40 Acts - in-touch

"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’" Matthew 25:34-36 (NIV)

I find the idea of going to prison unutterably frightening. Maybe that’s because I’m a soft, middle-class weakling. Maybe it’s because of what happened to me once when I foolishly wrote a funny note in a bank. I spent three nights in the holding cells of Johannesburg’s main violent crimes police station, and while that was not prison, I have never been more frightened in my life. Frightened of being attacked. Frightened of going to prison, where very bad things are likely to happen to you. Frightened of not experiencing a kind word or a soft touch from a loved one for a long time.

I spent just three days and nights in a room with a filth-filled toilet, a light that was never switched off and five or six other guys, in for a variety of crimes. It could have been worse. Perhaps, if your theology allows it, God protected me. But those guys were so nice to me. Genuinely kind. When I learned my sleeping mats were wet (I couldn’t tell why), a guy called S’bu got me new ones. He was in for housebreaking. He was going to spend the next eight years away from his little boy. He was terrified of prison. Eventually I was let out, case dismissed. I doubt S’bu was.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that visiting prisoners is as important as feeding the hungry. So important, in fact, that in that theologically awkward passage he connects it with salvation. He doesn’t say ‘Visit the innocent prisoners’, or ‘Visit only non-violent offenders or those imprisoned for their faith.’ He recognises that being in prison can be a kind of suffering on a par with poverty, hunger and thirst, and he asks us to be his hands and face to sinners like ourselves and bring comfort. He says that he is there, among them.

We should find him there.

Jonty Langley

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