Corrections_Today_May_June_2021_Vol.83_No.3

Correctional Chaplain Perspectives

the Good Samaritan, includes every- one (Luke 10:25-37), especially the poor and oppressed (like the man beset by robbers) and even one’s enemy (Matthew 5:44). And one can- not get much poorer and oppressed than being imprisoned. After all, if we were in prison would we not wish others to reach out to us, for, as Jesus, preached, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The Gold- en Rule then, too, dictates we reach out to those in prison. The letter to the Hebrews ad- monishes followers of Jesus to “[r] emember the prisoners, as though in prison with them” (13:3 (NASB)). The Greek for “in prison” (sundeō) means “bound together with” or “put in chains with.” Prisoner and non- prisoner alike are bound together in community; per Hebrews 10:33, prisoners are our partners, our com- panions, our sharers (koinōnoi). 5 As a Christian, one is called to follow Jesus (Matthew 10:38, 16:24; John 8:12, 12:26; 1 Peter 2:21), which includes obeying his commandments. “Whoever says, ‘I have come to know him [Jesus],’ but does not obey his commandments, is a liar,” writes the Apostle John (1 John 2:4). After all, as James, the brother of Jesus, wrote, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead” (James 2:26). And works, says Jesus in Matthew 25, includes outreach to prisoners. Bishop and church father John Chrysostom (ca. 347-407CE) reminds us “how easy” these injunc- tions of Jesus are. “He said not, I was in prison, and you set me free ...

but ... you came to me.” 6 These “are things which anyone can do,” writes Barclay. 7 How then can we not do them? How can we, as Christians, not reach out to prisoners?

intercedes to liberate the prisoner. “[T]he Lord beholds the earth from heaven to hear the groans of the prisoner, to release those condemned to death” (Psalm 102:20). “The Lord sets prisoners free” (Psalm 146:7); indeed, God “sets captives free in jubilation” (Psalm 68:7 (Alter)). This liberating activity lies not with the Lord alone but also in Second Isaiah with the Servant, variously identified as the prophet, the Messiah, or even Israel itself. 8 “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me ... To proclaim release to the captives, Liberation to the imprisoned” (Isaiah 61:1). The Pirke Avot, one of 63 trac- tates of the Mishnah, states: “The world stands on three things — the Torah, the [Temple] service, and loving acts of kindness” (1:2). 9 And according to the Talmud, such acts of kindness may determine whether one is saved from Gehenna and enters the future world (Sanh. 103b; Ned. 40a). 10 Thus, according to Ronald Eisenberg, “[n]ormative Judaism teaches that one should work ac- tively to bring the Messiah, by doing everything possible to perfect the world ( tikun olam ). ...” 11 One might also call to mind the words of the great Rabbi Hillel, as recorded in the Talmud. When asked to summarize the entire Jewish law (all 613 commandments) while standing on one foot, Rabbi Hillel re- plied, “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commen- tary thereof; go and learn it.” 12 How then can we not treat prisoners as we ourselves would wish to be treated if we were in prison? →

After all, if we were in prison would we not wish others to reach out to us, for, as Jesus, preached, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). Liberation from bondage and return to their homeland forms a central story of the Jewish people, celebrated every year at Passover. God “led Israel out with silver and gold” (Psalm 105:37) and “broke their bonds asunder” (Psalm 107:14). God even self-identifies as liberator: “I who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God, I the Lord” (Leviticus 22:33); “I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Psalm 81:11). And throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, God Judaism

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