I SAW JESUS' PRAYER FOR UNITY ANSWERED
Edward Fudge

    Damp fog shrouds the gun-towers as we get out of the car. It is early in the morning on the first day of the week, November 30, 1986. Before us, sepulchre-like in the grayness, looms the Eastham Unit, Texas Department of Corrections. This is the place Newsweek recently called "America's Toughest Prison."

    The steel gate opens in response to a guard's electronic command and we walk through. Then, like some heavy stone rolled against the door, the gate swings shut behind us, its metallic clang breaking the pre-dawn stillness. Passing through a front building, we wind our way through succession of checkpoints and bars into the prison's deeper belly.

    Over one door a sign announces: "Through this door enter Texas' finest prison personnel." I see the words, but my thoughts go to others by Dante: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Apart from Jesus Christ, these words would be equally appropriate. But Jesus Christ does make the difference, as we will see over the next few hours, and he is the reason we are all here this morning.

    When the Newsweek story came out, I remembered long-time friend Vance Drum, now Protestant chaplain at Eastham prison. I recalled how Vance had told with great excitement of changed lives inside this formidable place. I remembered his holy smile, that pushed his mustache toward both ears and lit his eyes like sparkling stars, as he described the church inside this prison. A church with elders and deacons, no less, made up of convicted rapists, murderers and armed robbers.

    There is another story here, I thought, as I read Newsweek. My friend Randy Frame, news writer at Christianity Today, agreed. So Vance and I prepared an interview. Joel Andrews, a Christian photographer from Palestine, drove over to do his thing, and, in early November, Christianity Today reported the story Newsweek had not. "God is Also 'Inside America's Toughest Prison.'" The same One who sees into Sheol also moves easily inside Eastham. Now it would be my privilege to observe it first-hand.

    It is now approaching 9:00 a.m. Sunday school is over and we are gathered in the Chapel of Hope. Vance's Sunday morning service borrows the best of forms from across the Christian spectrum. We begin with invigorating praise choruses--"Pentecostal," if you please. I am moved deeply as hardened criminals, now softened by the gentle hand of heaven, pour out their hearts in the expressive words and music. Vance leads the Chaplain's Prayer--to the point and without flowery rhetoric. Hispanic, Black and Anglo "amens" punctuate the prayer as it progresses, and affirm it heartily at its end.

    Traditional hymns follow--then several selections from the largely Black choir. This "jubilee" music tells the way things really are: sinking sinners, a rescuing Savior, hearts set free and filled with hope. Even inside these walls of concrete and steel and fences topped with razor-wire.

    Vance has graciously invited me to give a message from the Scriptures, and I talk concerning the prayer Jesus gave as a model for disciples in Matthew 6. The 100-150 men present are attentive as we think together about the heavenly father and the kind of father he is. We reflect on the blessings we enjoy today in his kingdom, by his power and to his glory: daily bread, forgiveness of sins, deliverance from evil. And we anticipate the ultimate fulfilment of this prayer in that time when on earth, just as in heaven, God's name will be perfectly hallowed, his kingdom fully come, his will always done.

    This is a special day for Vance for still another reason. He is to be ordained this afternoon into the ministry of The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), having preached previously for Churches of Christ. Because the prison elders obviously cannot attend that service, Vance asks them to participate now in advance. They gather around their chaplain and lay hands on him--black hands, white hands, brown hands--lifting fervent prayers to the one God and Father of all, that he will fill Vance afresh with his Holy Spirit and empower him for the particular needs of his unique ministry. The prison service climaxes, like those in the earliest Church with the Communion.

    I find myself thinking that this place cannot be as bad as I had read, judging from the peace and joy which illuminates these faces. When we leave the chapel later, however, and pass other faces in the corridors--faces that are hopeless, bitter and empty--I realize that it is that bad, and worse. Jesus makes all the difference. By the time we leave the prison, the sun is shining and the fog is gone. Indeed, the Sun of Righteousness has risen, with healing in his wings!

    Vance's ordination service included the reading of Scripture and special music by brothers and sisters from the Baptist, Bible and Episcopal churches, and a Black minister from the Church of God in Christ. At the laying on of hands, Vance kneels, and the elders of the host congregation, the First Christian Church of Crockett, surround him. The presiding minister then invites the elders and clergy of other denominations present to join the circle. "We believe in the oneness of Christ's Church," he says. Though a small assembly, it is representative of the Christians in this small east Texas town. Along with Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Bible, Episcopal and Catholic representatives, I am thrilled to join the circle as an elder in a Church of Christ. I bring to Vance's continuing ministry the prayers and best wishes of all those of his former association who see this as a continuing step in his pilgrimage to heaven, rather than as a mark of his final departure from the faith.

    We repeat together the symbol of our common faith, the Apostles Creed. "I believe in one holy, catholic church." Or, as Thomas Campbell would put it, "The Church of Christ is essentially and constitutionally one." I have no doubt that Jesus takes pleasure in this as well. "That they all may be one," he had prayed. We are making slow progress--not by organizational amalgamation but by individual recognition of other members of the one family which is in heaven and on earth. We still have much to learn. But there is also much for which we can give thanks.

    Now we take the Communion--again a visible symbol of the one, universal Body of Christ. It is a glorious day. I have seen Jesus' prayer for unity answered today. It was beautiful to behold. --Box 218026, Houston, TX 77218.