by Gwen Sayler

Recently I spent several days at the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, visiting an ELCA friend incarcerated there and interviewing the prison chaplain and a lay volunteer about their perspectives on prison ministry. The three women with whom I talked all were very serious about their call to faithfulness. Yet, while prisoner Phyllis and Chaplain Kay, a Roman Catholic, approached faithfulness in similar ways, the volunteer Suzanne (not her real name) began and ended in a very different place. The contrast between the two approaches — described by Luther as a "theology of the cross" and a "theology of glory" — brings into sharp focus the lens through which Lutherans see faithfulness under the cross.

The lay volunteer, Suzanne, describes herself as a shy person who has known her share of rejection and disappointment and has found comfort in a fundamentalist understanding of faith. Her picture of God is that of the powerful, awesome Father who loves her so much that he sacrificed his Son to a bloody death so that she could have eternal salvation. Humbling herself before God as the terrible sinner she sees herself to be, Suzanne accepted Jesus as her personal Savior and gained the spiritual self-confidence of faith. This has allowed her to submit her life totally to God’s control, which in turn makes it possible for her to make sense of everything that has happened in her life as part of God’s good plan for her and her ministry. For Suzanne, faithfulness involves believing and doing everything the Bible tells her to believe and do — including visiting prisoners (Matthew 25:36–41). She volunteers at the prison regularly, inviting inmates to accept Jesus as their personal Savior so that they too can be saved and make sense of all that has happened to them as part of God’s good plan for their lives.

Suzanne’s service is sincere and consistent, but her theology is problematic for us as Lutherans. Why? From Luther’s perspective, Suzanne’s well-intended fundamentalist theology actually is a theology of glory. A theology of glory focuses on me and what I must do to be saved. A terrible sinner, I must humble myself and accept Jesus as my personal Savior. I must submit my life totally to my powerful God’s control and be vigilant in belief and action. Through all this, I must accept that everything that happens in my life is part of God’s good plan for me.

Theology of the cross
To Luther, faithfulness is the outworking of faith. Far from removing us from the ambiguities and complexities of life, faithfulness propels the baptized into them. As Luther said, one becomes a theologian of the cross not by speculating about life, but by living and dying in engagement with the gritty realities of the world. It is precisely in this engagement that the promise, the presence, and the power of the resurrection become most clear. The faithful go where Jesus went before them, seeing those among whom they serve as beloved of God and worthy of hope. On their journeys, the faithful confront and challenge systems and institutions that hurt the many for the sake of the few, as Jesus did before them. Faithfulness under the cross is an adventure, not a sure and certain plan.

Through his own spiritual struggles and scriptural studies, Luther came to reject the theology of glory and turned instead to what he termed the theology of the cross. Rather than beginning with me and what I must do, the theology of the cross begins with God: God’s faithfulness to all creation and God’s humbling of all human initiative before the cross. I do not accept Jesus as my personal Savior. Rather, in faith I risk trusting that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God has already accepted me. In baptism, God sealed me by the Holy Spirit and marked me with the cross of Christ forever. I did nothing, and can do nothing, to merit God’s faithfulness to me. It is all a gift, free and undeserved. Returning daily to the promises of my baptism, I am free to confess that I have sinned against God through what I have done or left undone and to hear again the proclamation of God’s unmerited forgiveness for me. Beloved of God, simultaneously saint and sinner, I am called to service in the messy places of life, accompanied not by a plan to make sense of it all but by the Presence of the Living One who has already gone there before me.

Faithfulness and hope
This kind of faithfulness came into sharp focus in visits with Phyllis. For several years now, she has been confined in a setting utterly unimaginable to typical middle–class women. Prisoners live with any number of roommates in small austere rooms whose keys are held by prison guards. Correctional officers tell them what to wear, where to walk, when to eat, and when to sleep. Often mothers separated from their children, prisoners tend to be uneducated and without job skills. Scores have histories of alcohol or drug addiction, and a substantial number suffer from some form of mental illness. Many were sexually abused as children and arrive at prison entangled in webs of abusive relationships. Lest inmates forget for a second where they are, miles of barbed wire surrounding the prison provide a graphic reminder that they’re going nowhere until the courts say they can go.

Yet, in the midst of all this, by God’s grace there is hope and there are avenues for healing. Throughout her long ordeal, Phyllis has remained grounded in the promises of her baptism, in the blessed assurance that her value and personhood are a gift that not even the dehumanization of prison can take away. She pictures God as suffering with all who suffer, embracing them with a love that will not let them go, and giving them the gift of glimpses of life even in the midst of suffering and death.

For Phyllis, faith is utter trust in God’s promise even when nothing makes sense and life seems cruel almost beyond measure. Like Luther, she has discovered that it is precisely in her questioning and being tempted to let go of trust that the word of the cross and the promise of the resurrection become most clear. Relying solely on God’s faithfulness to her, she returns to her baptism daily, confessing her sins and rejoicing in the proclamation of forgiveness and renewal. She goes on her way, simultaneously saint and sinner, sent to serve in the place where she is.

Confident that God indeed has justified her by grace through faith, Phyllis knows who she is and Whose she is. Even as she journeys through the often painful steps to her own healing, she reaches out to other inmates and staff, seeing them through the lens of the cross as beloved and special in God’s sight. She embraces with joy her prison job as tutor for inmates studying for the high school equivalency exam, celebrating with her students as they gain skills for a better future.

Phyllis also serves as a volunteer in the prison’s hospice program, helping to make it possible for terminally ill inmates to die among friends rather than strangers. Her experiences have sharpened her awareness of larger issues that need to be addressed and her commitment to respond to those issues when she is free to do so. There’s no preordained "plan" making sense of her journey, but a companion Presence and Promise on the way — and that is enough. From Luther’s perspective, this is faithfulness under the cross.

At the prison, fundamentalist churches lead the way in providing volunteers for Bible study and worship leadership and in donating books to the religious library. On one level, their message is appealing to many inmates. Longing for home, prisoners gravitate toward the familiar. Graphic descriptions of sinfulness are familiar to women who have internalized messages of self–hatred since childhood. Glamorous depictions of violence perpetrated against Jesus as a sign of the Father’s love resonate with those long accustomed to accepting abuse against them because the abuser "loves" them. Coming from chaotic situations, many prisoners also gravitate toward simple answers that offer a sense of control.

The concreteness of the fundamentalist version of the divine plan appeals to them, as does the minimizing of personal responsibility for decision–making under the rubric of total submission to God’s control. On this level, the fundamentalist approach is appealing; yet, as my conversation with Chaplain Kay revealed, on another level, it is inadequate.

While expressing deep appreciation for the ministry of the volunteers, Chaplain Kay notes that in one–on–one conversations inmates express a deep longing for much more than a theology of glory can give. They long for a God who is faithful to them, who decided for them, and calls them beloved as they are. They yearn for a God who walks with them in their suffering, who journeys with them through the senseless situations in which they are entangled, and offers a vision of hope even when all seems hopeless. In short, they long for the theology of the cross.

Co–travelers on the way
Chaplain Kay’s ministry incarnates the theology of the cross. To her, each woman, no matter what her crime, is beloved in God’s eyes. Chaplain Kay shares the good news of healing and of hope alive and well in what seem to be utterly hopeless situations. She encourages each woman to see her internal strengths and to use those strengths to work on issues that impede healing.

Life–giving signs may be as simple as the sight of a tree budding in early spring or as complex as a conversation that touches the heart or an awareness of the divine presence in worship. Whatever they are and wherever they appear, through them the Living One heals and nurtures hope. The journey to healing is long and painful. Through her presence in the prison, Chaplain Kay offers herself as a co–traveler on the way. From Luther’s perspective, she lives the adventure of faithfulness under the cross.

The Women of the ELCA has a long history of faithfulness under the cross. This has included and needs to include service in women’s prisons. What can you do? If your congregation is located near a women’s prison or a prison where women are confined with men, you can correspond with the chaplain about needs your congregation could address. Even if far from a prison, your congregation might donate religious books and other needed items and address the societal issues that contribute to incarceration. Opportunities abound. Who knows — this ministry may be part of your adventure of faithfulness under the cross!

Gwen Sayler is professor of Hebrew Bible at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, currently studying issues surrounding women in prison as a sabbatical project.