A very long discernment

Luke Matthews is the only aspirant to ministry I’ve met who got his tattoos in prison. Incarcerated for arson and second-degree murder, he has spent much of the last two decades trying to figure out whether and how an inmate can become ordained to the Episcopal priesthood. With good behavior, he still has about eight more years of his sentence to serve. (I’ve changed both his name and some details about his crimes.)

I first heard of Luke because he wrote a Lenten devotional popular among nonincarcerated Episcopalians. Helping him with his ordination process, I believed, would help me reach more people in prison than I ever could by myself. I can preach to my congregation about how Moses committed murder, but for the incarcerated, that sermon would never have the same power coming from me as it would from someone who had actually committed murder.

I’d never been to a maximum-security men’s prison before I met Luke. I knew that his nickname was “Bear” and expected him to be towering, glowering, and bespectacled. After journeying past razor wire and seven slow buzzing gates, I mistook the smiling, bearded thirty-something man who greeted me with a handshake for an inmate entrusted to walk me to the frightening offender.