St Botolph’s  Church Barton Seagrave, Sunday 20th July 2014.
. Oh, God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, and take our hearts and set them on fire.
Thanks to Mark Lucas
My text this morning is taken from St. Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 25 . verse 40. 
“ And the King will answer  “ Truly I tell you just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. “ 
Jesus is talking  of the end of the world when the Son of Man, as he put it, comes in his glory and gathers all nations for the judgement day. 
Sheep and goats.    On the basis of what they did in life     “ For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing,  I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was sick and you took care of me ;  I was in prison and you visited me.   “
The idea  that what we do in life will on the Day of Judgement  be assessed and will determine what happens us is fundamental  to Christian belief. 
It’s good to think of virtuous types going to glory : Reubens and the apotheosis of James I  etc 
But it’s less fashionable these days to think about what happens to the goats departing as the gospel tells us into “ eternal fire “.  The Hieronimus Bosch scenario. 
Conflict with the idea that no one is beyond God’s mercy. The Theologian’s  Tale
[ Longfellow Poem] 
“HADST thou stayed, I must have fled!”
	That is what the Vision said.
	 
	In his chamber all alone,
	Kneeling on the floor of stone,
	Prayed the Monk in deep contrition	        5
For his sins of indecision,
	Prayed for greater self-denial
	In temptation and in trial;
	It was noonday by the dial,
	And the Monk was all alone.	        10
 
	
Message is that prayer & thanksgiving  for God’s mercies and the glories of the world around us are all important, we shall be judged by that we actually do as Christians.  
And the inward voice was saying:
"Whatsoever thing thou doest
To the least of mine and lowest,
That thou doest unto me
Message on the wall of St. James’s Church.  “ Lives of great men all remind us /. We can make our lives sublime/ and in passing leave behind us/ footsteps in the sands of time. 
Role models equal celebrities ?   Don’t be put off: we can’t imitate Mother Teresa. Alexander Fleming, Roger Bannister, Tim Berners Lee. 
Ordinary people:  Stephen Sutton  and his cancer charity.  £4.25 million from 180.000 people. 
“ Measure your life by what you achieve not by how long you live. “ 
 I’m grateful for this chance to tell you something about the Sycamore Tree Course, run by Prison Fellowship, in which I recently participated at HM Prison Gartree.  
Not loaves of bread: but ideas.  
It’s a story a few volunteers and  20 or so most serving life sentences,  and 18 hours  of interaction between us,   The first object  was first to connect with each other, secondly to get a message across and for the men to receive it and through that message to help to  bring  some closure to victims and offenders and then for offenders a changed outlook on life and some real hope for the future   
But first I want to put that into a wider context.
In 1973 when I was serving on the staff of the British Embassy in Washington.  we had a contact in President Nixon’s White House, a lawyer and Counsel to the president called Charles “Chuck”  Colson. 
It was a time when few had anything good to say about the Nixon Administration following the revelations in the Washington Post newspaper about the break in at the Headquarters of the Democratic Party inWatergate Building. 
Rowing on the Potomac.  “See I told ya, he can’t even swim.! 
Colson was generally regarded as the President’s hatchet man.  He was quoted as saying that he would walk over his own grandmother to get Nixon re-elected.  He had, it was confidently believed, never had a humanitarian thought. 
Forty years ago, then, Colson was not thinking of reaching out to prison inmates, still less of  changing the penal system 
He was however,  and unknown to me, in serious trouble for getting the Internal Revenue Service to target so called “enemies” of the President with harassing tax investigations.  He was a worried man.  Then someone gave him C S Lewis’s book “ Mere Christianity” and it changed his life. 
When news of Colson's conversion to Christianity leaked to the press. One newspaper’s columnist wrote, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody." 
In 1974 Colson entered a plea of guilty to obstruction of justice and went to prison,  as both a new Christian and as the first member of the Nixon Administration to be jailed for Watergate-related charges. He served seven months 
After leaving prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, which has since become the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. It was founded in this country in 1979. 
The ideal of Prison Fellowship is that every prisoner should have access to prayer and practical support. In this country we do this through over 1700 volunteers and 115 prayer groups;  and practical initiatives such as the Sycamore Tree Course .
Chuck Colson died two years ago a penitent,  who had in my view been blessed with a redemption that is given to few of us to achieve.  He had a worldwide impact and proclaimed a powerful message.  In this country the nearest example of such redemption by a public figure in my lifetime is that of John Profumo, at one time MP for Kettering. 
Footprints in the sands of time.
Chuck Colson expressed his faith in these words. “I know the Resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.  Each of them suffered  in some way, some  beaten, tortured,  some stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 Apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.” 
HERE IN Britain. Crime and punishment are of course  two of the most controversial and fraught issues in our society.   A senior man in the Home Office told me a few years ago that a hundred years ago a man could walk the streets with a bag of opium in his pocket, an underage girl on his arm and a gun in his belt and the policeman, had he known of it,  would have wished him goodnight. 
“ Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime “ was Tony Blair’s memorable slogan.  I did some research.  In i997, the year he became Prime Minister,  there were 52 new laws that specified a possible term of imprisonment for those who broke them; by 2003, the annual tally was 181 new laws and there were another 174 in 2005 and 133 in 2007. 
Bizarrely, fishermen who do not ask for permission before fishing on the Lower Esk in Scotland can be sent to prison , as can anyone caught importing "an unauthorised veterinary product". 
And our laws lead to the 86,000 men and women who are today locked up in this country. That figure is, according to my calculation,  roughly 4 times greater than the population of Market Harborough.  
Yet most people do not want to know about prison and I feel that we need to examine our consciences about that.  
The number of people incarcerated in this country has doubled in the last 15 years to the point where we now have more prisoners than any other European  Union country.  That doubling of the prison population is due to the primarily punitive nature of the judicial system  rather than any significant increase in criminal activity.  It is what we call retributive justice. So when someone commits a crime, the object is to catch the offender, put them on trial and punish keeping them too frequently in prison until they get released, more often than not into  society that is indifferent to their fate.  Sixty percent of offenders return to prison within two years,  an appalling outcome as everyone seems to agree. 
The Sycamore Tree course run by Prison Fellowship, is about something quite different, an idea that is gradually gaining ground in this country - Restorative Justice.    
A restorative approach focuses on harm done, looks at the needs of those harmed and asks who is responsible for meeting those needs.  A restorative approach allows us to look at the full impact of crime,  at victims and communities affected by crime. But it also allows us to consider the offender and his family - who are all affected by the crime and by the offender’s criminal behaviour. This is the basis for Prison Fellowship’s Sycamore Tree course in which I took part at HMP Gartree recently as a “facilitator” . 
We begin with some brain teasers, games to get people into the mood for thinking. 
Then we turned to Story of Zacceus ( Zac)  from  St. Luke’s Gospel.  The tax collector who had exploited his wretched “customers” on behalf of the Romans for many years.  Zac, a small man, climbed the sycamore tree to see Jesus who was visiting Jericho and ended up giving supper to Jesus, turning his life around. Giving half his assets o the poor and to anyone whom he had cheated he restored fourfold. 
Although our first example of restorative justice was a biblical one, the Sycamore Tree course is not a  missionary exercise.  There were Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists on the course, and some no doubt of no faith ( I didn’t ask!)  We wanted to get the men thinking about Zac’s mind set.  What sort of man was he ?  What did people think of him?  We asked them to put themselves in Zac’s  mindset.   Big man in a small world, throwing his weight around,  but actually probably lonely and isolated. 
And how did his behaviour affect others those whom he had cheated ?  What was the ripple effect of Zac’s actions
We showed short documentary films about Restorative Justice  victim-offender meeting : making amends by putting something back.
At another session we took up the theme of taking responsibility for one’s actions  This was the session where the men were introduced to Lynn and Mick a middle aged couple whose son had been murdered in a street robbery in Liverpool. . They spoke of the shock, the emotional pain and the lasting effect of that crime on them and their community.  But they also spoke of their forgiveness, as Christians,  for the men who had killed their son. It was an enormously powerful message. 
We discussed repentance and restoration, epitomised in a short film entitled “The Woolf Within”  about an actual serial burglar, called Woolf,  who had been surprised during a robbery, battered his victim but been caught and sent. to prison where the victim had confronted him in an interview.  Repentance and forgiveness followed and the two are now collaborating in a programme to combat crime. 
Forgiveness,  Lynn and Mick  emphasised, is a struggle.  But it can help greatly to bring closure to the victim,  even if ( as in their case) it does not touch the offender.   The evidence is that victims want offenders to make amends by sorting out their lives. 
And sometimes offenders need to forgive themselves,  as they confront remorse about what they have done. 
These and other issues  are explored in two workbooks which the participants are asked to complete and bring back for comment and marking.  The last section is headed “ My Restoration Plan” and asks what obstacles and challenges the offender may come up against in making changes to his life.  It asks also “ When I make these changes who will benefit? If I do not make changes who will suffer ?   ( victims and wider community). 
Peer mentors
Literary issues are overcome on the wing. 
Final Session allows the participants to bring family members and in some cases friends to hear what the course has been about.  Lynn and Mick were also there.  The most important – but entirely optional - feature – is a symbolic act of restitution.  This could be a letter of apology to their parents, to the family of their victims, a poem, a picture or  a piece of art some kind, or whatever they felt they could hand over to express their feelings.  
Before that session some of the men had doubts whether they could  stand up in front of their peers and families and make such an act of repentance and restitution.  My group  consisting of Michael, Richard, Adam, Dan, Abdullah and Zeko all spoke.  It was a deeply moving, and unforgettable ( certainly for me)  experience for everyone, with nervous laughter,  hugs and some tears   
The man who would never get out and his donation. 
Going through my mind was that verse from Psalm 51  “The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. “
And here is how over 100 years ago Winston Churchill, as Home Secretary,  put the challenge of the treatment of offenders by our society as a whole:
“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilization in any country.   A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state, and even of convicted criminals against the state, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment,  a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment,  tireless efforts towards the discovery of regenerating processes,  and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure,  if you can only find it, in the heart of every man – these are the things which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”
Sycamore Tree aims to find that treasure in the heart of every participant. 
“Whatsoever thing thou does
To the least of mine and lowest
That thou doest unto me.” 
Teach us Good Lord to serve thee as thou deserves…..
