Thomas J Parlette
“Prison Life”
Romans 6: 12-32
7/2/23
Most people are law-abiding citizens who have no desire to spend any time whatsoever inside a jail. Even ex-cons don’t want to go back to prison. Prison is not an attractive option for anyone. And those who are in prison are usually desperate to get out.
Prison escapes have long been the subject of novels and movies. Even the Bible has stories of prison breaks and escapes from authorities. For example, In Acts 12, the apostle Peter is in prison under tight security: “Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison.” Do you think Peter wanted to be in prison? I don’t think so. And when “the chains fell off”, he went immediately to the house of some friends who were praying for his release and they were astonished to see the object of their prayers standing right there before their eyes!
A small number of people, however, want to go to prison, and there are some residents of correctional institutions who prefer to remain where they are rather than be released to the civilian population.
A number of years ago, The Buffalo News ran a feature about an ex-con who said he stole shoelaces, a pair of sandals and some other items so he could get “prison health care that is very good.” Then there is the North Carolina man who robbed a back for $1 for the same reason.
Consider the case of a man suffering from a life-threatening liver problem who decided his best bet to save himself was to go to prison. Dr. Joshua Mezrich, an assistant professor of surgery in the division of multi-organ transplantation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, tells the story of a 41-year-old man who turned to crime to get medical care.
The felon was in prison when he got a scan that revealed two aneurysms in his liver. Later, a follow-up scan showed the aneurysms had grown and the prisoner needed surgery soon, but he was released before the surgery could be scheduled. He realized that a trip back to prison was his best choice since he knew he could get the surgery paid for if he was behind bars.(1)
But these stories are outliers – most folks going through life, working their jobs, paying their bills and eating too much junk food don’t want to go to prison for even a day. Although most people wouldn’t dream of crossing the ethical and moral lines that could send them to jail, the very presence of the law and the threat of prison helps motivate at least some of the population to walk the straight and narrow and be accountable for their actions.
Bob Dylan makes the point in his hit song, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” that there’s a real sense in which we all have a boss to whom we’re accountable. No one gets through life without answering to a higher authority. We are all accountable to something are somebody – whether that’s the law, or our boss at work. As Dylan says, “It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
John Lennon didn’t care much for Bob Dylan’s song, so he wrote a parody called “Serve yourself.” (2) You can do that, I suppose, serve yourself. Lots of people do just that. But Paul makes it clear that he thinks that’s a bad choice.
“Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey your passions.” Notice the words “dominion” and “obey.” Sin – the principle of sin, our fallen nature as it’s called in other places in the Bible, or our human propensity to make bad choices and fall into bad habits – uses our actual human bodies as a means of getting us to do what sin wants us to do. Sin dominates us; sin is a bully; sin coerces us to obey our basest impulses. And when that happens, we don’t look so pretty. And we’re not happy.
The jail of the body is a horrible place. Paul refers to us as “slaves to sin.” Sounds terrible.
But Paul also mentions being “set free,” which implies we were once captured, imprisoned and forced to toil away under the scourge of jailhouse master – but no longer.
The good news is that we don’t need to stay in the prison of serving ourselves when we could be serving God instead. Why serve Sin, when we could be walking free in the Spirit?
The bad news is that our mortal bodies, very human bodies seem to provide constant opportunities for us to be tempted every which way.
We’re tempted by what we see. And what we see always ignites an appetite. Sometimes, that is quite literally true. You see a bag of potato chips or a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream – and we want it. We gotta have it. That’s why we so many fast food commercials on TV between 4:00 and 8:00.
And it’s not just food. We see wonderful, cool, new gadgets and we can’t live without them.
We see commercials for vacations at Disneyworld or Viking river cruises – and we want to go.
We see new clothes and shoes that are coming out – and we want that too.
And if temptation doesn’t assault us with our eyes, it does so with our other senses. We can smell the aroma of French fries boiling in the deep fryer, a burger sizzling on a neighbor’s grill or the wonderful aroma of garlic and olive oil when we walk into the house for dinner. I know I am tempted almost every day when I drive home up North Broadway when I pass the Burger King in Siler Lake Plaza – you can smell the burgers cooking even when the windows are closed.
Yes, our bodies and our senses are vulnerable to all sorts of temptations every day.
But, we do hold a few keys to this jailhouse battle of temptation. We can unlock the cell door and walk out of the prison life – free.
Paul reminds us in this passage that self-discipline is one of those keys. As he says: “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey your passions.” Sometimes we forget who’s in charge of the jail. We might feel like we’re a prisoner to temptations, but we are actually wardens of the prison. We are in control of what goes on within us. To rephrase the Nike expression from years ago – “Just DON’T do it!”
Remembering our identity is also a key. Remember what we heard from Paul last week – “Consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Dead and Alive. We are children of God! Serving ourselves, serving sin, and yielding to temptation is not how we roll. It’s not who we are. We have been blessed through Christ’s redeeming sacrifice with a new nature. We are new creations in Christ: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”
Remembering our vulnerability, that’s a key as well. Our bodies make us vulnerable to excessive living. The fact that we are baptized Christians doesn’t mean that we will always do the right thing. Christianity is not a vaccine that ensures our spiritual health. That’s not how it works. Remembering that we are vulnerable to temptation and bad behavior is a key to releasing ourselves from sin’s control.
Staying alert – that’s a key. The Bible say: “Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary, the devil, prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, stand fast in your faith.” Sin is a slippery slope. Without vigilance, we may not be aware of the traps that line whatever path we might be following.
And finally – remember to take your keys with you! Have you ever walked out of the house and forgotten your keys, only to remember that you left them inside. Every once in awhile I do that with my car keys and I leave them on my desk. I don’t get far before I sheepishly come back to get them. As Christians, we have scripture, prayer, worship and Bible study on our key chains. Sometimes it’s easy to forget our keys, but without them, we don’t get far.
The great thing about the Christian life is that we get to choose who we want to serve.
This was not a choice for Brooks Hatlen in the classic 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption. Brooks, played by James Whitmore, had been in prison for most of his life. When Brooks was finally released on parole as an elderly man, he didn’t really know what to do. Prison was all he knew.
Perhaps we all have a bit of Brooks in us. Forgetting that we are children of the light, we become accustomed to behaving as though we are children of darkness. Yielding to temptation has become so normal that temptations have ceased to be temptations. Instead, they have become our rule of life.
Upon learning of his own pending release, Brooks attacks fellow inmate Heywood, played by William Sadler, holding a knife to his throat and threatening to kill him so he can stay in prison.
Red Redding, and inmate played by Morgan Freeman, explains the attack to Heywood and Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, saying: “Brooks ain’t no bug. He’s just… institutionalized. The man’s been in here 50 years! This is all he knows. In here, he’s an important man. He’s an educated man. Outside, he’s nothing! Just a used-up with arthritis in both hands.”
And maybe that’s all we are – used-up cons with arthritis in our hands. We can’t get out, perhaps we don’t even want to. We’re used to prison life, and by now our arthritic hands can hardly hold the keys God has given us to release ourselves.
Unable to adjust to freedom – Brooks commits suicide after his release.
But we are not doomed to that same fate.
The Bible says: “The wages of sin is death – but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”
Know this, my friends – we are free.
We don’t need to die in the prison of sin and temptation.
Jesus has blown the doors of the cell off their hinges.
Andy and Red both made it out of prison. Red crosses into Mexico where he reunites with Andy, and they enjoy their freedom by the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Their freedom is a symbol or ours.
In Jesus Christ, we can leave prison life behind, for good.
And for that… May God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved June 5th, 2023.
2. Ibid…
