The Elderly in Prison

Prison ministry has always been something that has been dear to my heart. I did not get to do a lot of it, but when I did, it was a meaningful ministry. It is certainly a niche ministry that a lot of people cannot begin to understand. You often get questions like, "How could you possibly minister to someone who committed <insert horrible crime here>? I could never do that."

And, I get it. Particularly if you are in a SuperMax or Death Row type prison, you will certainly run into the Hannibal Lecter's of the world. The people that society would refer to as the scum of the earth. Those that "deserve to rot" in prison or "should be dead," or words to that effect. Again, I get it. I honestly don't know if I could minister to someone who had killed a close friend or family member. I would like to think by the grace of God, if put into that position, I could operate in Christian charity and see the face of Christ even in such of those, but I cannot say that for certain. To do any sort of ministry, you have to maintain a professional distance, and that can be very hard in cases like prison ministry. 

Now, not everyone you meet in prison is a John Wayne Gacy type personality that are truly unrepentant, odious individuals. Most are somewhere in between the classic psychos and the Andy Dufresne's of the prison system. To talk to most of them, at least initially, you are likely not able to guess what crimes they committed. Sometimes it is best not to know. You may well treat a prisoner differently if you know they committed x, y, and z heinous crimes than if you just know they committed bad crimes. That's just human nature. 

But, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: "I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." 

There is no caveat in those sentences. There is not a 'I was naked because someone stole my stuff' or 'I was sick from some random virus and not a self inflicted drug overdose." Most certainly not a "I was in prison because I was really innocent..." Jesus gives no such caveats. Many in prison are there because they committed the crimes. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances that the court failed to take into account, but in the end, most prisoners are in prison because they committed grievous offenses. 

And yet Jesus still expects his followers to do these things because people, no matter what odious thing(s) they have done, are still made in the likeness and image of God. That likeness may well be nearly marred beyond human semblance, but such people are still the imago dei-the image of God. It may well be an image that only God, Himself, can still see, but it is still there. As such, we have a Christian duty to proclaim the Gospel to all people, not just the clean ones. Not just the free ones. Not just the ones we would invite over to our house for dinner. All means all. The means the stinky ones, the ones that society would as soon lock up in a closet for the rest of their natural lives and forget ever existed. Not all are called to prison ministry, but some are called to go into the shadows and into the rooms with barred light from the window, to proclaim, in whatever way appropriate by word or action, the good news to those in prison. 

Sometimes those in prison are not the tattooed gang bangers that appear to be the stuff of Shawshank nightmares. Some are quite elderly. And that is a forgotten population that we don't want to think about in terms of justice, but they do exist. I found a very interesting documentary about that online that I thought I would share here. It's not easy to watch, but I think it is worth consideration. It's a bit dated now, as it's a few years old, but the situation, particularly in American prisons has not changed. I submit it without immediate comment. See what you make of it, in light of Christ's commandments: