Brothers and Sisters

This is God's Message: Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don't take advantage of the homeless, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering! – Jeremiah 22:3, The Message

In a world where Glenn Beck has urged Christians to "run as fast as [they] can" from churches who care about social justice while even the Old Testament commands us to “attend to matters of justice”; in a world where some Christians walk alongside those in the margins while other Christians look on declaring judgment and punishment, no wonder the world is confused about Christianity.  Seems Christians are confused, too.  

Part of my journey involves serving as an improvisational theater and writing workshop leader in several Michigan prisons and detention centers.  At the time, this was not about being a Christian, per se, but about my distaste for the way society so readily throws people away.  “They’ve committed a crime, so they are getting what they deserve,” is what I heard, what I still hear, all the time.  But not much more than that, that’s the end of the story for those of us who don’t live with the unspoken expectation that incarceration is more likely than attending college.  So, as a college kid, I got involved with the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan.  Much to the initial dismay of my family, I was working with men with a life sentence, typically meaning that they had committed some form of murder.  Amidst working alongside the men inside to pull together a play about redemption, healing, and forgiveness, drawing from real-life experiences and hope, and putting on a show for fellow inmates and community members, I met a man we’ll call Leroy, a man from Detroit.

Leroy had a booming laugh that you’d feel in your bones, was 6’5”, 300 pounds, and loved to give bear hugs.  I’ll admit, my first hug from him, I was a little nervous.  He could literally have squeezed the life right out of me.  Through the several months we worked together, I came to learn that he was a Vietnam Vet, came back traumatized and over-medicated, got thrown in jail for drug addiction and dealing.  After serving his sentence, he was on a type of house arrest for his parole.  One night, his sister went into premature labor and had nobody to watch her infant son.  She called Leroy, and he hesitated, but thought it would be understood and explainable.  Until the unthinkable happened: during that night, someone began to break into his sister’s house, into the bedroom where the baby was sleeping.  Leroy reacted, charged at the perpetrator, and startled him so that he fell through the window, off the fire escape, to his death.   Now Leroy is in for life: murder while violating terms of his parole.   Does Leroy deserve another chance?  That’s not my place to judge, though I feel he ought to.  (AKA: Should the thousands upon thousands of dollars Michigan is spending to keep him locked up go towards improving schools?)  Was it worthwhile to meet with him in the marginalized realm of his “correctional facility?”  Absolutely.  For so many reasons, including the fact that all along the way, Leroy prayed.  For me.  He openly prayed that God would touch my heart in good time.  And years later when that ultimately occurred, what memory of being embraced and lifted up did I feel?  Who’s face would appear in my mind’s eye?  Leroy’s.  The face of God in the image of Leroy.   

In that spirit, when I heard that Professor Buzz Alexander, co-founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project and longtime friend, was coming to LA to promote his new book, Is William Martinez Not Our Brother?, I decided DOOR Hollywood needed to host this event.  Last Friday at Mama’s Hot Tamales in MacArthur Park, Buzz read to a diverse audience of about 40 people.  During the discussion that followed, incredible questions were raised: Are we any safer as a society for increasing our prison population sevenfold over the past 15 years? Do things like the sex-offender registry actually stop these crimes from re-occurring, or does it allow us to gloss over and ignore the fact that the vast majority of sexual offenses happen within homes, families, and with acquaintances? What does it mean to humanize instead of dehumanize?  What should forgiveness really look like?  And then, I received a comment from a non-Christian guest, saying that she was so surprised to hear about Christians who care about justice, as opposed to judgment.   Her idea of Christianity looked like Bible verses on signs proclaiming hate.  Can we blame her?

Current Dweller Alex recently blogged on her experience participating in a walk to raise money for AIDS research:  As the walk began we came up against radical Christian protesters holding awful signs declaring things such as “Homo Sex is a Sin” with scripture references of John 3:16, “For God So Loved the World….” I am unsure how this verse of salvation and love supported their message of hatred and exclusion.  Why they needed to come and protest a walk raising money to find a cure to a disease that is killing millions of people around the world I do not know or understand. I DO understand the gospel and the light that I have been studying it in. The greatest commandment Jesus gave us was to love God and love our neighbors. Our neighbors are not geographical; our neighbors are all of God’s people; every tribe and every nation. As we walked past the protesters we also walked past the group in their “Jesus Saves” t-shirts. Suddenly I loved these shirts….

Jesus did come to save the world.  The World.  For everyone.  Even people who confuse their need to discern with God’s, and only God’s, power to judge.  Even people with AIDS.  Even people who hate people with AIDS.  Even Glenn Beck.  Even you.  Even me.  All of us, brothers and sisters.

Peace be with you all,

Matthew