this within the context of addressing the issue of "doing time" and in spite of the clock ticking…ready, set, go!

Jesus came to us in "Chronos Time" (or the chronological business of daily living and staying focused) and he also told us to be "ever watchful." Yet we also experience Jesus in "Kairos Time" when we actively participate, as we are doing now, in our faith community, in prayer, and in sharing "The Eucharist." In chairing St. Andrew's prison ministry committee, I am ever watchful-as in so much else in my life these days-of using both Chronos Time and Karios Time simultaneously.

Watches, you may or may not know, are not allowed inside the "slammer." As we visit Martine, our inmate at MCI/Framingham, each of us on the Committee expectantly follow the rules and nervously look at our watches as to when we will be allowed "inside" before we have to tuck our watches safely away inside a locker. We also are conscious of "time" during a weekday visit because we have to get out before the "guard changes shift" (at 2:45 PM) and before the Greater Boston commuter traffic starts---or else, we will be caught, both inside and outside. It's a tricky business this business of TIME---especially in a jail!

Many famous people have been incarcerated. In our time, think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and way too many Black Americans and Native Americans. Listen to the words of Nelson Mandela, from his book Long Walk to Freedom. He, too, was conscious of TIME. "Time slows down in prison. The days seem endless. The cliché of time passing slowly usually has to do with idleness and inactivity. But this was not the case on Robben Island. We were busy almost all the time, with work, study, resolving disputes. Yet, time nevertheless moved glacially…" (In spite of a life sentence, Mandela went on to say): "But I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man." Perhaps no man has given us the template for restorative justice in our own time as has Mandela and Bishop Tutu in the "Truth and Reconciliation" program in South Africa.

The inmate that St. Andrew's is sponsoring in our prison ministry--in a program called College Beyond Bars --is a 37 year old Haitian woman of color who is serving fifteen years for a serious crime. She has served four years thus far. Martine is also the mother of Carl, a six year old, who is being raised by Henry, his biological father, and also by Henry's parents. They live in Greater Boston. (Carl was brought up by Martine's parents for the first few years of his life; but Martine's parents returned to Haiti as they own a home in today's troubled Port-au-Prince and returned there because they said that they could no longer take the New England winters, alas! We pray that they are not now in harm's way.) Martine is a very spiritual person with a healthy personality. She is bright and her mind is always "moving"-we are sponsoring Martine through her four-year liberal arts program with Boston University. This is a joint partnership with the faith-based ministry known as Partaker's, Inc., a not for profit organization, and thanks to the generosity of this parish, we have been given three thousand dollars for Martine's tuition from the Sidebottom bequest, to be used as a grant for educational purposes.

I am also doing a home correspondence course with Martine using a book titled "Houses of Healing." This program includes exercises that we do together and share through the mails. The curriculum is a guide towards restorative justice issues that include self-healing and spiritual direction and transformation of a wounded life---to one's self, to the victim, to the families, to the community at large. I can attest that Martine is a woman with a profound sense of remorse and appropriate guilt. She wants to better her life and understand herself more deeply. Her family unit is also supportive and she is able to have as constructive a relationship with them all, under the circumstances, including the love of her son, as she is now able to have. (Many women at MCI/Framingham have no idea where their kids might be in the DSS system. This is fortunately not the case for Martine.)

I wondered how to present restorative justice to you this morning in only eight minutes. I have decided to share with you my own Lenten study, as I believe it is apropos to restorative justice. The Apostle Paul wrote that God's word is not chained. In other words, while we are all "marking time" on this earth, we have been given free will to move in a particular direction. Martin Luther made a primary distinction between the theology of the cross and the theology of glory as two polar ways of thinking about faith. We all want to participate in the power of glory but to participate in the power of the cross is to recognize God in suffering, weakness, foolishness, and failure, including death, when the flesh does fail us. This brings to mind the controversy now underway regarding Mel Gibson's interpretation of the Passion of Christ. Poetry is important to me; especially when I am moving in a "dark time." So I chose to delve into a Lenten discipline in studying Dante's Divine Comedy.

First of all, Dante's pilgrimage into the Inferno, Purgatorio and then to heaven in Paradisio, was written within the context of the Passion Week. So it speaks to me of this liturgical time we are presently in. Why?

Well, in HELL Dante experiences everything motionless, out of time, eternally frozen at the bottom of the earth. Nothing moves onward and upward except the perpetual motion of repeating one's sin or crime over and over and over again, eternally. It is my view that this is what happens without rehabilitation in today's prisons. It is costing the taxpayers millions of dollars and is a waste of human potential if we do not use rehabilitative principles that truly help people to heal.

Secondly, Purgatory, if you will, is a place where I believe that Martine now often resides. It is in Purgatory that Dante experiences a place where human beings have a chance to review their life and their behaviors. I am learning that Purgatory is a good place to be, perhaps for all of us? Why? Because it clears the mind and opens the heart for each one of us. In Purgatory, hope is reborn simply because the soul can move. It is in "time-motion" steps; but, when Dante and Virgil reached the shores of Purgatory, they could not simply climb straight up the mountain. No. The journey continued on in a spiraling way. They have to---by the grace of God---undo what hell has done to their souls, and it is done through the Holy Spirit symbolized by the Divine Feminine in the figure of Beatrice. Reaching "at-one-ment" or atonement requires work prior to redemption.

Dante's spiral symbolizes a journey of inner revolution, and is signified by the wayfarer not caught and trapped by the ego. In short, humility enters in with a recognition of the "I-Thou" relationship both within our deeper selves and without in our interactions with one another. It is an opportunity to examine our shadow side in order to allow forgiveness of "self" and "other" to enter by grace.

In one of his poems, Wendell Berry wrote: "To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings." If you will, in Dante's classic poem--written in the mediaeval period of the 13th century-- Satan is found out to be who he is in the darkness of the earth. As we accompany Dante on his journey we discover the grim pattern of Dante's HELL -- One is eternally stuck in the seven deadly sins! Yi! But the act of contrition, which we say each Sunday, is breathtakingly liberating. Healing is possible by saying out loud what we have done to somebody else, and to our deepest self. We have to be willing to make reparation when it is possible, just as in the 12 spiritual steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. When we do so, as with Dante, we are ready to enter the "Kingdom of Heaven" promised to us by Jesus. This is restorative justice in a nutshell!

It is also interesting to me how often prophets, saints, apostles and strong leaders come into their power through the "dark night of the soul" and by "serving time" in one form or another. When I was in the Holy Land after the Six-Day War I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem's old city with a Jewish friend from Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead. What an emotional day that was! We were directed to a house believed to be where Jesus was taken into custody just prior to his execution. I have also visited Jesus' alleged birthplace at the manger in Bethlehem, now an Arab town. We were led into dark caves, or grottos, rather grimy at that, and I felt as though I was suffocating and really "entombed." They felt like timeless prisons.

For many Christians death is the hub of the wheel of life. Death and the death penalty are real events in restorative justice. I am not these days under any illusions about death as I witness my own mother "passing away." I find poetry to be a comfort, such as Berry's "Canticle" and his other poems that take "the buried" seriously. Berry asks us: Why do priests wear black clothes when presiding at funerals? Berry says they contrast against the fertile blackness of the soil from which yellow flowers sprout…"at the beginning of April." He concludes in "Canticle"… 'wait in their blackness to earn joy by dying.' So it is that in this Lenten season I have come to see that we cannot have a resurrection without a crucifixion. Yet, I choose not to linger too long, myself, on the violent side of Christ's execution; rather, I try to move to the other reality---that life is eternal.

I believe that Martine has a long way to go in her "dark night of the soul" -eleven more years before she can be considered for a parole for she is doing some hard time; but with our help I pray that she will make it. What she has going for her is that she is a woman who is very grateful for St. Andrew's and for what she does have and I believe that her faith helps her to take each day "one day at a time."

Jesus was a radical and let us remember that he called us to work with the prisoners. We know that the world changed and something happened in His Passion Week; and something radical happened to Dante as a wayfarer as he traveled into the dark side and back to heaven on earth once again. So, too, for Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. I believe that in our own lives it can be so for each one of us. All was mathematically and astrologically and specifically laid out in Dante's morality play: dawn, noon, twilight, evening and the numbers of the cantos, themselves. Indeed, time even races backwards as we move towards Easter Sunday in the Divine Comedy. But Virgil is forever hurrying Dante on; it is hard to understand why, unless perhaps Beatrice has fixed a permanent appointment for Easter Sunday. Or, perhaps he is simply eager to get out of hell. Then, too, time measurements in this moral allegory might be speaking to the wiser man, as Virgil puts it, who regrets lost time.

John F. Kennedy, cut down too early in his own prime, once said: "We must use time as a tool, not a crutch." In any event, there is no loitering in Dante's underworld as souls are racing in Purgatory to make amends.

And so, it is our time to embark on this prison ministry. We ask each of you to walk this path with us as we labor in the vineyards of restorative justice in both chronos and kairos time.

So be it!

Our God is typically a God of eloquent silence. At least those of us who find our path in faith to be drawn through a place like Harvard are not generally the sort of people who are easily given to the idea of God speaking directly to us; we think of it with no thin suspicion. But once in a great while, God can hit you over the head with a brick, almost as if to say, "for pity's sake, you lunkhead, do I have to spell it out for you?"

I had such a day yesterday, and it pretty much upended the sermon I had in mind to preach this morning. Just after prayers yesterday, I found myself enjoying a languid breakfast over at Au Bon Pain with a friend with whom I fell into a conversation about the coming season of Lent. We spoke of the penitential tone of that season, which is very nearly upon us. But of course the whole practice of penitence is not a self-contained idea; we are not meant to be penitent for the enjoyable sake of excoriating ourselves all the time. The point of penitence is to prepare genuinely for the gift of forgiveness that we confess is given to us by the love of God in Jesus Christ.

I know all that, and so do you. So when my friend asked me the plain question, I felt on pretty solid ground. The plain question is, what is forgiveness? Is it something we are called to without limit? What does it mean to take seriously, as Bishop Charleston challenged us so forcefully last Sunday, to take seriously the simple, straightforward, and completely nonsensical idea of forgiving those who hurt us, even who violate us, again and again and again?

Now, I am a member of the clergy of Harvard's church, and so when speaking of the doctrines of the faith I quite automatically affect this very knowing, wise countenance. I even practice it in the mirror. But it seemed to work, in that my friend went away apparently convinced of what I said: that penitence was only one of three pieces of the whole drama of forgiveness that is meant to characterize both our relationship to God, and our relationships to each other. The whole picture looks more like this: genuine acknowledgement to ourselves that we have sinned; penitence, or taking the step of reaching across the divide we have caused by asking for forgiveness; and amendment of life, the real commitment to intentionally set about changing those habits or practices we have, those vices that can arise most fruitfully right from our virtues, in order to become more fully the people God intends us to be.

Quite a good theological answer, if I say so myself. At least that's what he thought. And it's what I thought, too, until the end of the day. In my usual way I had managed to have three different overlapping commitments on my calendar, the last of which was downtown on Federal Street. It was my first meeting as a member of the board of a non-profit called Partakers. I stepped out of the elevator, walked into the room, and was introduced around to my new colleagues and a few guests.

And there, for the first time in my life, I shook the hand of a murderer.

This was no ordinary murderer, if indeed there is such a thing as an ordinary murderer. For one thing, she was rather short and slight. I would guess that she was about my age. She wore fairly thick glasses, and a nametag that said, "Julia Goldberg."

But just two weeks ago she had been released from the women's prison at Framingham on parole. Because at one time in her life, unhappy with a professional career, dissatisfied in her marriage, she had begun taking solace in alcohol. And one night, after too much self-medication, she got into her car. And someone died.

Somewhere in Massachusetts is a family whose lives Julia Goldberg utterly shattered by a terrible lack responsibility. It was more than that; it was third-degree murder, and this professional woman, this successful suburbanite, suddenly lost everything, everything she had-job, home, husband, reputation, all of it.

It turned out that during her time in prison Julia came into contact with some volunteers working with Partakers. It's an organization trying to live out in real terms the Christian vision of restorative justice. My new colleagues are a group of people passionate to achieve a kind of spiritual healing of those who have committed crimes, as well as of those who have been deeply and desperately affected by those crimes.

Of course, much of what they are doing you can justify on bottom-line, economic calculations. Chiefly what they try to do is provide college-behind-bars programs in the prisons of Massachusetts. And there's a simple reason for that. Ninety-seven percent of all incarcerated felons will return to society. But between half and two-thirds of all offenders sentenced to prison will wind up there again, but only one in ten will if they have a four-year degree. And, of course, even if you were to cost it out at the exorbitant fees those long-suffering Harvard parents pay, that would be a lot more cost-effective than so many more additional years of incarceration.

Those are convenient and convincing arguments, and my colleagues are not ashamed to appeal to them when the audience will hear it. But their motivation is something beyond, and more important, than that. They are inspired by the idea that no one passes beyond the line of salvation. No one is out of the reach of the power of forgiveness. Those are the claims of our faith, and they stand in direct conflict with a culture of criminal justice that has become more interested in retribution than reconciliation, where what we once called "penitentiaries" are now simply warehouses for the two million people behind bars in this country that it is simply more convenient to forget than to restore.

I ended up on Partakers' board because both its executive director and her husband are friends of mine. They introduced me to another guest, a very distinguished and well-tailored African-American man of perhaps fifty-five, who told me that he was working as a paralegal. It turned out he had only had the job for the past six months; before that he had been the librarian of the prison library in the Walpole prison. He spoke of how his life had utterly changed for the simple reason that someone had believed in him, invested in him, and given him a sense of obligation to someone other than himself.

"And tomorrow, I'm moving into a new place," he told me, with a mixture of anxiety and pride on his face. After the usual queries about where his new apartment would be, I asked him where he had been living since his release.

And with a look of the most profound love he turned back toward my friends. "Harold has been living with us," Steve told me. "When he was released he had nowhere to go, so . . ."

Now, that is no theological answer, like mine of that very morning. No, that is an answer of Christian love in action. So now I have a simpler answer. Forgiveness is a holy risk. Being forgiven is an even bigger, and even more holy risk. Maybe our culture is so unwilling and unable to do anything but regard criminals as beyond redemption because more and more we no longer really believe that we, ourselves, have been forgiven. Well, then, we must take all the more seriously to heart the radical claim that we have been, that we are, a forgiven people. Because only then will we bring about that amendment of life in ourselves by which the love of Christ will be known through us-and the justice of God be our rule of life.

Let us pray:
O Lord, remember not only thy children of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember instead the fruits we have brought, thanks to this suffering-our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this. And when they come to judgment let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness. Amen.

An ancient story goes that a son was born to a powerful king. This king was determined to surround the beloved heir to his kingdom with all the comforts of wealth and privilege. The king's son lived his days and nights within the confines of a vast palace, where his every need was satisfied. And as the boy grew, his parents were careful not to let him see anything that might disturb him. His slightest need was attended to, and any sign of human suffering was banished from his sight. In the boy's youth, the king ordered tall, thick walls to be built around the palace complex to shut out the rest of the world.

The prison industry in the United States today is a bit like this king's frantic attempt to construct walls around his palace. Over 2 million people are incarcerated in prisons or jails in the U.S. today, triple the number only 20 years ago. And nearly 25,000 of these prisoners are in Massachusetts. Building and maintaining prisons has become a major growth industry - especially in small town America, where, in the last decade, one new prison has broken ground every 15 days. America spends vast resources raising walls that are supposed to keep its people safe. This country also endorses and inflicts increasingly harsh methods of punishment. The latest trend pioneered by the U.S. criminal justice system is the extended use of isolation and sensory deprivation. During the 1990s, human rights groups documented the rise of super maximum security or "supermax" prisons, prisons designed for the permanent and comple! te isolation of human beings. In just 20 years between 1980 and 2000, states and the federal government built more than 50 of these supermax prisons, including one in Massachusetts.

An hour north of here, in Shirley, the Souza-Baranoswki facility opened in 1998. The American Friends Service Committee estimates that at any given time, 2,000 prisoners in Massachusetts are locked down in supermax prisons, or restricted to sensory deprivation cells. To get some sense of what this means, you need to imagine that you are confined to a tiny cell the size of a parking space, for 23 to 24 hours a day, with no access to educational or therapeutic programming. You are forced to eat, sleep, and relieve your bodily needs in this cage, often with no sunlight or fresh air, with only one square foot of reading material. Your only contact with the world is with heavily armed guards whose job it is to control your body at all times.

Historically, isolation in such cells was used temporarily to protect prisoners or prison staff from a life-threatening situation. But today prisoners are often put in isolation units without any due process or review by the courts, and this isolation can last not just for weeks or months, but for years. The group Human Rights Watch comments that this kind of prolonged isolation and sensory deprivation can aggravate or cause "depression, despair, anxiety, rage, [...] and an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember."

The prisoners placed in isolation chambers are often not those who pose the greatest threat to society. People who are mentally ill, mentally retarded, learning disabled and illiterate comprise a large percentage of the prison population, and often have the most difficult time following prison rules, or controlling their anger. This means that they are the most likely to be written up for disciplinary violations and placed in isolation cells or a supermax facility. Once there, they are also the most vulnerable to mental breakdown and even suicide. Legal advocates who communicate with prisoners throughout the state of Massachusetts confirm that prisoners are routinely punished for self-mutilation or attempts at suicide. Their punishment is often an extended sentence in an isolation unit, where any meaningful contact with social service providers is rendered impossible.

Despite the "tough on crime" rhetoric of the past few decades, the walls this nation is building, and the ever higher levels of punishment it is inflicting, do not result in safer communities. Researchers have found that locking up more offenders for longer periods of time does not make a significant impact on the rate of crime. In fact, higher rates of incarceration and punishment actually make some communities less safe. In the year 2000, nearly three quarters of all released prisoners in Massachusetts came from maximum or medium security facilities. And eighty-one percent of those released went directly to the street with no supervision or supportive services, like mental health counseling or drug treatment. Prisoners and their families tell legal advocates that this policy often amounts to releasing human time bombs into their communities.

And the communities to which prisoners are most likely to return are working class communities of color. The rate of imprisonment for black people in the U.S. is now seven times the rate of imprisonment for white people. Young black and Latino men are significantly more likely to be locked up in supermax or control unit prisons, while prison guard populations remain largely white.

Just as the intensification of incarceration is harming the families and communities to which prisoners return, it is also harming those whose job it is to force human beings into submission by locking them in cages. Corrections officers at Pelican Bay State Prison in California, one of the most notorious supermax prisons, tell psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Grassian that rates of alcoholism, spousal abuse, and suicide among the guards is alarmingly high. Writes Grassian, "Working in that environment may put money in your pocket, but over time it destroys you psychologically and brings out rage and sadism and violence and brutality. The sobering thought is that if you live [and work] in those kinds of environments for too long, you start losing some of your own humanity."

While the U.S. is busy building prison walls, and creating jobs that trade in human misery, this nation is turning its back on the commitments that are actually proven to reduce the incidence of crime. Church organizations and community groups are struggling to fill a widening chasm left by state and federal budget cuts. In the 1990s, in the midst of a tidal wave of "tough on crime" rhetoric, Congress and President Clinton took away prisoners' access to federal Pell Grants that covered college tuition.

This in turn led most states to eliminate prisoners' eligibility for tuition grants.

The impact was devastating. In 1982, there were at least 350 college programs in prisons throughout the U.S. - by 2001, there were less than twelve of these programs. Although it costs taxpayers far less to fund preventative social services than to finance prisons, essential programs for substance abuse treatment, adult literacy, job training, and mental health counseling have been slashed, while prison budgets continue to grow, in the name of public safety. And we are paying not only out of our pockets. We are paying a social, moral, and spiritual price for prioritizing prison.

In the poem I read earlier this morning, a prisoner speaks of willing himself not to cry for all that he misses. By the end of the poem, he has tried for so long not to cry that he can no longer express his emotions. He has lost a part of his humanity. Prisoners in sensory deprivation cells report finding ways to cut themselves, just to feel something.

As Unitarian Universalists, ours is a covenantal faith. We are bound together not by a creed, but by how we promise to treat one another - in a spirit of mutual respect and care. Our faith tells us that when that covenant of respect and care is broken, in our congregation or in our society, inflicting ever-increasing punishment and torture is not the answer. Our faith tells us that assuming the role of a wrathful, vengeful God will only create a continuing cycle of violence. Our faith tells us that we are called to seek out ways to repair the covenant when it is broken, if we possibly can.

A movement is building that is based on such a commitment. The movement for restorative justice affirms that there is a way to do justice that restores broken relationships and heals the harm that results from criminal activity. Recognizing that more punishment is not ending the conditions that lead to crime, religious leaders, lawyers, and even crime victims and their families are embracing a restorative approach. One such example is the work of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation, a group of victims' families who choose to respond to the violence that has devastated them not by pursuing a path of revenge, but by seeking healing for their pain and loss. Through the efforts of this group, victims' families have been able to tell their stories, support one another, and speak out against the death penalty. Some courageous members of this group have even found the strength to meet with the prisoner who killed their! loved one.

In some communities, victims and offenders work with a trained mediator as they prepare for and then conduct a meeting and conversation with one another.

The model of restorative justice challenges the assumption that our nation can dispose of entire groups of people rather than find ways to help them live more fulfilling lives. This model challenges us to face the reality of the circumstances that have shaped the lives of those in prison.

At the beginning of this sermon, I told the story of a prince whose father worked hard to shield him from the reality of human suffering. Not until he was in his twenties did the prince finally venture beyond the grounds of the vast palace complex. And only then did he finally meet the people of his kingdom. Walking along the road, he saw an ill man, an old and disabled man, and a man who lay dying. The pampered prince was frightened. For when he looked into the faces of the sick, the impaired and the dying, he realized he was also seeing himself. He could no longer deny the reality that he too would suffer - he too would become sick, grow old, and die. This prince was Siddartha, later revered as the Buddha, the enlightened one who gave up the trappings of material wealth and his noble birth to bear witness to human suffering, and bring the world his teachings of compassion.

We too are called to leave the high walls of the palace. We are called to find out what lies beyond the walls of the prisons our nation has built. We will find there a depth of suffering that we can only imagine. But we will also find people with stories to tell and wisdom to share Fathers, mothers, artists, poets, and scholars. In affirming the respect and dignity of those whom our nation has cast out, we will find our own humanity restored. In honoring the humanity of those in anguish, we, too, will find our own humanity.

Sources used to prepare this sermon come from the American Friends Service Committee and the Prison Policy Initiative, and can be found on the following websites: http://www.afsc.org/community/prison-inside-prison.pdf and http://www.prisonpolicy.org

Rachel Kamel and Bonnie Kerness, "The Prison Inside the Prison: Control Units, Supermax Prisons, and Devices of Torture" (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 2003)

At first glance one might be hard pressed to find a connection between the readings today, specifically Isaiah and John, but if we look closely we will see that they are both about salvation, restoration, and eventually praise.

This week, I visited a prisoner who is in isolation. As I waited, which you do a lot when you visit someone who is incarcerated, I read the Christian Science Monitor. I read every article from top to bottom and then re-read some of the articles - as those who visit Yavette can attest to, waiting is about the only thing you can count on at a correctional facility. Anyway, I came across an article about the upcoming election that detailed how the candidates' differences in environmental policy could in fact be a swing issue. Another article described what they called "the new environmentalists." These people are grassroots organizers in places like Belmont, made up of people who are concerned with issues that directly effect themselves and their neighbors. I found these articles interesting, but not because of their content but because of where they took my thoughts as I waited, and waited, and waited.

Somehow, my mind wandered to my broken dryer at home. I'm a little sentimental about this appliance, you see, this dryer has trustily served me for close to a decade and it wasn't even in perfect condition to begin with. It may look old, and some of the crucial buttons are in fact missing, but when it was working, the clothes always came out warm and fluffy once they were done. And that was enough for me.

When it broke, naturally, I called the local repair man, he took one look at it, heard the blaring sound it made once on, and said, "This thing looks 40 years old, get rid of it!" (PAUSE) Without even taking the time to get a good look at its insides, it's fate had been determined - it was not worth fixing, it was time for it to go to some junk yard to rust out and decay.

Still waiting, (you can get a lot of good thinking done in a prison visiting area - if you can block out the noise) I remembered how nothing in my home while growing up was ever thrown away until it was completely used up --- until we were absolutely sure that all options to restore it back to working order were exhausted. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I concluded in that moment that the real environmentalists in this country are people like my grandparents and parents - people of the depression. Now whether or not they will be important swing voters in the fall????, still remains to be seen.

In our reading from Isaiah this morning, the people of Israel are also in a pretty broken down state. They have been conquered by the armies of Babylon and they find themselves again living in exile. The whole nation is suffering - its social, political, and religious systems need an overhaul in order for it to survive.

Isaiah uses vivid imagery from the Exodus story to evoke the time of old for the Israelites. He refers to parting of the waters, to chariots and horses, armies and warriors. Here the Israelites likely recalled with nostalgia how God freed them from slavery while in Egypt - wanting God to do the same for them again. But while refreshing their memories, Isaiah cautions them to not to stay attached to the good ole days - "do not remember the things of old…" It is time for the Israelites to clear some space for God to do a totally new thing. "I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" God graciously plans for their future but requires them to be alert and ready to receive it - reminding them that a covenant is a mutual agreement between the two parties. This is a poignant call for the Israelites to keep awake in the midst of their strife, to stay alert as their faith and life circumstances change.

This passage shows us that God is indeed a God of the past, but also of the present and the future. A creator God who never stops creating. A God who is creative and redemptive for all people, in all times. A God who is committed to healing and peace for every creature, in every place. And while God will deliver the Israelites out of exile again, God requires of them a readiness, an openness to the possibility of salvation, transformation, and freedom.

In the Gospel of John, it is also important for us to know the context in which Mary pours out this expensive ointment to anoint Jesus' feet. In the preceding chapter, Jesus is called to Bethany upon the death of his friend Lazarus. By the time Jesus gets there Lazarus has been dead and in the tomb for 4 days. Martha, being a good friend and faithful disciple warns Jesus of the stench, --- but without pause, he implores them to roll away the stone. So, today's Gospel reading comes after this event. It is in the context of death and resurrection that Mary pours out her gift to Jesus.

Mary, also a good friend to Jesus and sister of Mary - sister having a broad definition here, is the same Mary who sat at Jesus' feet while Martha busied herself in the kitchen in the Gospel of Luke. She is obviously a woman with an important role in the Jesus movement, as only close and true disciples of Jesus sat at his feet to be taught. In this passage, we see that in a moment of clarity and courage, in a moment of perceiving, Mary breaks open an extremely expensive and fragrant bottle of perfume. She then gently anoints Jesus' feet and wipes them clean with her hair. She performs this gesture free of concern about the financial consequences and free of what the others might think of her. In this bold and extravagant act, she pours out love and devotion on Jesus. She thanks him for all he has done for them, clears away the stench of death that stills clings to Lazarus, and prepares Jesus for the burial he would soon face. In this spontaneous act of love, Mary reveals that she knew of his fate, named it and responded in devotion and faith.

In my work with Partakers, I have the privilege to meet people like you, who work with us in a ministry of restoration and reconciliation. We, at Partakers, have the privilege to witness how you ministered to Yavette when her mother died. Anointing her with love and support as she struggles through her inability to speak her regrets, to ask for forgiveness, and to forgive, before her mother died. I also have the privilege of working with people like Yavette and hearing their stories. I hear so many sad and tragic stories, of lives filled with abuse, filled with the oppressiveness of poverty, of addiction, and trauma. Indeed, often in our society, the victim becomes the victimizer -- this cycle is perpetuated for the vast majority of prisoners here in Massachusetts.

I also often hear that prisoners deserve what they get, that in committing a crime, they forfeit their rights to live a good life, that they must pay for it. Yes, indeed, when the law is broken, in this country, one must serve time. In fact, over 2 million people are currently serving time in the United States. We, in this country incarcerate more people per capita than any other country in the world. The vast majority of which are poor - really poor, many are minorities, and they are undereducated, addicted, and abused - they are the broken down of society.

The penal system in the U.S. is also broken and has become anything but correctional. In Massachusetts, it has systematically moved away from rehabilitation, cutting educational programming, a proven cost effective method of reducing recidivism --- citing the lack of financial resources to maintain these crucial programs. There is a "let them rot" mentality that pervades the correctional system - a system where 97% of those incarcerated will be released back into the community one day. And most often, they return more broken, more angry, and more hopeless than when they went in. Perhaps, this is why 44% of them return back to prison within three years. Our communities are no safer and our tax dollars continue to go wasteful and unchecked spending.

In spite of all this, by the grace of God, some prisoners are healing from their pasts, seeking reconciliation, taking responsibility for their actions, and own their rehabilitation. Yavette is just one case in which we witness this incredible resiliency. With the help of others here, and especially God, as she attests to, she is in the process of re-inventing herself. You see, Yavette could very well have been that old dryer in my apartment, sentenced to decay and rust out beyond recognition. But instead, her courage and openness to perceive and receive God's grace have led to her new and transforming life. Through Partakers and this church, Yavette is studying for her college degree. Once a down and out junkie, who comes from a long family history of abuse and abusers, Yavette is still a prisoner, but is also a student, and a mother with hope, and a woman brave enough to allow God to create in her a new thing.

What is so amazing about Yavette's story and the stories of so many like her is that she is transforming her life within a system that despises renewal, a system which is built to break the human spirit. She has let and is letting God into the darkest moments of her existence here on earth, facing them, accepting them, and learning through them. - something we should all be so brave to do.

Friends, in this season of Lent, God calls us not to remember the things of old, not because we shouldn't learn from our past - but because we should learn and move forward, ready to receive the new life that is available to all of us, all of us, each moment of each day. We are called to live in the light of God's incredible power to redeem and transform us - even when we believe or are told we are not worth fixing. We are called to be open and receptive to the grand possibilities of this life now, a resurrected and resurrecting life.

Well, it's about time I moved onto that new fangled dryer, one with all its buttons and too many functions to use. But as I make this decision, I'll remember those old time environmentalists. They may or may not be out as swing voters in November, but they sure got one thing right - Nothing and no one should be thrown out until all options for true and deep restoration have been exhausted.

Amen.