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| Trent Bell, "Brandon" |
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me..."
Trent Bell is a commercial architectural photographer. If you visit his website trentbell.com you will be greeted with a slick site featuring sharp images of newly constructed glass and steel office buildings, museums, condos and other urban spaces of New England. But in 2013 Trent focused his lens on another Atlantic Coast public space: the State Prison in Warren, Maine. It wasn't the building's architectural exterior that interested him but rather the inmates emotional interior. An article on the DailyMail.co.uk shares that this artistic change of genre started when Trent discovered that "a friend, who was a father and respected professional, had been sentenced to 36 years behind bars." So in true Shawshank Redemption form, Trent went into the Main correctional system to peer into the lives and regrets of the convicted. He photographed portraits of the prison inmates and superimposed the text of letters they had written to their younger selves in the background. And that is where Trent Bell first met Jesus... Or rather Brandon, a guy who looks like Jesus. But maybe that is only the influence of Western Art making me see the image of Jesus reflected in a thirty-something, bearded White guy with long hair. Jesus himself believed that he looked like another (African American) inmate named Jamie. And he also thought that he favored Ben, a post-middle aged, husky, gray bearded White inmate who looks something like a Maine lobster fisherman turned librarian. Jesus actually believed that his resemblance could be seen in all of the prisoners... also in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger/foreigner, the naked/destitute and the sick. Matter of fact, Jesus taught that our salvation depended upon us seeing him in the faces of those who suffer around us. But he doesn't use the word "saved." We are fortunate that he doesn't because we have prepackaged that term into being a loaded image that always reads as "going to Heaven." Not that I am against Heaven or reward in the afterlife but I believe that Jesus is speaking about something a little larger here. He uses the phrase "Inherit the kingdom" to speak of reward laid up for those sheep who recognize their shepherd disguised as the needy if this world. In the era of the "Black Lives Matter" movement where we increasingly highlight those (like Sandra Bland) who die in state custody (like Anne Frank, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Polycarp, St. Paul and yes, Jesus) it is important to recognize that Jesus' list of requirements for "inheriting the kingdom" end with going to those in prison. Jesus doesn't specify that they be innocent, guilty, reformed or unrepentant. The burden here isn't on the prisoner converting but the disciple serving. Inhering the kingdom isn't contingent on success but rather faithfulness.
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| Trent Bell, "Jamie" |
It must be noted that when the Law was given to Moses it never called for jail, prison or a correctional system at all. Though it provided for the office of judges, many of the punishments of the Law were based on a system of just vengeance. An example would be that a murderer himself would be killed by a close relative (the kinsman redeemer/avenger of blood) of the victim. Jesus knows the Law and never doubts that it came from the lips of God, however, he doesn't use this parable to object to the institution of prison as against God's original intention. Nor does Jesus ever encourage the death penalty for lawbreakers (like the woman caught in adultery) who according to the Law were deserving of death. On the contrary, Jesus worked against the death penalty's use. Why is this? Did Jesus not value the Law? Did Jesus not esteem it as God's Word? Jesus not only believed in God's Word, he actually is the Word of God. Where the Law was Moses' glimpse of the backside of God, Jesus (and his teachings) is the fullness if the Godhead bodily. To believe this about Jesus is to believe that God engages mankind in Progressive Revelation. That is to say that Scripture is the record of God revealing more about Himself over time in history. We then can agree with the writer of Hebrews that "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son." If the final revelation of God comes in the man Jesus, then it would prove advantageous for us to take his words, acts and methods seriously. If Jesus rethought how we treat those we punish then shouldn't we? If Jesus said that we should visit those in prison then shouldn't we? That was the idea behind much of the Social Gospel and public reform movements of the nineteenth century. The conclusions of the Gospel were applied on a societal level. The ideas of Progressive Revelation and Progressive Social policy must be intertwined: the more we know about God the more it must cause us to rethink how we treat each other. This kind of thinking led many Quakers and other socially conscious Christians to be involved in the reform of the prison system. According to Wikipedia they not only viewed prisons as houses of punishment but as a place of "rehabilitation or moral reform, was based on religious ideas that equated crime with sin, and saw prisons as a place to instruct prisoners in Christian morality, obedience and proper behavior. These later reformers believed that prisons could be constructed as humane institutions of moral instruction, and that prisoners' behavior could be 'corrected' so that when they were released, they would be model members of society." Hence they birthed the idea of the "penitentiary" as a place of "penance." It was a reimagining of prison as a place where one could think long and hard about their sins against society. Contemporary prison may seem hard to us, however, it is just the latest step on our continually evolving approach to how we treat each other. It is a reform from the days of execution for most crimes, dungeons and being a galley slave. Yet even the well meaning intentions of the progressives of the past must be rethought in light of our present predicament. This cannot be achieved if we, Christ's contemporary disciples, are not aware of the conditions of those who suffer in the penitentiary. This cannot happen until we follow Jesus' call to go to those in prison. This cannot happen until we see the face of Christ in every inmate. We will not inherit the kingdom until this happens.
“...Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me...’"
At the heart of both this parable and the marriage of progressive revelation and progressive social policy Is seeing Jesus in others. Yet the inability to see Christ in the face of the needy is exactly what leads to the judgment of the "goats" in Jesus' parable. I believe that the inclusion of prisoners in Jesus' list of those in need is critical here. For most can see Jesus in the hungry and thirsty because they can remember the sorties of Jesus feeding the multitudes. Many can see Jesus in the naked, the stranger and the sick because they can recall his story of the Good Samaritan. Yet finding Jesus' facial features in the faces of felons takes spiritual creativity that most of us don't possess. This is because as "upstanding" Christians we Pharisaically pride ourselves as keepers of the Ten Commandments as opposed to the sinners who find themselves locked up in prison. We support campaigns to keep monuments to the Ten Commandments in American courts to remind law breakers that their offenses are repugnant to a holy God. And if we do donate to prison ministries (such as Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship) it is often with a heart of helping those who don't resemble Christ or us. It is at this point where we forget the premise of substitutionary atonement. For it is not by our good works that we gave been saved but because when God looks down upon sinners like us He sees the face of Christ. God Himself follows the commands of Christ's parable and sees the image of His dear Son in the face of the suffering and has mercy on them. Since we live as the recipients of such great mercy, we then should ourselves be merciful. We start by following the popular rephrasing of Jesus' golden rule in Matthew 7:12, "Do unto others as you would have then do unto you." The actual text reads, "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." The last part of that verse leads us to realize that the golden rule isn't just a social campaign to increase considerateness but rather the fulfillment of our religion. It is not only doing unto others as you would have them do unto you but also doing unto others as you would do unto Jesus. That is gist of our religion and the purest form of worship to God. That us the selfless ethic that Christ calls us to. That is how we inherit the kingdom.
“...Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me'...”
When meditating upon Scripture I find it helpful to imagine the
parables as dramatic or cinematic productions. Most of them are not that
long so they are more similar to a 60 second commercial than a Tolkien trilogy.
Most commercials (or at least the funny ones) surround one key point of
impact... a punch line of sorts. It is the place where the full intention of
the piece is wrapped up in a digestible sound bite. The parables are no
different. The punch line of this specific parable is "inasmuch as you did
not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to
Me." The justification of Jesus' judgment on the "goats" is
understood in one line. Yet one remaining subtlety that may elude the reader us
the identity of the goats. The parable says that the sheep and the goats
together are the nations of the earth, with the ones (on the right) receiving
reward being sheep and the ones (on the left) receiving punishment being goats.
One would assume that this division would be between the good and the bad or
the believers and the unbelievers, however, things are not always so simple.
For the goats "answer Him, saying, ‘Lord'." We must also
give notice to Jesus' choice of imagery. The division is not between sheep
and wolves (an image that Christ had used before) or sheep and swine (which any
Kosher Jew would understand) but sheep and goats. Both sheep and goats are farm
animals that are Kosher to eat, yet one group is preferable to the other. One
is known for its humility while the other is known for its stubbornness. It is
not a division between opposites but rather sheep and almost-sheep. It is a
division between those who follow and those who rebel. Both may contain
believers who recognize Jesus as Lord but Christ was never looking only for
believers. Christ desires both believers and doers. Christ desires those who
both believe in his sovereignty and also submit to his sovereign will to show
mercy to those in need. This is what separates sheep from goats. This is what
divides the obedient follower from the stubborn rebel. This is what inherits
the kingdom.
"...And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
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| Trent Bell, "Ben" |
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