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Shame,
Schadenfreude
& Metanoia
A Sermon
by Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Emanuel Episcopal Church
Weston, Connecticut
Weston, Connecticut
Sunday, March 6, 2016,
10 am
Please
pray with me.
May the words of my
mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight Oh
Lord – our Rock and our Redeemer.
____________
Good morning. Welcome to Emanuel Episcopal
Church in Weston CT. My name is Jeff Grant. My wife Lynn Springer and I moved
to Weston about 2 ½ years ago, and we are so pleased to
call this community our home. We are
members of Norfield Congregational Church here in town, and have probably run
into many of you on our many excursions to Peter’s
Market.
We want to thank Rev. Katy Piazza and the vestry for
inviting us to worship with you this morning, and to be a part of your journey
through Lent and up to Easter.
_____________
On Easter Sunday 2006, exactly ten
years ago, I reported to Allenwood Low Security Corrections Institution in
White Deer, Pennsylvania, to serve my sentence of eighteen months in Federal
prison for a white-collar crime.
Upon reporting, a
guard came out and I showed him my court orders – he did not seem happy about
my reporting on Easter Sunday. As we went
through the metal door he spun me around, held my hands behind my back and slapped handcuffs on them. I had been anticipating
this moment for over a year and not once did I consider that I would have to be
handcuffed. At that moment I had my first inkling of how little I knew about surviving in prison.
Next, I was brought to a section called R & D, Receiving & Discharge, that felt very much like its title – a place for FedEx packages. I was processed and then told to strip naked. While I was standing naked in this cold room, on a cold cement floor, a man entered who I would later learn was the Head Lieutenant. He basically ran the day-to-day operations of the prison. Looking me up and down, he then asked me if I was the lawyer. I told him no, but that I used to be one. This answer seemed to please him. Then he told me then that inside there would be one former lawyer - that would be me - two former doctors, five former stockbrokers, and 1500 drug dealers.
Next, I was brought to a section called R & D, Receiving & Discharge, that felt very much like its title – a place for FedEx packages. I was processed and then told to strip naked. While I was standing naked in this cold room, on a cold cement floor, a man entered who I would later learn was the Head Lieutenant. He basically ran the day-to-day operations of the prison. Looking me up and down, he then asked me if I was the lawyer. I told him no, but that I used to be one. This answer seemed to please him. Then he told me then that inside there would be one former lawyer - that would be me - two former doctors, five former stockbrokers, and 1500 drug dealers.
I was given an
orange jumpsuit to put on, was re-cuffed and then was marched across the
compound to the SHU (which is the prison acronym for segregated
housing unit or solitary confinement). When I got to the SHU, it looked
like something out of the worst prison movie I had ever seen – dark and dimly
lit, with rows of metal doors with tiny holes in them. Inside the cell was a
narrow bunk bed – barely wide enough for a grown man’s
shoulders – a toilet, a sink, a desk and a chair. And there I met my first
“cellie” – a black man, about 50 years old, with dreadlocks down to his waist.
When I came in, he didn’t acknowledge my presence at all. He just pointed to
the upper bunk. I understood – that was mine.
His first words came about ten minutes later when he told me to move fast. The sound of a cart moving down the hall meant we had no time to lose. The slot on the metal cell door opened, and very quickly, four covered trays of food slid in through the slot. I understood what he meant by moving fast. If we didn’t catch the trays they would have dropped to the floor and the food would have spilled all over. He caught each tray and quickly handed them to me. I put them on the desk. We sat on the floor, dividing the dinner between us. Looking at the trays, I saw there was a little meat of some sort, and lots of bread, potatoes and rice. Starches were apparently the mainstay of the diet – I asked him if he wanted my potatoes and rice. With this offering, we became friends in no time. He told me his name was Raoul.
Almost everybody who was designated to Allenwood was first brought to the SHU, Raoul explained. There was no way to know how long I’d be in the SHU, but Raoul suspected that I wouldn’t have to wait long: I was a first timer, middle aged, and most importantly, I was white. I later learned that some inmates are kept in the SHU “waiting for a bed” thirty days or longer. I only had to wait 16 hours before I was released onto the compound.
His first words came about ten minutes later when he told me to move fast. The sound of a cart moving down the hall meant we had no time to lose. The slot on the metal cell door opened, and very quickly, four covered trays of food slid in through the slot. I understood what he meant by moving fast. If we didn’t catch the trays they would have dropped to the floor and the food would have spilled all over. He caught each tray and quickly handed them to me. I put them on the desk. We sat on the floor, dividing the dinner between us. Looking at the trays, I saw there was a little meat of some sort, and lots of bread, potatoes and rice. Starches were apparently the mainstay of the diet – I asked him if he wanted my potatoes and rice. With this offering, we became friends in no time. He told me his name was Raoul.
Almost everybody who was designated to Allenwood was first brought to the SHU, Raoul explained. There was no way to know how long I’d be in the SHU, but Raoul suspected that I wouldn’t have to wait long: I was a first timer, middle aged, and most importantly, I was white. I later learned that some inmates are kept in the SHU “waiting for a bed” thirty days or longer. I only had to wait 16 hours before I was released onto the compound.
__________
About a month ago, Lynn and I
met with Rev. Katy to discuss this morning’s sermon. We met in Katy’s study
next door, and what happened in that meeting was filled
with the Spirit. We opened our
hearts and souls to one another. We discussed our family issues, our pain, our brokenness,
and the ways in which we navigate life in a world
that often has little or no compassion, empathy or tolerance for those who are weak,
different or suffering. Katy challenged us regarding this morning’s sermon. She challenged us to be disruptors, to speak our truth this morning, to be real,
and to be authentic, so that everyone in the congregation and community might
be empowered to speak their truths as well.
So, I have come here this morning to live up to
Katy’s challenge, to do my very best to be real and authentic. My job is to testify about my story of
being transformed from a successful
New York corporate attorney, to becoming addicted to prescription painkillers,
to surviving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison, to receiving my Master
of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, to
becoming an inner city minister in Bridgeport, to founding,
with my wife Lynn, a prison ministry that supports individuals and families
with white-collar and nonviolent incarceration issues.
__________
The title of today’s sermon is,
“Shame, Schadenfreude & Metanoia.” I know those are mouthfuls. But they are perfect words to talk about the difficulties
and redemption stories in our lives, and to hold against today’s scripture
reading from Luke, The Parable of the
Prodigal Son.
Shame is a painful feeling of humiliation or
distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
Schadenfreude
is pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.
And Metanoia is a change in one's way of life resulting
from penitence or spiritual conversion. Shame, Schadenfreude, Metanoia.
How
many of us have experienced feelings of humiliation from
having done wrong or foolish things? Or experienced the indignities of stigma
and ostracism by others? Or experienced
a life altering event that led to a completely different way of looking at
things? I’m obviously not going to ask for a show of hands but I can tell you
that I have experienced all of these things, and on many days I still do.
___________
Today’s
reading from the Gospel of Luke, The Parable of the
Prodigal Son, is all about shame, schadenfreude and metanoia. It is a
story in which we learn that God wants us back even when we turn away from him. It is a story about a
family - a family in which each member has feelings and motivations, both
conscious and unconscious, about the things he
does and the things that his family members have done. It is about shame, stigma & ostracism,
and a new, redemptive way of looking at things.
We can read into this story so many deep feelings: the younger son’s wanderlust and need
to break away from the family, the deep shame and
remorse he felt when he exercised such poor judgment and squandered his
inheritance, and his humility and penitence in returning on his knees to his
family stripped of all worldly things;
We can imagine the older son’s envy and
jealousy, and perhaps sense of loss, in his younger brother’s leaving the
family to experience the world; and his schadenfreude,
and the stigma and ostracism he tried to inflict when his younger brother was
greeted by their father with open arms.
To a feast of fatted calf, no less.
And the father’s own shame when his younger
son left home and then lost all of his inheritance, and then his welcome in
greeting and honoring his fallen son, and in so doing teaching both of his sons
new and transformative lessons in metanoia, that
is, moving from shame and schadenfreude to lives of love, compassion and
empathy.
_____________________
I was released from prison in 2007 after
serving 13 ½ months, and had to do a stint in a halfway
house in Hartford, home detention and then three years of Federal
probation. I also had court ordered drug and alcohol
counseling. It was my counselor – a former Catholic Priest turned
drug counselor- who recommended to me that I rebuild my life through service
and volunteerism. I called my rehab, Silver Hill Hospital, and asked them
if I could come interview for a volunteer position –
they told me to come over that day. We sat and talked for almost two
hours, and importantly, I fully disclosed everything that that happened in the
past few years. They asked me to fill out an application and told me that
they were going to do a background check – I was nervous. I figured that
if my own rehab wouldn’t take me for a volunteer
job, who in the world would ever let me work for them? I didn’t have to
wait long. Two hours later my phone rang and I was a recovery volunteer
for Silver Hill Hospital. This led me next to becoming a volunteer
house manager at Liberation House in Stamford, CT, and then to Family Reentry,
a nonprofit serving the incarcerated affected community in Bridgeport and New
Haven, CT. This was the first organization that asked me to serve on its Board
of Directors. My first project was with my then girlfriend Lynn – now my
wife. We worked with Family Reentry’s
formerly incarcerated persons and converted a blighted
inner city block in Bridgeport into the largest privately owned public
use park and garden in the State of Connecticut. It is an oasis and completely revitalized that
neighborhood.
All this time we were living in Greenwich and I was attending
recovery meetings – and I became known as the “prison
guy.” I was sharing about going to prison, surviving prison, and
staying sober through the entire experience. Soon hedge fund guys and
others who had white-collar legal problems were seeking me out. Over those ten years, I must have met with and
counseled over one hundred guys in various
stages of going to or coming back from prison. It was an eye opening
experience and I had no idea that it was going to turn into a ministry. I
was just putting one foot ahead of another.
I went to a Reverend at the church that we were attending in
Greenwich, and told him that I was searching for
something more meaningful. He recommended that I apply to Union
Theological Seminary in New York City. And I did. I was accepted to
Union Theological Seminary, went to school there for three years and earned a
Master of Divinity with a Focus in Christian Social Ethics.
A few months later, while still working with white-collar
families in Greenwich and doing reentry work in Bridgeport, I accepted an offer
from The First Baptist Church of Bridgeport for Lynn and I to start a prison ministry at the church. You have
no idea how blessed we felt to have come from where we came from, and to have a
life of service in a community where we could really
make a difference. And where they could make a profound difference
in us.
I started to blog about the
experience of working in the hood during in the day, and with white-collars in
the evening - when I received a call from a reporter at a Hedge Fund Magazine
who had read my blog – he asked me if I was the “Minister
to Hedge Fund Guys?” He asked if I would do an interview.
And I told him that I would on one condition: that the story is about the
creation of new form of ministry – an authentic ministry – that offers a safe space for people from our communities who
are suffering in silence, to share their stories and find support. What resulted
was a sensitive and powerful interview that caught the attention of a lot of
people.
The amazing response from this article resulting
in our founding of the Progressive Prison Project and the Innocent Spouse &
Children Project, the first ministry in the United States created to provide support and counseling to
individuals and families with white-collar and other nonviolent incarceration
issues. These families are everywhere around us – they are in our
own town of Weston and in the towns surrounding us – suffering in silence. They receive so little compassion and empathy
- and are so easy to "other" - by a world that is all too eager
to believe the next sensationalized headline and to ignore the human
side.
Lynn and I now devote our lives to ministering white-collar individuals
and families. The wives and children in these matters are innocents of situations not of their own doing, in
situations where they have often not been independently represented, in which
husbands and fathers have gone to prison often leaving them penniless,
homeless, shunned by their communities. For these mothers and children,
we have assembled teams of ministers, advocates,
lawyers, counselors and other professionals to protect them and get them safely
through to a new life in a new family dynamic on the other side of prison.
As I see it, the biggest tragedy of all about
white-collar and nonviolent crime is not how big the
matter is, or sensationalized the headlines - it is in our
failure to see it as an authentic human story, with real people, real brokenness, and real families left
behind.
____________
So where does this leave us now? Well, it certainly leaves me filled with gratitude that we live in a wonderful and welcoming community, doing the purposeful and fulfilling
ministry that God has called us to do.
But I would be lying if I didn’t admit to you that on some
days I wake up feeling the old tug of shame. Feeling like I don’t have a friend in the
world. Feeling like we don’t fit in,
like everyone around us has more, like nobody could possibly understand what our
life is about, or anything that we have gone through. Feeling like everyone is
staring at us with schadenfreude, pointing at
the guy who went to prison.
On these days, when I can feel helpless, alone, sad, or depressed,
my job, my calling, requires me to get back to a state of metanoia. Spiritual
practice is key. So I go through my morning ritual of faithful prayer, meditation, spiritual reading and recovery meetings. Most days, by 8:30 am I am recharged, feeling God’s abundance, full of the Spirit and re-committed
to a life of service, and compassion and empathy for others. One day at a time.
Thank you for this
opportunity to be of service to this congregation and our community. May God Bless You and
Keep You Always. Amen.
__________
DONATIONS
We
are grateful for all donations to our Ministries that enable us to grow, reach
out and serve this community for which there is far too little understanding,
compassion and empathy. Donations can be made by credit card/PayPal here, at the "Donate" button on on our
site, prisonist.org or by sending
your check payable to: "Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc." P.O. Box
1232, Weston, Connecticut 06883.
Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. is a CT Religious Corp. with 501c3 status - all donations
are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Thank you for your support
and generosity.
__________
If you, a friend or a family member are
experiencing a white-collar or nonviolent incarceration issue, please contact
us and we will promptly send you an information package by mail, email or via
Dropbox.
The darkest days of a person's life can be a
The darkest days of a person's life can be a
time of renewal and hope
__________
Progressive Prison Project/
Innocent Spouse & Children Project
Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
(o) 203-769-1096
(m) 203-339-5887
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Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, Minister/Director
jgrant@prisonist.org
(o) 203-769-1096
(m) 203-339-5887
Linked In
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Lynn Springer, Founding Advocate, Innocent Spouse & Children Project
lspringer@prisonist.org
lspringer@prisonist.org
(203) 536-5508
George Bresnan, Advocate, Ex-Pats
gbresnan@prisonist.org
(203) 609-5088
Jim Gabal, Development
jgabal@prisonist.org
(203) 858-2865
Babz Rawls Ivy, Media Contact
mediababz@gmail.com
(203) 645-9278
