On Thursday I visited a jail to go to mass with them (fun fact, apparently "jail" and "prison" are different). It was the first time I've ever been to a jail and it was a dash intimidating. The gated road and entering into a fenced in plot of land only to be told to leave everything valuable I had in the car. But by now I was invested so I shrugged any misgivings about the situation off. The pastor who I contacted to come to the jail met me inside the joint. He was missing multiple teeth, obese, and struck me as not the sharpest tool in the shed. But those are the only bad things I could say about him. He was passionate about loving these men, these brothers of ours. Also he was quite the jolly man constantly nudging anyone within elbowing distance as he'd joke around. I liked him right off the moment he started talking. There were many other pastors there and they all kindly greeted me though I won't pretend that I didn't feel a little isolated in that I was the only one of us under 40. As we waited for the inmates to come I couldn't help but notice the chapel was freezing.
Then the prisoners came in all at once. I was told to greet them at the door so I just shook their hands and told them hello and welcome. It was odd seeing so many man gladly shaking hands with some pastors and telling them thank you. And there was this awkward moment when I called this older gentleman "sir" at the same time he called me "sir" and I had no way of recovering other than just smiling (what I thought was meekly) and then shook the next person's hand. Finally everyone was inside and mass was about to begin. I ended up just taking a seat in the back row and sat next to no one...honestly, I wasn't sure how to proceed since I was told to pray for them but don't personally get to know any of the inmates. Then we sang some songs together and and the sermon began...
This sermon was like nothing I'd ever heard from a priest. This man was on fire and eccentric. He was extremely aggressive towards his congregation too. As he started preaching to us about how we should thank God for our lives and our three meals a day (even if they were taken in a jail), he started getting into a beat. I have never seen anyone do this before. "Jesus is the Lord, hut! And he loves you, hut! And he wants good things for you, hut!" he'd rant while hitting his fist on the podium at the "hut" part. He established a rhythm of sorts doing this and would leave the rhythm to talk about something profound but whenever he wanted to hit home simple direct messages he'd start the "hut!"s back up again. Also, to my astonishment, he would ask certain inmates questions and stop until they answered. With one guy, he was maybe half a foot from the prisoner's face when he asked the question and waited for a response. I was beginning to see why a decent portion of the congregation stayed in the back rows. It was also odd that the other pastors were encouraging the speaker and egging him on into telling everyone the good news. If the speaker paused for dramatic effect the others would chime in "Come on! Come on!" or with a "Give it to me!" to where after the service I felt quite unsettled and realized that there hadn't been a minute of silence during this guy's 75 minute speech. When he was quiet or drinking water or breathing for that manner, the other pastors were begging him for more...at first. Half way in though the prisoners started doing the same thing. Some of them were really getting into the guys message and were exclaiming "Amen!" or "Preach it!" or a good ole "Yeah, yeah!" The room was full of this energy and a lot of the men were getting quite pumped hearing about how they need only accept Christ to be saved. It occurred to me that these men actually are putting stock in what the preacher is saying. His words mean something to them, they aren't just going through some motion but are wildly abandoning civility to exclaim their passionate acceptance to the good news they are being presented with. That night a man accepted Christ. I take pains to say "man" instead of "inmate" because in such moments I do not believe social stand matters at all. I say "man" before any other description of him because in such a moment all the labels we have pass away and we are left with a creation accepting and needing his creator.
Afterwards, we sang some more and as our brothers in orange started to leave we stood at the door again to thank them for coming and to shake their hands. A lot of the hands I shook were sweaty which I thought was quite gross. Then however, I was shocked to realize that this room was still freezing in spite of all the men in it. The hands were sweating from clenching and excitement, not merely from a high temperature. I thanked the pastors for having me and left promising to come back this Thursday.
While interesting, I'm not sure how I feel about their ministry. They are getting these men riled up by asking tough questions six inches from their faces and not allowing the men a second of silence so as to fill their heads with only the words of the pastors. And yet it was powerful. It did move these men, some to tears, who otherwise could be stone to the message of God. The way they did things was different from what I'm used to so I immediately started thinking of why it was wrong and the way of preaching I know was right. But I can't help but think it is good and so are the men leading it.
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