Winter 2007Chris Hoke, Assistant Jail Chaplain
Men in jail have heard a lot of talk. Legal talk. Street talk. Religious talk.
One of the valley's top meth cooks told me two nights ago that he used to have zero interest in the Bible because "all those miracles" never seemed to happen to anybody.
But now he can't wait to be prayed for—since he's experienced God's presence in startling ways both in his trailer and in jail. He's seen many of the people he knows healed of swollen livers, back pain, knee problems and depression almost instantly in our Bible studies in recent months. He's especially attracted to Jesus now because what he's witnessing and experiencing himself seems to line up with the stories and message he's heard at Bob's Bible studies for years: that Jesus approaches, heals, and calls people that most often are not looking for him and have no stated faith at all prior to the encounter.
A young Latino gang leader I've been meeting with has similarly come from a place of neither faith nor knowledge of Jesus to astonishment and eagerness to hear more. Initially he was unable to imagine my paraphrases (he never learned to read) of the gospel accounts of Jesus' displays of nonviolent power, fearlessness, love, care of enemies, and authority amidst violence ever working in his gang. Now he gets updates about how this very love—this deeper way of "being down" for friends—is infiltrating and surprising his posse on the outside, many of whom I've gotten to know over the last year.
Their latenight phone calls are increasing, inviting me to their hidden backroom meetings, as well as calling in distress and arriving stained by blood, wanting prayer and praying for each other on my living room floor as both enemies and squad cars hunt them through the night. My faith and the faith of inmates—as well as an eagerness to join the risky discipleship of Jesus' adventure among “sinners”—swells when the Presence and reality of who God is confirms the Bible's past record in our own unsuspecting stories.
