Props in Prison

and theology that changed me

It’s sad to spend 13 weeks with guys in Jail and then the course ends, certificates are handed out. I look into their eyes, each one, and said, I love you, I love you, I love you… until each one is told. I don’t care if that’s weird. I say, “You don’t have to say it back.” Because I know then they will say it back. They can blame me (she practically made us!). This is after I gave the talk on why the church is important. I discuss how Jesus redefines families and turns us all into brothers and sisters. “You are my brother now and I am your sister now,” I say. It’s comforting to them, you can see their shoulders relax with the idea. I wore my prop hat, the one I wore for the kids a year ago but that I keep using. It always gets a laugh.

But it’s true, wherever you go, you are the church. This happened because of Pentecost. My other prop! (It is a flame on my head, obviously).

Captain Fruito D’ Ispirito

Today, we talked about how the Bible is all about expansion. Expansion of the Land, People, Temple concept which I drew out on pen and paper LOL. Poor guys have to go to seminary.

The Bible is one long conversation God is having with his people: from the OT to the NT, God doesn’t change. The bookend of Gen 1 and Revelation must be paid special attention. What is God after as far as a vision for perfection (wholeness). He’s after the same thing: Expanding the kingdom of heaven. So look at land. We start in Eden, we are not in exile, we have a home. Rebellion, then exile, rebellion, then exile, repentance, then promised land, rebellion, then exile. The cycle goes over and over in all the OT.

Then, Jesus comes. He breaks the cycle.

He starts talking about the whole earth. Paul uses words like the Cosmos! Jesus says, New Heaven and a New earth are coming. He says, the meek will inherit the earth like he owns it and can give it. He says he loves the whole world, not just a people group or nation. He’s after more than a sliver of land or a flag, he wants every tribe and nation. Revelation is not scary, it is a return to Eden. We live in exile currently, the now and not yet, longing for our promised land. We are citizens of heaven, not beholden to earthly empires. Nothing has changed about the conversation God is having with his people.

Now let’s see the expansion of the temple and what it has to do with the church:

In Gen 1, we have God’s perfect presence with Adam and Eve. No need for a temple. BUT THEN REBELLION. Now God is going to create a way that he can be with his people and a way to get back to Eden. He has to be housed bc his holiness is too harsh for the people. It will burn them right up. So he is housed in the Arc that travels or a tabernacle and then in temples.

Jesus comes and he takes the message of God into fields and water and on mountainsides and of course still in the temple. But once Jesus goes up, Holy Spirit comes down. When I say, “Jesus goes up!” My 4th and 5th grade yells, “Holy Spirit comes down!” We practiced it. I told the inmates this story several weeks ago and today, when I said, “Jesus goes up!” They yelled back HOLY SPIRIT COMES DOWN! I can not tell you how happy this made me!!

I digress.

Now God has infected his people with Holy Spirit and the gospel is on the move. They will do greater things than Jesus because we are multiplied. Our bodies are little temples going to the ends of the earth. The church is not a what but a WHO.

The theme of expansion can also be done for the people of God being expanded through the OT and NT. But simply put, when Jesus interrupts this concept, he expands it to Jews and Gentiles and every tribe and nation. There is not one special people of God, everyone who believes is his. Jesus expands the concept of the Law by fulfilling it and radicalizing it to the heart. Oh, you say no adultery, I say EVEN IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT.

How I wish I would have had these frameworks as a child or as an adult but alas, you can have them. This could have spared our country from such brazen nationalism. Bad theology has really bad results that are very real. You have a Jewish people who have missed Jesus and in doing so, are still out there land grabbing, obsessed with their own idea of expansion but taking it by means that are unGodly. Then you have evangelicals missing Jesus and his expansion through love and inclusion, holding hands with a sliver of land called Israel made in 1947¹. This may be offensive but this is not the idea Jesus had when he said, “For God so loved the world, he gave his only son.” It offended the Pharisees back then and I think it tends to offend the religious today.

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that it is for everyone. Everyone is the special people of God. Bars in prison don’t keep the church from expanding, nor does bad theology. The gospel is on the move!

We handed out their certificates with their name on them. They are proud, they feel seen and loved. I made them do a short pop quiz before they got them, it’s fine. We got to affirm them and tell them how we saw them grow. What we see for them in the future and how they’ve blessed us. They stood behind us in a row, usually they would be moving back to their rooms. But they froze. I was reminded of the advice I had when leaving my son at college, “You walk away from them.” And so you do. You leave a little piece of your heart behind those max security walls and you thank God for it.

You’ve seen God’s face. He lives there.

Thanks for reading,

Jami

P.S. I talk about all these themes in our classroom module. If you’d like to go back to school in a gentle way are deconstructing and trying to reconstruct, are wounded but still love Jesus, think about joining Seminary Lite: https://seminarylite.circle.so/checkout/seminary-lite

The first course is STOP THE BLEEDING where I go through the most weaponized scriptures against women. All the lessons come with thorough notes and even a quiz (not graded lol).

And the current course is studying the book of Luke with live classes on Tuesday mornings at 10am (CST) and an option to replay. The live class is so fun! I enjoy taking the questions at the end.

If you can’t afford it, message me (instagram is usually faster) and I can give you code to join for free.

1. NT Wright’s work on this is spectacular