The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
July 19, 2026
Please pray with me: Holy One in three, may the love in my heart for all your creation speak to those who hear me. May we remember the words of this season’s reflection: that you are not a distant judge nor sadist, but a God who weeps. You suffer for us and with us. May we be open to your transforming spirit. Amen
Dear Seekers, I stand before you again in a fairly short time. I stand today having heard a word in Matthew 13:1-9,18-23 from last week that shook me, and was followed a day later by a private email that fed me. It’s a familiar passage that I offer to you again. Jesus preached to the crowd: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. If you have ears, hear!”
The word that got stuck in my heart and screamed at me as I took the passage in was Incarceration. It’s a harsh word with as many syllables as the digits on a hand. The hand of a judge, a mere frail human being, who after the deliberation of twelve humans or closed testimonies, that is to say people as flawed as we all are, bangs a gavel and declares “guilty as charged” and renders a sentence that adds a lava flow on top of the hard and thorny ground of one person’s precious life. Hard scrabble, thorny, infertile, withering, dying. Incarceration is a hard and harsh reaction by a country that sings “My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty”. Swears the Pledge of Allegiance to “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all” with pride. Yet this same country gave rise to our system of grave injustice. To borrow a lead-in from a recent post on Unlock the Box, incarceration is: Punishment & Torture under the Guise of “Protection”. It is an apt descriptor of such a vast majority of the prison industrial complex. It tears at my heart and haunts me every single day. I’ve been privileged to be confided in by many incarcerated pen pals over the years, and what struck me about their stories is that they are about people whose seeds were sown on all the types of harsh ground to which Jesus refers. Yet many have managed to excavate through compacted dry soil, torn away thorns, and managed to find some drops of water. They have found a path through man’s inhumanity to man. It’s the story exemplified by Victor Frankl’s of living through the harsh reality of German concentration camps in his seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning.
In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith wrote that “man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.” How many of you have considered what happens when someone is born and is unloved, or where love has been adulterated, and abuse has passed from generation to generation? I know that some of us have had a taste of a version of that story.
I am one of several people in Seekers who I hold as privileged to be trusted with at least portions of the personal stories of incarcerated people. Some of my incarcerated friends have stories that are frankly terrifying. Innumerable human beings are living such very different realities than what we care to imagine in our own neighborhoods, and in too many places in the world. I believe those who have chosen to extend ourselves beyond our comfort zones strive to be God’s loving presence in the lives of those so in need of a compassionate companion. Speaking for myself it astounds me that I, a very flawed human being, am trusted as someone worthy of holding my pen pals’ stories and friendships in my heart. Today I am sharing glimpses of some stories with you because of the email I referred to earlier.
The first one I hold up are the words of a man whose origin story, and survival story, are dark, damaging, and dangerous, and would easily have killed the soul and body of a lesser person. He is a person who, with the help of people who came to believe that the seed in his soul could sprout despite circumstance, kept offering water to the fertile soil in his soul. Even when his origin seed was strewn on rocky and thorny ground, he managed in time to cultivate a small oasis of fertile ground amid the concrete and steel jungles he was confined in, and that continue to grow across our country with little to no regard for the preciousness of human life. With his permission I am sharing his testimony, for it is a testimony, which I and a few others have been trusted to receive. I have read it many times and it strikes my heart like a bell clapper, both warning and sonorous. Please note the testimony will not be published on our website as part of the sermon, nor will a recording be made available to anyone. Do not record it on your phone, please. It will, with God’s help, go on to a wider and influential audience as part of a book being written by a friend. God willing that book will have the power to awaken people to the realities of our criminal injustice system and initiate the drive to foment change.
Please listen now with your hearts wide open:
A section of Sandra’s sermon is not available, as explained above. She continued:
I offer you the words from two other of my pen pals to further ‘paint a picture’ in your hearts and minds that there are multitudes of stories and testimonies of the inner work that goes on behind steel doors and bars.
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R. Zumar, has this testimony posted on the Just Arts Gallery website. He is a self-taught artist who discovered the power of art in prison, and wrote
At the time I really was numb to the world. From 13 up to 24 I was raised by the prison system. And at 25 I had been sentenced to do 62 years and 9 months in VADOC (Virginia Department of corrections). My introduction to art came from me feeling like how I learned to live was not what it was cracked out to be, no pun intended. So (sic) at Sussex 1 State Prison I decided to change how I was living. To be different than what I was and who people assumed I would always be. The decision to draw a leopard out of a National Geographic magazine is what led me here today. To me art is more than a hobby or something done just to waste time while I’m in prison. It is the numbness inside of me laid to rest and the awakening of my soul. It’s the creation of something beautiful or provocative or both. It surpasses languages and can touch someone on the other side of the world. It’s pieces of me revealed.”
Obie Weathers is the artist formerly working under the pseudonym Moyo – Swahili for “heart”. Obie, who as a teenager was arrested and sentenced to death, has spent the last 23 years in solitary confinement on Texas’ Death Row. As he told me in a recent phone call, every single day is fraught with the possibility that today, without any advance warning, no chance to communicate with loved ones, they might take me for execution.
Using found materials and media acquired anyway he can, his work emerges from a dim hole in American culture, arriving with the visions of what it is like to be poor, Black, hopeful and sentenced to death in the 21st century.
The existential, political and spiritual themes of his work are often filtered through the Buddhist and yogic practices which have helped heal and sustain him through years of isolation.
“I try to make use of discarded or ignored bits in my art because we all have something worthwhile for another, we just have to find it – and it took me coming to death row to find my worth as a human and as a citizen of the world.
I have committed some grave acts in my life and I will never be able to undo them. Yet the very least I can do is to improve myself.”
Again, in his words: “It is my hope that someone else will also take control of their narrative and tell themselves a new tale, a grander story of themselves. For all our benefit.”
Obie’s family maintains a website with his art and writings.
Two formerly incarcerated people in whom a fertile seed lay dormant deserve mention for what they have accomplished and do for others since their release.
Dwayne Betts is an inspirational author, playwright, activist, and is the founder of Freedom Reads. I paraphrase to abide by our guidelines: “Freedom Reads’ mission is as clear as it is vast: a Freedom Library in every cellblock in America. We believe that every person deserves the opportunity to be seen, to read, and to imagine a different beginning. Through Freedom Reads we can turn these pathways into a reality for everyone still waiting Inside”. I add that your prayers for Freedom Reads can put meaningful books in the hands of those who yearn to learn, to change through their access to books, and every person who is incarcerated who needs to access tools that expand their world.
Jesse Krimes, now a renowned artist, founded The Center for Art & Advocacy in NYC. They bring newly released artists to a fully supported environment where their artistic talent is provided with all the tools necessary to excel in their art practice and to flourish in life after prison. They are housed, fed, mentored, and prepared for transitioning to a life with choices and responsibilities.
I mentioned elephants the last time I preached. These great creatures visit the boneyards of the savannas again and again, grasping their relative’s tusks with the gristle of their long wrinkled gray trunks as if to say, I am here, I remember you, I will never forget you.” That is how I feel about all my past and current pen pals. I am here, I remember you, I will never forget you.
Adam Smith, quoted earlier, also wrote “we dread not only to be hated, but to be hateful.” Then for me it follows that to ignore someone in need is to be hateful, to lack empathy, and to intentionally live wearing blinders. To ignore the approximately 1.9 million people currently incarcerated in the United States, in all kinds of situations, for a multitude of reasons, is antithetical to God’s call on our lives. 1.9 million PEOPLE- the largest number of incarcerated people in one country in the entire world. My appeal is that you remember to pray for them, even just from time to time. We profess our belief in God, and as our reflection reminds us: God is not a distant judge nor sadist, but a God who weeps. God suffers for us and with us. May we be open to God’s transforming spirit in the safety and comfort of our lives, and reach out to those who suffer, for what we do for others we do for all our sakes. Amen
There are a few books on the altar you may care to look at, with care please, and some art made by Obie, and Selwyn a pen pal not mentioned in the sermon.
If you are interested in taking song into jails, talk to John Morris.