Everyone Is Worthy

One of my favorite examples of the way I think that which some call God works comes from 19th century Universalist Hosea Ballou. He would talk about a God who, as a parent, loves all God’s children:

“Your child has fallen into the mire, and their body and their garments are defiled. You cleanse them, and array them in clean robes. The query is, Do you love your child because you have washed them? Or, Did you wash them because you loved them?”

That’s Love. Capital-L Love. Expansive, all-encompassing, more powerful and healing than our human brains can begin to imagine. Love tells us EVERYONE is worthy, no matter how dirty or downtrodden, no matter how many mistakes they’ve made, no matter where they are right now.

Now on a personal level, that’s sometimes hard to reckon with - does this apply to me too, with all my faults and mistakes? yes.

And sometimes we have a really hard time reconciling this idea with people who unrepentantly perpetrate harm. Yet somewhere in this expansive Love, there is room for them too. They too are worthy. Fortunately, we aren’t called to like them or put up with their bullshit - and in fact, we’re called to promote goodness. Generosity. Justice and Equity.

But there’s a third category some of y’all forget about: those who are out of sight.

I mean those in prison.

How many times do we turn our gaze when driving past the jail or a penitentiary? How many times do we cast a judgmental eye toward someone who’s struggling to find work after they’re released? How many times do we silently expect people to be recidivists? How many times do we classify people based on their criminal record like we live in a caste system (which, spoiler, we do here in the US, whether we call it that or not)?

And why are you denying Capital-L Love to them?

It’s time for us to remember that when we put our faith into action in the community, that doesn’t just mean the ones we judge as worthy. It means everyone. Everyone.

I learned this when I was a learning fellow at the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF), in 2015-16. For those who don’t know, CLF started as a ministry for military personnel back in the Second World War, and expanded to expats, the isolated, and the housebound. By 2015, CLF had started online worship services (a skill that helped us tremendously when the pandemic started), and we had started a prison ministry - sending our monthly magazine and letters to those in prisons who relied on our message of Love.

When I was there, we served about 600 individuals experiencing incarceration. And during that time, a concerted effort was made to expand the ministry to include more in-person visits, spread our good news, and network with other organizations to address the larger problems with our current prison system. With now nearly 2,000 CLF members who are incarcerated, we are making a difference. And this past June, CLF successfully shepherded a congregational study action through the UUA General Assembly to encourage all of us to work toward meaningful abolition; from their website:

“Abolition is a holistic approach to systemic social change that includes, but is not limited to: the abolition of slavery; replacing systems and cultures of violence, coercion and control with transformative justice and relational practices; and dismantling the prison-industrial complex as we now know it. It requires the transformation of our society and the replacement of our current public theologies of retributive justice and violence.”

The work is plentiful - both in studying and taking action on these issues, but also for the religious professionals stewarding this work at CLF.

This matters.

And it’s not free.

Yes… I am using my platform to ask you to support a worthy cause that helps all of us, whether Unitarian Universalist or not, to live into the Love we know exists and the value we place on ALL human lives.

I’m asking you today to support the CLF Worthy Now Prison Ministry, and I’d love your help.

Worthy Now connects nearly 2,000 Unitarian Universalists experiencing incarceration with worship, pastoral care, and beloved community. The prison system isolates and dehumanizes — but Worthy Now says: you are not forgotten, you are worthy now.

Our goal is to raise $25,000 together to sustain this life-saving ministry. Every gift, no matter the size, makes a real difference.

I’m thrilled to be joining a team of other former CLF fellows, who all believe in this work. Please donate through my team link today and help us break through the walls of isolation with love and community:
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/team/team-learning-fellows

Thank you for supporting this vital ministry with me.

Thank you for remembering that Everyone Is Worthy.

This message is important. Please share widely.

Cover image is from the worthynow.org website.