S-I-N-G-S is for Spiritual Incarceration Needs Gospel Strategy

When I got to the monthly gathering of the Lay School of Ministry where I teach, I picked out the dinner table where Jared Redfield, a favorite student who graduated last year, and a lawyer, was seated with his wife Linda, who will graduate this year, and another member of their church who is just starting. They were discussing the Lutheran church and our trouble evangelizing, both simply inviting people to church or actually telling unchurched people about our faith. Jared, who parts his reddish hair in the middle, and lets it go a little long in the back, said that Lay School should help. I asked him to be specific, and am glad I did, because I got the wonderful report that I am here sharing with you.

How often did he talk to people about his faith before Lay School, and how often does he now, I asked. Jared said, "Before Lay School, never. Now, almost daily." "Really?" I said, and he was off and running.

"Look, I do basically OWI [Operating a motor vehicle While Intoxicated], divorce and bankruptcy. So the people I see have already hit bottom. My legal strategy is to present to the judge a repentant client." I hooted! "Wait a minute," I said. "So the Gospel is useful for a legal strategy?"

"Sure. Take an OWI. I say, 'You got in trouble because of too much drinking, that is true, but...98% of OWIs are alcoholic. That is the problem behind the drinking. And alcoholism has an important spiritual component, at least according to AA,' so we are very quickly at a place where, if I am really going to help my client, I have to get to the bottom, and encourage him to see how God can fill the hole in his life. If I can, then we have something important to take to the judge."

"Be careful," broke in Linda, "you don't want to sound like attorney N."

"What is that?" I said.

"He is the one that comes up, puts his arm around you and says, 'Well, as a good Christian attorney, I'm sure you see things my way,'" Linda explained.

"In fact," said Jared, "One of the two judges I almost always deal with is a very strong Christian, president of his congregation. We have talked a lot. Believe me, that has not always led to favorable decisions! He once told me in chambers that I had better not pander to his deeply felt Christian faith."

"I understand, I think. His faith is important to him, and he is willing to recognize how it would be an important factor in a person, and even influence his sentencing, but everything has to be solid and have legal integrity."

"Right. And there is no point in presenting a client who has 'found Jesus.' The client needs to show remorse and that he has done something."

"Bear fruits that befit repentance," I interrupted.

Jared Redfield Law and Gospel

"Sure. The client should already have established a program, like AA. Then we are in a good position to argue for treatment rather than incarceration.

"That is the argument that I make all over the state. 'What will really make society better?' The D.A. argues with me; he thinks wrong actions need punishment, and he is right. But there are two other legs to the stool: the message to the community, and rehabilitation. I want to deal with the alcoholism. Statistically, AA is as effective as in-patient programs. It is effective because of the first step, because it acknowledges God."

"So you tell your OWI clients that you realize that their problem is bigger than the legal one, and you want to help them, so you end up talking about spiritual things, about God and your faith. All this is not only for their whole well-being, but also fits your legal strategy!"

"Yeah. In fact, the ABA [American Bar Association] encourages us now to be counselors, not just litigants, to try to help clients with their lives. I talk to other lawyers, too. Alcoholism is the bane of the legal profession--"

"You mean, not only the clients, but the lawyers, too?"

"Yeah. I have also talked with a judge and encouraged him to come to Lay School. I tell him, 'You are the voice of the community in all the cases you deal with. Think how much better you could understand these important things in people's lives, and speak to them, if you also had the perspective and the vocabulary that comes from Lay School.'

"Now, the second kind of case I handle is divorce. Everyone is devastated. Always. As you talked about in the class session we had on marriage and sex, there is an intimacy in marriage, no matter how bad the marriage has become, that just tears people horribly to take it apart. So, there, too, I say, 'Look, you are going to need some kind of faith to get through this.' And you know, not once, not once, has anyone ever said, "Let's not get into this religious stuff.' But that is because my offer always comes up in the context of great need.

"The opportunity was always there. Just now I am taking it."

"Yeah, you haven't changed jobs. Or -- in a sense you have!"

"The other kind of work I do is bankruptcy. I tell people, Jesus talked about money a lot. Look in the Bible on how to deal with money."

"You really say that?"

"Sure. I say, 'This is a spiritual crisis you are in.'"

Helping people in crisis. That's what attorneys do. It is also what Jesus did. And even though the crisis may have presented itself chiefly as, for example, a medical one, with Jesus it always was, also, spiritual. What my friend Jared has done, is to hit on a way of working "Jesus-style": holistically, seeing the spiritual depth of the problem beneath the legal symptoms.

That sounds so much like Crossings, no wonder it fits in this publication so well. The initial diagnosis could come from anywhere: the legal field (bankruptcy), medicine (an abused liver) or social relations (divorce). But, if not always, often there is a spiritual problem also, a faith problem.

I was impressed by three things. One is how very often and very much Jared brought his faith into his daily work. Second, how many opportunities he had for it, how many devastated people he could help not only legally, but as a believing Christian. Third, how receptive nearly everyone was: clients, judges and fellow lawyers. How good that Jared had the courage, and how good that Lay School of Ministry strengthened him, to bring the Truth Himself into his daily work.

Jared did not change jobs, but he did change his job. Or, let us say, he expanded it. "Lawyer and Priest" is not what his business card says, but that is what he is. ("Priest," in Latin, is pontifex, "bridge-builder"). That is lay ministry in the best sense. Thanks be to God!

tbcm