Free Sermon Illustrations For May 16, 2010 From The Immediate Word
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On one ordinary Sunday in a small church on the edge of a big city, something remarkable happened. At the end of the service, when people are invited to come forward to join the church, a young man came forward whom the pastor had never seen before. That hardly ever happens. The pastor was surprised. The young man seemed very serious about what he was doing, so the pastor received him into the fellowship of the church. Then, during the following week, the pastor went for a visit to get acquainted. The visit started slowly, tentatively, but eventually the two men got down to the essence of what was happening. The young man was waiting for trial for a violent crime which he had committed while he was high on drugs. The young man joined the church as a way of taking the first step toward getting his life together. The pastor spent time with the young man and helped him to get started on the way. But then the trial came and the young man went to prison. The pastor urged him to get involved in the prison chapel and continue his pilgrimage. In the first letter from prison, the young man wrote, "I don't know about this prison chapel. They don't do things like we do in our church." The pastor responded, "It's the only game in town. Go with it." He did. A few months later he wrote to the pastor again. This time he said he had grown in his faith, so the chaplain had invited him to give his personal witness in chapel. He included a copy of the talk he intended to give. In the talk, he said that God had worked in his life to defeat the compulsions and the motives that had been ruling his life. He said he was free. It must have been remarkable to hear a young prisoner telling a chapel full of people in white that he was free. But he was. Years later, the pastor met the young man again on the outside. He asked how he was doing. The young man said, "I am one of those for whom it worked. I have been out for several years now. I have a small business of my own. I have a wife and a little girl. And we are in church every Sunday." God had indeed set him free.
***
Some people think that there can be no new possibilities in life because of things that they have done or things that have happened to them. It is not hard for some people in prison to believe that life has no more good possibilities for them. They have done some things that resulted in their being confined to prison. Some of them know full well that they will never get out. They feel that there are no possibilities left for them.
The same regret can overtake us in other ways. In John Grisham's novel The Testament, there is a story about a man who had destroyed his marriage because of his alcoholism. At one point he visits his former wife, now married to another man, and his two fine children, and he realizes how much he has lost -- and the loss is irreversible.
Some people feel that their possibilities are limited by things that have happened to them. Some men and women who have served in the military during wartime come back feeling that they have lost something they cannot recover. They did something that they believed was right and did it at great cost to themselves and their families, but they think that things can never be the same for them.
Lots of things can change the circumstances of our futures and make us think we have lost the possibilities that we had hoped we could have.
But God has a way of working in our lives that can make fullness of life possible under any circumstances, even circumstances that have limited one's possibilities. Some of the people incarcerated in prison discover that God can work in their lives and help them find fullness of life even under the difficult circumstances of being in prison. They have become spiritual pilgrims. As you drive down the highway past a prison, you must sometimes wonder what life is like behind those barriers of chain-link fence and razor wire. Well, it is very different and very complex. But one thing you may not suspect is that inside those walls there may be congregation of men who are growing in the Christian faith and being led by in into the fullness of life that God offers, even under the difficult circumstances of prison life.
Are there circumstances in your life that have led you to believe that the best possibilities are gone? Here is good news. For those who will undertake the adventure of letting life be shaped by an ongoing interaction with the living God, fullness of life is possible under any circumstances.
***
There is a group of people who go into prisons to conduct weekend retreats for inmates and to try to share the love of God with them. The program is called "KAIROS," which is a Greek word that means "God's special time." During a retreat KAIROS team members try to build a relationship with a small group of inmates with whom they meet around a table -- to hear talks, to discuss their meaning, to talk about things the inmates want to talk about, and to share life-shaping relationships. KAIROS workers make a point of never asking the inmates with whom they are working what they did that got them sent to prison or how long their sentence is or anything else that they do not want to share. The workers begin by simply accepting the inmates as they are. Sometimes it takes the inmates quite a long time to accept being accepted.
The team members do a number of things during a retreat to demonstrate to the inmates that there are people in the outside world who care about them. That is a step toward helping the inmates believe that there is a God who cares about them. They show the inmates lists of people who have been praying for them. The workers bring bags of cookies baked for the inmates by church people -- thousands of cookies, cookies to eat and cookies to share. They also bring in "home cooked" meals that are much better than the prison food, which have been prepared by "angels" on the outside. (The food gives some inmates a reason and some an excuse for attending a religious retreat.)
One prison ministry team does something that turns out to be special. At an evening meal about halfway through the retreat, each participating inmate is given a birthday cake with his name written on it in cake icing. They have a birthday party for everyone. The reaction to that is often very surprising. Many tough inmates have been so moved by that act of affirmation that they have broken down and cried. Some say that no one had ever baked a birthday cake for them.
Of course, it is best not to oversimplify things. Some people wind up in prison even though they did grow up in loving homes. Acceptance and affirmation are only part of what is needed to make a difference in an inmate's life, and it is probably more important for some than for others. But this is an important part of the approach of KAIROS prison ministries.
Some people object to that approach. They believe that wrong behavior should be punished and that only the fear of punishment can prevent bad behavior. They believe that acts of kindness done for people who have broken laws may encourage law-breaking. But the threat of punishment obviously did not prevent the bad behavior of the people who are in prison. In fact, the KAIROS approach has proven to be effective. The rate of recidivism (inmates returning to prison after being released) is much lower among people who have been through a KAIROS program. And prison administrators are often supportive of the KAIROS program because they see that it makes a positive difference in the quality of life in the prison. God starts with acceptance and affirmation, and so should we. We might wonder how much suffering could have been avoided if someone had baked a birthday cake for those people who wound up committing violent crimes.
***
One of the good works you and I are called to do is to visit those who are in prison. If we can't go there in person, we can send letters to prisoners, and also provide resources for those who are working with those who are incarcerated.
One group in Illinois, Companions Journeying Together, runs a project they call Aunt Mary's Storybook. Aunt Mary's Storybook takes children's books to women's prisons, makes a recording of each mother reading a book for her children, then delivers the book and the recording to her children at their home. Her children can then look at the book and hear her reading it to them whenever they want, helping families stay connected until the mother gets back home again. (More information is available at www.cjtinc.org/Aunt/Mary.htm)
***
Interestingly enough, it is in Letters and Papers from Prison that Dietrich Bonhoeffer seemed most convincingly to be free. Even knowing that his life was likely to be over soon, he found within himself a remarkable power to know the love of God. A sparrow or a ray of sunshine or the gift of time to write was all it took to make a prisoner for Christ resonate with profound joy. But above all, he found freedom in the solidarity he discovered in prison to be with the outcast: "There remains an experience of incomparable value... to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled -- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer... to look with new eyes on matters great and small."
***
Another man of peace who used prison for the purpose of freedom was Nelson Mandela. From 1962 until 1990 he remained behind iron bars, but his spirit was unbowed and unbroken. In the wake of his release he articulated a dream of freedom for all citizens of South Africa. He became a witness for a historic emancipation for both captor and captive alike. In his own words: "We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity -- a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world."
On one ordinary Sunday in a small church on the edge of a big city, something remarkable happened. At the end of the service, when people are invited to come forward to join the church, a young man came forward whom the pastor had never seen before. That hardly ever happens. The pastor was surprised. The young man seemed very serious about what he was doing, so the pastor received him into the fellowship of the church. Then, during the following week, the pastor went for a visit to get acquainted. The visit started slowly, tentatively, but eventually the two men got down to the essence of what was happening. The young man was waiting for trial for a violent crime which he had committed while he was high on drugs. The young man joined the church as a way of taking the first step toward getting his life together. The pastor spent time with the young man and helped him to get started on the way. But then the trial came and the young man went to prison. The pastor urged him to get involved in the prison chapel and continue his pilgrimage. In the first letter from prison, the young man wrote, "I don't know about this prison chapel. They don't do things like we do in our church." The pastor responded, "It's the only game in town. Go with it." He did. A few months later he wrote to the pastor again. This time he said he had grown in his faith, so the chaplain had invited him to give his personal witness in chapel. He included a copy of the talk he intended to give. In the talk, he said that God had worked in his life to defeat the compulsions and the motives that had been ruling his life. He said he was free. It must have been remarkable to hear a young prisoner telling a chapel full of people in white that he was free. But he was. Years later, the pastor met the young man again on the outside. He asked how he was doing. The young man said, "I am one of those for whom it worked. I have been out for several years now. I have a small business of my own. I have a wife and a little girl. And we are in church every Sunday." God had indeed set him free.
***
Some people think that there can be no new possibilities in life because of things that they have done or things that have happened to them. It is not hard for some people in prison to believe that life has no more good possibilities for them. They have done some things that resulted in their being confined to prison. Some of them know full well that they will never get out. They feel that there are no possibilities left for them.
The same regret can overtake us in other ways. In John Grisham's novel The Testament, there is a story about a man who had destroyed his marriage because of his alcoholism. At one point he visits his former wife, now married to another man, and his two fine children, and he realizes how much he has lost -- and the loss is irreversible.
Some people feel that their possibilities are limited by things that have happened to them. Some men and women who have served in the military during wartime come back feeling that they have lost something they cannot recover. They did something that they believed was right and did it at great cost to themselves and their families, but they think that things can never be the same for them.
Lots of things can change the circumstances of our futures and make us think we have lost the possibilities that we had hoped we could have.
But God has a way of working in our lives that can make fullness of life possible under any circumstances, even circumstances that have limited one's possibilities. Some of the people incarcerated in prison discover that God can work in their lives and help them find fullness of life even under the difficult circumstances of being in prison. They have become spiritual pilgrims. As you drive down the highway past a prison, you must sometimes wonder what life is like behind those barriers of chain-link fence and razor wire. Well, it is very different and very complex. But one thing you may not suspect is that inside those walls there may be congregation of men who are growing in the Christian faith and being led by in into the fullness of life that God offers, even under the difficult circumstances of prison life.
Are there circumstances in your life that have led you to believe that the best possibilities are gone? Here is good news. For those who will undertake the adventure of letting life be shaped by an ongoing interaction with the living God, fullness of life is possible under any circumstances.
***
There is a group of people who go into prisons to conduct weekend retreats for inmates and to try to share the love of God with them. The program is called "KAIROS," which is a Greek word that means "God's special time." During a retreat KAIROS team members try to build a relationship with a small group of inmates with whom they meet around a table -- to hear talks, to discuss their meaning, to talk about things the inmates want to talk about, and to share life-shaping relationships. KAIROS workers make a point of never asking the inmates with whom they are working what they did that got them sent to prison or how long their sentence is or anything else that they do not want to share. The workers begin by simply accepting the inmates as they are. Sometimes it takes the inmates quite a long time to accept being accepted.
The team members do a number of things during a retreat to demonstrate to the inmates that there are people in the outside world who care about them. That is a step toward helping the inmates believe that there is a God who cares about them. They show the inmates lists of people who have been praying for them. The workers bring bags of cookies baked for the inmates by church people -- thousands of cookies, cookies to eat and cookies to share. They also bring in "home cooked" meals that are much better than the prison food, which have been prepared by "angels" on the outside. (The food gives some inmates a reason and some an excuse for attending a religious retreat.)
One prison ministry team does something that turns out to be special. At an evening meal about halfway through the retreat, each participating inmate is given a birthday cake with his name written on it in cake icing. They have a birthday party for everyone. The reaction to that is often very surprising. Many tough inmates have been so moved by that act of affirmation that they have broken down and cried. Some say that no one had ever baked a birthday cake for them.
Of course, it is best not to oversimplify things. Some people wind up in prison even though they did grow up in loving homes. Acceptance and affirmation are only part of what is needed to make a difference in an inmate's life, and it is probably more important for some than for others. But this is an important part of the approach of KAIROS prison ministries.
Some people object to that approach. They believe that wrong behavior should be punished and that only the fear of punishment can prevent bad behavior. They believe that acts of kindness done for people who have broken laws may encourage law-breaking. But the threat of punishment obviously did not prevent the bad behavior of the people who are in prison. In fact, the KAIROS approach has proven to be effective. The rate of recidivism (inmates returning to prison after being released) is much lower among people who have been through a KAIROS program. And prison administrators are often supportive of the KAIROS program because they see that it makes a positive difference in the quality of life in the prison. God starts with acceptance and affirmation, and so should we. We might wonder how much suffering could have been avoided if someone had baked a birthday cake for those people who wound up committing violent crimes.
***
One of the good works you and I are called to do is to visit those who are in prison. If we can't go there in person, we can send letters to prisoners, and also provide resources for those who are working with those who are incarcerated.
One group in Illinois, Companions Journeying Together, runs a project they call Aunt Mary's Storybook. Aunt Mary's Storybook takes children's books to women's prisons, makes a recording of each mother reading a book for her children, then delivers the book and the recording to her children at their home. Her children can then look at the book and hear her reading it to them whenever they want, helping families stay connected until the mother gets back home again. (More information is available at www.cjtinc.org/Aunt/Mary.htm)
***
Interestingly enough, it is in Letters and Papers from Prison that Dietrich Bonhoeffer seemed most convincingly to be free. Even knowing that his life was likely to be over soon, he found within himself a remarkable power to know the love of God. A sparrow or a ray of sunshine or the gift of time to write was all it took to make a prisoner for Christ resonate with profound joy. But above all, he found freedom in the solidarity he discovered in prison to be with the outcast: "There remains an experience of incomparable value... to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled -- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer... to look with new eyes on matters great and small."
***
Another man of peace who used prison for the purpose of freedom was Nelson Mandela. From 1962 until 1990 he remained behind iron bars, but his spirit was unbowed and unbroken. In the wake of his release he articulated a dream of freedom for all citizens of South Africa. He became a witness for a historic emancipation for both captor and captive alike. In his own words: "We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity -- a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world."
