Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Congratulations Archbishop Aymond, all ministers of all faiths, volunteers and prayer partners who minister to the prisoner and the ex-prisoner. Bravo!

Archbishop Gregory Aymond and others speak up for prisoners returning home: Jarvis DeBerry


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Archbishop Gregory Aymond, in this file photo from Aug. 28, 2013, challenges the crowd to carry on the ideals in Martin Luther King's famous Dream speech as the Archdiocese of New Orleans joined with others across the nation to mark the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with a prayer service on the lawn at Notre Dame Seminary. (file photo by Ted Jackson, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
 
 
 
 
 
 
This year on Holy Thursday, the day Christians celebrate Jesus' last meal with his disciples and commemorate his washing their feet, Pope Francis went to a prison chapel in Rome and knelt before 12 Roman inmates. The pope kissed the feet of those prisoners after he washed them. According to the Associated Press, those inmates wept as the pontiff humbled himself before them.
Archbishop Gregory Aymond, speaking May 31 at an event at Dillard University called "Welcome Home Sunday," said that in 2014 Pope Francis visited a juvenile prison and washed the feet of inmates there. "He gets on his knees," the archbishop said. "He washes their feet, and he kisses their feet to show respect."
Message received: If a man as important as the pope can show respect for the human dignity of prisoners, what's stopping us regular people? And if those who are locked up deserve our attention, our respect, aren't those who've been released also deserving?
Archbishop Aymond listed 10 things he said we ought to do for those who've been released from prison:
  • Welcome them by name
  • Tell them that "God is the God of a second chance and sometimes a third or fourth chance."
  • Welcome their families and help those families support them.
  • Help them find housing
  • Help them find work
  • Mentor them
  • Challenge them to work toward rehabilitation
  • "Invite them into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."
  • Help them reconcile with their victims.
  • Be a presence for them so they can become "a people of thanksgiving."
All those things, the archbishop acknowledged, require us going "beyond our comfort zones." But when we are hesitant to do so, he said, we should ask ourselves, "What happens if we don't say, 'Welcome home?'"
Sunday's event was the brainchild of the Rev. William Barnwell, a retired Episcopal pastor who has been ministering to prisoners since the 1970s, and its chief purpose seemed to prick the consciences of believers, to persuade them to be true to the faith they profess -- and in all situations.
Rhett Covington, assistant secretary in the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said that he often jokes that Jesus must be in prison. He's seen lots of clergy visit prisons to minister to inmates. But when those same people are released from prison, he said, those ministers don't welcome them as members of their church.
The most moving testimonial Sunday was offered by Parker Sternbergh, whose 3-year-old died in a hot van as his nanny -- a gambling addict -- played video poker. "I know I had to go and forgive her," Sternbergh told a full auditorium at Dillard. And to demonstrate her heart of forgiveness, she lobbied to be able to share communion with the woman responsible for the death of her child. That intimate act, that breaking the bread together and sharing the wine together, Sternbergh said, "made both of us be able to walk forward."
Debra Morton, pastor of Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church in New Orleans, said that Luke 15, which includes a story about a disrespectful son who leaves home, gets in trouble and returns seeking forgiveness, teaches us that "when somebody changes, we've got to release them from their past."
Like most people do, Morton described the story in Luke 15 as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Some editions of the Bible refer to it as the Parable of the Lost Son. But as Morton was speaking, I was remembering Timothy Keller who in his book "The Prodigal God," refers to it as the Parable of the Two Lost Sons.
If we only focus on the acting out committed by the younger brother, we will miss the fact that Jesus is addressing his parable to the Pharisees, people who believed themselves to be perfect, people Jesus has just heard muttering about his acceptance of unsavory characters.
The story isn't just about a younger brother who has messed up spectacularly. It's also about an older brother who believes himself to have never messed up and who, in his pouting, misses the opportunity to reconnect with his brother and celebrate with his father.
What a hard, hard message that is. It suggests that the people who are hard-hearted toward prisoners past and present are just as lost as those who've been locked up.
Jarvis DeBerry can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com. Follow him at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.

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