The
View from Prison
September 15, 2013
BMC- Gen 39:6b-23 & Matt 14:1-12
Introduction: Prison
Movies
I
want to begin this morning with a little audience participation. As we reflect on these texts, I want invite you
to think about prison movies that you have seen. Think of movies that are set in or somehow
involve imprisonment within the plot.
What are some prison movies can you think of?
{Take
Responses}
Many
movies are set in or somehow involve prison.
When I think of prison movies, I find myself thinking about two in
particular. First, I think of The
Shawshank Redemption, a movie that was actually filmed in Ohio up in the Mansfield
area. Second, I think of The Green
Mile, a movie set on death row. In
both of those movies there are many themes that are addressed; but one that I
note in each of them, in one way or another, is that of hope. I’m sure that is not true of all prison
movies, but I see it within these particular two.
Both
movies depict some gritty and difficult circumstances in life. They both show
the challenges that people undergo, but they also in one way or another depict
the importance of hope and the power that it has in our lives and the choices
that we make. They invite us to look
beyond our circumstances and to see a bigger picture, a world with bigger
problems than our own, a world that is bigger than what makes me happy or
content.
As
I consider these prison movies, I am also struck by the number of Biblical
stories that involve imprisonment[1]. There was Samson[2]
and Jeremiah[3] in the
Old Testament. In the New Testament, we
read of Peter[4], Paul[5]
and Silas going to prison. But this morning,
I want to invite us into the stories of two other Biblical characters who were
imprisoned.
Joseph and John
- A Life of Similarities
His
parents were old and his mother was barren.
His parents deeply desired that God would bless them with a baby from their
union and it was out of fervent prayer that he was born. After his birth, he learned early on that his
life had a purpose. He had been born for
a reason. He was brought into this world
to serve God’s purposes and that created a certain trajectory for him.
Yet
even with that calling he was deeply misunderstood, or perhaps it was because
of that calling that he was deeply misunderstood. He said things that people didn’t
understand. He said things that angered
those who did understand, yet he remained faithful in what he did. He remained faithful and yet despite his
faithfulness, he found himself in prison.
He had done nothing illegal. He
acted in honorable ways. He spoke the
truth, but in doing so he reproved a woman.
And it was because of her scorn that he found himself in prison.
To
our sense of justice and fairness, it just doesn’t seem right does it? If we do what is right, if we are faithful to
God’s calling upon us, we shouldn’t have to face such injustices, right? At least that is what we want to
believe. That is what our culture tells
us. We want to believe that if we are
faithful that all will be good, that we will always be happy, and that we won’t
face unfair treatment.
And
yet in this story, we are challenged with circumstances that suggest something
different. We are challenged with a
story of someone who was faithful and did what was right but still had to
endure unjust treatment. But here is the
kicker. In what I have said so far about
this man, I have described not just one person of the Bible who experienced
this, but two people who experienced this.
Because though the details of their stories are different and though
they lived thousands of years apart, the similarities in their journeys are
striking. Both Joseph of the Old
Testament and John the Baptist of the New fit this description. Let’s take a moment to Consider their stories.
- Joseph
Joseph
was the first born to Jacob’s wife Rachel, but the 11th of Jacob’s
sons born out of what feels more like something out of a soap opera than the
Bible. Because what was a love triangle
among Jacob, Leah and Rachel, becomes a love pentagon when the wives draw in
their maid servants in order to produce more sons. Yet in all of the rigmarole, Rachel was the
woman that Jacob wanted to marry, the one that he loved. She desperately wanted children, but she
found herself to be barren. Yet God heard
her plea and after much anguish and longing she bore Joseph, a son.
Joseph
was beloved of his father and favored more highly than his brothers. Jacob made Joseph a special robe. This of course brought on the jealousy of his
brothers. Their jealousy only grew when
he told him them of the dreams that he had.
Joseph’s dreams suggested that one day he would rule over his
brothers. His dreams suggested that he
had a destiny, that there was a plan for his life that was beyond what they
might imagine.
The
tension grew to the point that his brothers plotted to kill Joseph, but Reuben
convinced them to throw him in a pit instead.
As Joseph sat alone in that pit, Judah suggested that they sell him into
slavery to a caravan heading down to Egypt.
And so while the brothers produced evidence of Joseph’s death for their
father, Jacob; Joseph was taken to Egypt where he was sold to Pontiphar.
Now
for a time things began to look up for Joseph.
“The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; he was in the
house of his Egyptian master. His master
saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD caused all that he did to
prosper in his hands. So Joseph found
favor in his sight and attended him; he made him overseer of his house and put
him in charge of all that he had.”[6] Joseph did what was right. He was honorable & honest.
But
he was also handsome and he soon caught the eye of his master’s wife who wanted
Joseph to lie with her. She made
advances on him multiple times but even in this, he remained honorable and
upright. He refused her advances and
continued to perform his duties with integrity.
Day after day she pursued him and day after day he refused her.
Yet
in his choice to reprove her, she in turn chose to frame him. One day when Joseph was in the house working
and all of the other servants were away, she caught hold of his garment seeking
to draw him in. Joseph escaped
temptation once again choosing to flee, but not without leaving his garment
behind.
With
his cast off garment in hand, Pontiphar’s wife accused Joseph of trying to take
advantage of her. She pled her case to
the members of the household and then to her husband. Pontiphar became enraged and he placed Joseph
in prison. Joseph was living an upright
and honest life, serving his master well; yet from the scorn of a reproved
woman, he was cast into prison.
- John
That
is the story of Joseph’s journey that led to prison. Now let us consider the story of John the
Baptist, listening for the echoes in his story.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were getting on in years and they had no
children because Elizabeth was barren.
While serving as the priest before God, Zechariah was told by an angel
that his prayer had been heard and that Elizabeth would bear a son whom they
would name John. Zechariah questioned
these words that the angel punished him by making him mute.
Along
with this announcement came the instructions that John was never to drink wine
or strong drink. He would be filled with
the Holy Spirit and turn the hearts of the people to the Lord. He would prepare the way of the Lord. Elizabeth did conceive and give birth to a
boy in her old age. On the eighth day,
he was circumcised and they did name him John.
Upon giving him that name, Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his speech
returned. People saw this as a sign and
began to wonder who this child would become.[7]
Some
30 years later, John went into the region around the Jordan. He wore clothing of camel’s hair with a
leather belt around his waist. His food
was locusts and wild honey.[8] He proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins. And as he baptized
and as he called people to repentance and as he told them how they should live,
people began to wonder if he was the messiah.
But John said to them, “I baptize you with water for repentance; but one
who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his
sandals. He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and fire.”[9]
John
faithfully prepared the way of the Lord and he baptized Jesus. He had disciples who followed him and he
reproved the religious teachers and the ruling authorities. He reproved the ruling authorities including
Herod. John told Herod “It is not lawful
for you to have” Herodias, your brother Philip’s wife. He reproved Herod and Herodias and that
reproval landed him in jail.
- The View from Prison
Here
we have two men with different stories but similar circumstances. We have two men whose parents were old and
whose mother was barren. In both cases,
the parents deeply desired God to bless them with a baby from their union. And in both cases, it was out of fervent
prayer that he was born. We have two men
who learned early on that his life that he had a purpose. We have two men who remained faithful and yet
despite his faithfulness, found himself in prison. He had done nothing illegal. He had acted in honorable ways. He spoke the truth, but he reproved a woman
with connections to power. And it was
because of this reproval that he found himself in prison.
Having
considered their stories, can we imagine what their view was from prison? Can we imagine what it felt like for them to
have lived as God had instructed them, to live believing that they had a
purpose to fulfill, yet finding themselves punished for doing what was
right?
I
feel fairly confident in saying that I would feel abandoned. I believe that I would be crying out to God
in anger and tears demanding to know why God had abandoned me. I’m certain that I would be asking God why
God was allowing this injustice to happen to me when I had been doing what was
right and what I had been called to do.
I believe that in my own humanness, that this would be my view from prison,
one of anger, tears, frustration, fear and abandonment.
We
know at the very least that while things were going well in prison, that God
was with Joseph and that Joseph was once again entrusted with much; that he
desired to get out of prison. When Joseph
interpreted the dream of the cupbearer and told him that he would be released
in three days, Joseph also requested that the cupbearer remember him and
mention him to Pharaoh that he might get out of that dungeon as well.
And
we know that while John was in prison that he sent some of his disciples to
Jesus. He sent them to Jesus to ask him
if He really was the one to come or if they were to wait for another. In the midst of prison John found himself
questioning whether or not Jesus really was the messiah. He found himself wondering if all that he had
done was to serve the purpose that he had been called for or if he had been
mistaken.
It
is natural in the prisons of life, the difficult circumstances that we
encounter that we would question or doubt or fear. And yet our lives are not about being happy
and everything going well for us. Our
lives are not about us. Our lives are
about fulfilling God’s kingdom purposes and when we allow ourselves to be
overcome by fear or lament rather than trusting in God’s care for us, we can be
imprisoned. {Picture on PPT} Our lives
can become imprisoned in a cage that’s locked by fear as this picture depicts.
This
picture captures how I envision Herod’s life as it is depicted in our Matthew
passage for this morning. Chapter 14
begins by telling us that when Herod heard of Jesus, he said to his servants,
“This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this
reason these powers are at work in him.”
His life was so imprisoned by fear that he thought that Jesus was John
the Baptist raised from the dead. His
life was so imprisoned by fear of what the people would do that while he wanted
to kill John for his words from the start, he choose simply to imprison him
instead. That is until his fear about
what the people would say to him for breaking his foolish oath to the daughter
of Herodias, led him to order John the Baptist to be beheaded. Herod’s life was imprisoned by fear.
In
the midst of challenging circumstances and unfair treatment, we too can become
imprisoned by fear; yet within these stories, we know that God was with these
men. God was with them in their
difficult circumstances. And thus we
know from these stories that God is with us in our circumstances as well. And when I consider that reality, question
for me is not so much “Why is this happening to me?” or “Why is God letting
this happen to me?” The question is “Where
is God in this situation?” “What is it
that God is doing in or through these circumstances?” In other words, “What is the big picture
here?”
If
we believe that God is with us in the good and the bad, if we believe that God
has a plan for us and the best in mind for us, if we believe that God uses the
bad and the difficult in our lives for His kingdom good, then it seems to me
that the question shifts. It shifts from
us to God. It becomes, “Where is God in
this situation?” or “What is God doing here?”
As
the church in North America declines, as our economy fluctuates, as our culture
becomes less Christian and more secular, we can allow ourselves to be
imprisoned by fear. We can become
trapped by our anxiety. Or we can choose
in the midst of these circumstances to trust that God is at work in these
realities and that God has a bigger plan for us to get on board with. And by stepping back and seeing the bigger
plan of which we are only a part, we can hold on to the hope of knowing that
God is with us and that God is bringing about God’s victorious kingdom purposes.
If
the culture is losing knowledge of the Biblical story, we have an opportunity
to tell the story with a freshness that hasn’t been known in recent years. If our economy constricts and our resources
tighten, we gain new opportunities to rethink and be intentional about what it
means to do ministry that we might not otherwise have considered. While our view from prison may lead us to
despondency, God invites us to live into His kingdom hope.
- Different Endings
But
in the midst of this, we must also consider the sobering reality that the
outcome may not look like what we would envision. Because while both of these stories involve
people of faith who were living out God’s call, and while both men ended up in
prison; only one of them got out alive, and even then it was a bumpy road.
Joseph
was freed from prison. Eventually the
cupbearer did remember him and Joseph interpreted the Pharoah’s dreams. From this, he was made second in command of
Egypt. And from this, he was given the
opportunity to be reconciled with his brothers and to save his family from
starvation. He brought about God’s
kingdom purposes which allowed his family, the ancestors of the Israelites not
only to live but to thrive.
John
the Baptist on the other hand was not so fortunate. John the Baptist was beheaded in prison. And we know that many of the disciples were
martyred for their faith. And we know
from our Anabaptist tradition that many faithful people lived upright and holy
lives but were imprisoned and killed.
And
so in the midst of our trials and struggles, I find that it is helpful to
remember that it is not about us. It is
not about what makes us happy. It is not
about what we think is best for us. It
is about being faithful. It is about
trusting in God. It is about
participating in God’s bigger kingdom purposes.
It is about living into the hope of God’s ultimate victory of which we
play such a small but important part.
We
can’t always see what the final victory looks like from our vantage point. And we rarely can see the course that God has
marked out for that path to victory, but we can take hope in the assurance of
God’s final victory, a victory that began with the resurrection of Christ and
ends in a new heaven and a new earth.
For while we may experience times of imprisonment here on earth, times
of trial and tribulation, we know that in God we experience ultimate
freedom. We experience a freedom that
surpasses any cages or entanglements of this earth.
Conclusion:
As I dwell in these stories of Joseph and John, I am
challenged to live into my calling. I am
challenged to look beyond my circumstances even when they are difficult or seem
unfair. I am challenged to look for what
God is doing in my trials and to live into the ultimate hope of God’s final
victory.
But those are just my reflections.
As you have dwelled with these stories this morning, what is it that they
invite you to wonder about? In what ways
do it invite you to imagine new possibilities?
In what ways do they invite you to escape from the bondage of fear and
to live into the hope of God’s great victory? Take a moment to consider this in
silence.
{Pause} {Pray inviting people to cast off the
bondage of fear}
Amen.
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