Let My People Go!: Following Jesus into Our Jails and Prisons

By Stan Moody

The judgment scene in Matthew 25 is a call for believers in Jesus Christ to get out of our clubhouses and onto the streets, where the least of these my brothers (v.40) may be found.

Let My People Go is a twelve-step invitation to our American church culture to examine what we are supposed to be doing as Christians, what we are doing, and whether what we are doing is standing in the way of what we are supposed to be doing.

The man who deeply affected author Stan Moody as a Christian was a brilliant, sixty-four-year-old convicted sex offender by the name of Sheldon Weinstein. On April 24, 2009, Shelly died in solitary confinement at Maine State Prison of a ruptured spleen about an hour after Moody requested toilet paper for him. Moody has chronicled his death in a narrative titled Death in B117.

With America now boasting 25 percent of the worlds prisoners, the last vestige of hope for these discarded citizens in our jails and prisons and on our streets is a faith community now facing declining membership and shrinking revenues. Poverty and homelessness has at last come home; how we respond to it is a reflection of the seriousness of our faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449789077

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 Stan Moody.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Unless otherwise noted scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-8906-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-8905-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-8907-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013905166

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/11/2013

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Final Chapter

Rev. Bob: Bangor’s Ethical Dilemma

Context

About the Author

Introduction

Mission Impossible?

How did we who claim Jesus Christ as Lord and the kingdom of God as our homeland stand by while America became Incarceration Nation with more prisoners even than the People’s Republic of China? Have we in the church culture actually contributed to this condition by priding ourselves in our moral standing with God? More to the point, has the church of Jesus Christ in America become so married to the American dream ethic of prosperity and success that it is starving for the lifeblood of a new reformation calling us back to relevancy? To assume our assigned roles as servants to the least among us, what calamitous action will it take on the part of God to get our attention?

If we are to change course—and we must if we are legitimately to call America to repentance—every facet of our life of worship must come under intense scrutiny. Some dismantling may be required of us; certainly, the least required of us will be painful prioritizing. With our governments running out of money for social programs, the church of Jesus Christ is being called to answer the need in a way not seen for most of our lifetimes.

The need is urgent.

From Bible Study to Reformation Proclamation

Old patterns die hard. It is easier to save souls than to disciple. It is easier to conduct Bible studies than to apply the Word of God to daily life. It is easier to pass judgment on the morality of others in the quest for moral certainty on earth than relentlessly to pursue the spiritual kingdom of God.

What began as a Bible study to help Christians grasp the import of Jesus’ plea to feed the hungry, give a cup of cold water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and prisoners has evolved into a call for God’s people to prepare ourselves for radical discipleship. We cannot own the import of that call, however, unless and until we grasp the death change wrought by the new covenant over the old. In a word, obeying a moral absolute, historically impossible, is far more popular than surrendering to new life in Christ.

Examining the Motive for Change

In encouraging deeper discipleship without removing the institutional barriers that we have in the past raised against carrying out that mission, we risk becoming designers of just another program among programs. As well, we must guard against ministering to the least among us as a means of reigniting interest in our churches. While moral smugness, political activism and charismatic preachers are effective hooks to building big congregations, the number of people in attendance at church fails to gain a single mention in biblical scenarios of judgment. Instead, the church is called to a life of obedience rising out of a repentant spirit:

1.   The new covenant introduces a testament that changes the words of God into the dynamic, alive Word of God, divine inspiration of both writer and reader offering the key to understanding. Versification of the Bible as a book of laws—old covenant or new covenant laws—ends.

2.   The Bible loses its dynamic, life-changing qualities when treated merely as a law book. Discipleship carried out as a legalistic command leaves little room for regeneration of the heart and life toward obedience. Christ calls the church to repentance first, with His commands flowing in obedience out of the life resurrected from the chaos of the human condition of action and reaction in our own interest.

3.   The commands of Jesus that we love and serve have all the staying power of a New Year’s resolution unless they are the by-product of the renewed life. Witness the scene at judgment when both sheep and goats ask the same question, Lord, when did we ever see you hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and in prison? The answer to the sheep: Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me (Matt. 25:31–46). This suggests an unconscious obedience arising out of the regenerated heart.

4.   Because so many of us were raised to believe that Bible study and prayer were in and of themselves legalistic commands in order to succeed at life and even to retain one’s standing of grace with God, we cannot change our patterns of discipleship without first examining the barriers we have erected against cross-bearing demanded of the life committed to Christ (Luke 9:23).

Call to the Resurrected Life

Let My People Go!, then, is more than a call to discipleship. It is a call to the resurrected life of the church of Jesus Christ. Resurrection begins, perhaps, by looking around our congregations to see who is sitting in the back row and to learn from their witness. It is an admission that in our stampede toward success we may be guilty of drowning out the faithful and thereby squelching the witness of the church.

Here is how it plays out through twelve lessons:

1.   To the organized church that continues committees long since irrelevant, burdening its members with meetings and duties, Let my people go!

2.   To the liturgical church that burdens its people with ritual, special days, and formalities without a call to discipleship, Let my people go!

3.   To the Democratic Party that enlists advocates for social justice separate and distinct from personal faith, Let my people go!

4.   To the Republican Party that has joined forces with evangelicals to create its moral version of the kingdom of God on Earth, Let my people go!

5.   To evangelical leaders who have rallied believers in support of morality instead of righteousness, Let my people go!

6.   To the evangelists among us for whom professions of faith in Christ are more important than cross-bearing, Let my people go!

7.   To the Christian Zionists for whom the Promised Land is a place of Abrahamic borders rather than the New Jerusalem, Let my people go!

8.   To the leaders of the Prosperity Gospel, for whom suffering is a sign of unbelief rather than cross-bearing, Let my people go!

9.   To the suburban ghettos of America that protect their residents from the realities of shattered lives, Let my people go!

10.   To the public schools in America that now schedule on worship days what they have run out of time for on other days, Let my people go!

11.   To those in prison who profess belief in Jesus Christ as Lord but who pass judgment on their brothers because of their crimes and thereby contribute to their misery, Let my people go!

12.   To those in prison who profess belief in Christ but who encourage hatred of staff and neglect to pray for their keepers, Let my people go!

This call to resurrection in twelve short chapters does not follow the format of the typical Bible study—scripture, questions, and lines to write in your answers. It is designed for robust group discussion of who we are as believers, how deep is our commitment to Christ, and what we must do to cross the line to the crucified, resurrected life where our afflicted brothers and sisters await.

Format: In the World but of the Kingdom

Each chapter is in three parts:

1.   The first part, Op-Ed, is in op-ed format familiar to us from our local newspapers, each article under the requisite seven hundred and fifty words. The intent is to provide the reader a glimpse into prison culture from the social justice point of view.

2.   The second section of each chapter is a brief expository treatment, Text Message, of a relevant scripture that calls us as believers to the crucified life in addressing social justice issues.

3.   The third section, Group, is a list of thought-provoking questions that force the reader to think about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we can cross the line from faith as a mere part of the busyness of our lives to faith as the full expression of our citizenship in the kingdom of God.

References to the kingdom of God will bombard you. That derives from my own plea to God years ago to teach