There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
Whenever we are unsure about which spiritual practices to adopt in our Christian life, a good place to start is with what Jesus himself said we should do. One such practice is caring for prisoners. Jesus taught that when we visit those in prison, we visit him (Matthew 25). The early Christians, as we see in passages like Hebrews 13:3, practiced Jesus’ command by “remembering those in prison as if you were together with them."
This past Wednesday, as I did last year, I visited our Episcopal ministries at Eddie Warrior and Jess Dunn Correctional Centers in Taft. I preached and celebrated the Holy Eucharist at both, and spent some time with the prisoners in conversation. I came away deeply grateful for our Episcopal clergy and lay people who minister, week after week, in these and other prisons around Oklahoma. And also, I felt blessed to share with those imprisoned the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, and his forgiveness for those who repent.
It was so moving to be with these flawed and faithful women and men. Because of what they have been through and what they have done, and the challenges of prison life, these prisoners cling to their faith. Many of them attend worship every week, and know the responses by heart. As I reminded them, they are, each of them, beloved children of God through baptism, who are not defined by their worst days, generational traumas, bad decisions, or sins. As the great hymn says, “there’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.”
Bishop Poulson
