Prisons, literal and figurative
Ordinary Sunday 14, 6th July, 2003
The Rev'd Dr Colin Holden
Assistant Priest and Archivist, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
When the Bastille fell in July 1789, this foreboding fortress-prison was not found to contain a legion of deprived Frenchmen, but the merest handful of prisoners, probably the only vaguely interesting one being that mixed up character the Marquis de Sade; it was not the home for a legion of deprived Frenchmen. But the effect of its destruction, the beginning of the unleashing of a huge current of change for the people of France, is a reminder of how powerfully we can be affected by the idea of a prison and its opposite, freedom. Some of the most powerful images in the literature created by major nineteenth century writers are images of imprisonment and release. Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities and Alexandre Dumas in a series of novels set during the French Revolution, both drew directly on the Bastille. If some of the characters in Dickens' novel have a rather cardboard quality (Luice the heroine in particular), one of the most compelling figures, in terms of Dickens' psychological realism, is Dr Manette, whose state of mind, moving between gradual healing and bearing huge wounds that can be reopened, is a major piece of insight. Another of Dumas' compelling figures is also a prisoner unjustly incarcerated, who takes an inexorable revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment – The Count of Monte Cristo. These two novels can still engage modern readers; I believe partly because such central figures move through experiences that relate to issues that are basic to the human state, and do so using imagery that is compelling – the issue being our deeply rooted desire for freedom and our anxiety lest we become in some sense imprisoned.
Christianity in general has also a long and sustained record of dealing with those who have been prisoners in the most literal sense. Its beginnings are to be found in the kind of situation that the book of Acts describes as befalling our patron St Peter – the imprisonment of Christian believers on account of their faith, an experience that many Christians underwent in the first three centuries of the Christian era. Many Christians then and since have found some degree of comfort and reassurance in the fact that, if only for a short time, Jesus Himself was a prisoner – though not the inmate of a gaol cell – subject to various sorts of systemic abuse, from accusations backed by false witness, to the brutality of guards. Given that being a prisoner is an integral part of the experience of Jesus, it is perhaps logical that Christians should have a particular interest in one way and another in those who are in prison. In east and west, societies have been formed over a long period of time to pay for the ransom for, or arrange the exchange of, Christian prisoners – the church looking after its own. But it has also produced men and women concerned for a much longer term work – those who have visited prisons and prisoners in the belief that whatever their background, they might be capable of some kind of change if the appropriate influences were brought to bear. Many have performed this kind of mission, based on the assumption that an awareness of the presence of God can alter the direction of peoples lives. And such conviction has underpinned the work of many involved in reforms in the administration of prisons and of justice. This is not something limited to the past in figures like Elizabeth Fry or St Vincent de Paul, but has informed men and women who are alive and active at this very moment.
But there are other less obvious kinds of prisons that are equally ones over which we should be concerned, for some of the most constraining or oppressive forces are not necessarily those formed by bars and walls (though I don't want to imply for a moment that a physical prison is anything less than a challenging and fraught space). And ultimately, these sorts of prisons are ones that must be identified and addressed by us, as we claim that the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus, is about offering people freedoms at many different levels, and that change and conversion is something that embraces both our inner as well as our outer life. I am going to point to two other prisons that constrain many of our contemporaries (both outside and inside believing communities).
The first is a particular kind and level of materialism, expressed in the lives of many people who believe (or act as though they believe) that a good life is only had by owning or consuming as much as possible (things/property/experiences). Freedom to have all – or a prison? Given that about a quarter of Australians (according to figures available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics), many with good incomes and other signs of material success, depend on legal substances to manage various kinds of pressures (the figure rises to about thirty per cent once illegal substances are added into the equation), one has to say that 'the good life' as defined in terms of material possessions and success has come at the price of increasing levels of insecurity and dissatisfaction. (In much the same vein, a medical specialist recently commented 'It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the epidemic of psychological disorders is the price we have had to pay for two decades of economic reform and its relentless promotion of market values.')
While Christianity has rightly been described as the most materialistic of all the great monotheisms (it insists that God became flesh – a unique statement about God in relation to matter), Jesus also reminds us constantly of the limited satisfaction offered by seeing material things as ends in themselves, and not in a wider context of responsibility, care and stewardship. (And at this point, those who ignore this basic insight do so at some real risk). At this point, Jesus' teaching offers real liberation from a potential prison that can entrap people.
Now for the other prison. I am going to make a suggestion that might to some sound unorthodox, though I am certain that it is far from that, and is in some ways my comment, if an oblique one, on the ways in which issues of sexual orientation have been discussed very recently, both by some within, and others outside the church. On the one hand, I remain dissatisfied with those within various Christian communities (not only our own) who have effectively constructed a set of bars, a prison for some people, by suggesting that their sexual orientation makes them unacceptable to God, or at least, second rate citizens. I believe that it is appropriate to ask, and to continue to ask, how is such categorical rejection (as distinct from criticism of various kinds of behaviours that are irresponsible) compatible with the claim that Jesus offers the possibility of freedom, welcome and reconciliation to all? Here some Christians are busy locking others out, imprisoning them in narrow cells. But if I identify those Christians responding in this way as constructing a prison, I would also have to say, on the other hand, that many outside churches and other faith communities are equally busy constructing prisons around the same issue. Specifically, I would question those who claim that sex is the most basic motivator of human behaviour and actions and that awareness of the sexual orientation of oneself and others provides the key to understanding individuals or communities. I would have to say that as far as my own attempts to interpret human behaviour or motivation and actions are concerned, whether with the living whom I encounter day by day, or with those who have been the subject of research based in some cases on extensive private documentation, to know the orientation or even something more of an individuals' sexual behaviour offers no comprehensive key to understanding; they remain largely mysterious, unknown continents unless seen in terms of far wider contexts and issues. Those who see sexuality as the ultimate key to understanding – whether of themselves or of others – are effectively creating another narrow prison, even though they often believe that what they are doing is engaging in some radically liberating process. The keys that unlock many doors are elsewhere.
There are many other prisons that we can construct and have constructed beyond these two, and I have come to a rather sobering conclusion that is also a challenge over the past week. I hope that by now it is quite clear that my own thinking turned from the image of St Peter being released from his prison with a sense of wonder, to notice how much the Gospels themselves, and the interpretation of Jesus' message contained in the core of St Paul's letters, are concerned with liberating people in many different ways. Perhaps one of the reasons we don't have the kind of wide ranging membership that we should, and that much of a whole generation are indifferent or critical, is that we have neither thought deeply enough about our faith as something that offers many different kinds of freedom; nor have we been seen to be opening all kinds of doors, letting people out of the wide range of prisons that we can make. This, rather than aggressive or defensive statements from within the church over sexuality, is the discussion we need to have that will keep us in touch with essentials, and restore a life-giving dimension to our communities that they sometimes sorely need.
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