What Jesus didn't say
I'm sitting here with my early Sunday morning cup of coffee, thinking about the words of Jesus specifically dealing with prisoners.
In Matthew 25, Jesus did not say, "I was a model prisoner, and you visited me."
He did not say, "I was of the same race, and so you visited me in prison."
He did not say, "I was a believer, a man of faith, and so you visited me."
Here at HFP, we take that to mean that our expression of love to prisoners must be unconditional.
This is on my mind this morning, because we're trying to help Ronnie. By his own mother's confession, he's been a bad apple. He gets in trouble. He gets tickets. The prison staff moved him to an unpleasant spot, where they keep trouble-makers. But there's something else. Ronnie may be dying. Because he's such a trouble-maker, he's not first in line to get appropriate treatment for his problems. But now his health issues are serious, and he's afraid of dying. Perhaps that's why he's now begging his mother to save him. He claims to be bleeding from every orifice, and even prison staffers admit to his mother that he's not in good shape.
And so we're trying to help. Regardless of his past behavior, his demeanor, his attitude, his track record, we claim that he deserves humane treatment and care.
We think that's what Jesus would have us do.
In Matthew 25, Jesus did not say, "I was a model prisoner, and you visited me."
He did not say, "I was of the same race, and so you visited me in prison."
He did not say, "I was a believer, a man of faith, and so you visited me."
Here at HFP, we take that to mean that our expression of love to prisoners must be unconditional.
This is on my mind this morning, because we're trying to help Ronnie. By his own mother's confession, he's been a bad apple. He gets in trouble. He gets tickets. The prison staff moved him to an unpleasant spot, where they keep trouble-makers. But there's something else. Ronnie may be dying. Because he's such a trouble-maker, he's not first in line to get appropriate treatment for his problems. But now his health issues are serious, and he's afraid of dying. Perhaps that's why he's now begging his mother to save him. He claims to be bleeding from every orifice, and even prison staffers admit to his mother that he's not in good shape.
And so we're trying to help. Regardless of his past behavior, his demeanor, his attitude, his track record, we claim that he deserves humane treatment and care.
We think that's what Jesus would have us do.
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