Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 1, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Open prison doors
Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth,
who have observed his law;
seek justice, seek humility;
perhaps you may be sheltered
on the day of the LORD’s anger.
So many years, so many meetings, so many prayers and weddings, so many inmates in Illinois, all with a letter and five numbers after their surname. Guards and residents alike in the correctional centers in Illinois go by their last names. Often that first, more personal name gets lost in the shuffle.
I’ve spent only one night in jail, in a city cell with my friend Paul in 1968. We were driving/riding Paul’s Harley far too fast on I-94 outside Chicago through an autumn rainstorm. The officer trailed us for a few minutes with his lights on, then the siren screamed out his displeasure at how we kept not looking back into the traffic to see him telling us to stop.
How could he NOT take us to jail in Hammond, Indiana? Didn’t he want to keep us alive? But our cinema professor Kathy Griffin rescued us the next day. She wasn’t much older than we were, and I think she kind of envied us.
But now, after forty or so years of Kogudus prison retreats all over Illinois, after years of Sunday evening services at Danville Correctional Center with several UIUC students and usually around 50 inmates (stories from those years rich with joy, sorrow, irony, laughter and gratitude), now I officiate weddings.
Several times a year, winter and summer, inmates tell the chaplain they would like to get married, he sends a letter out to their fiancées, they call me (or someone else they know) and within a month or so I drive up from Austin, the licenses are signed, rings are exchanged, vows spoken, and the kisses joyfully given and received.
Last week I officiated nine weddings on Wednesday morning in the DCC visiting room. The atmosphere seemed even happier than usual. I walked around the room, sun shining in on a nearly zero degree day outside, asking, “Are you getting married?” Nine of the twelve couples said YES. I recognized their names, retrieved their license and their personalized ceremony, and we found a quiet spot in the corner, prayed, smiled, made our promises, wept with joy. I pronounced them married. Husband and wife. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.
God loves those kids. All the children of the world. One of the women flew to Illinois from Phoenix, braving the outrageous temperatures and negotiating plane changes and cancellations. She sent me a very grateful text the next day. Another woman has been waiting for a year and we’ve stayed in touch off and on. She and her quiet husband shared beautiful vows they’d written alongside the traditional ones, for better or for worse, till death do us part …
Wedding rings must be made from specific, cuttable metals. Tungsten, for example, is very hard and can’t be cut. This is not acceptable in the prison. My own ring had to be cut off many years ago when my left hand scraped over a broken bottle while I swam in Lulu Lake. I screamed. My friend took me to the hospital, and they cut off my ring. I still have it.
I lost my second ring a year ago and replaced it with three inexpensive stainless steel rings colored gold, silver and black. On Wednesday I was wearing the gold one. When her tungsten ring was rejected, I offered mine. How about this one? Stainless steel was just fine, the chaplain said. She smiled, she accepted. In the visiting room her fiancee’s finger was clearly, but he kept the ring. Smiling. Does it get much better than that?
One more story – a couple with a young daughter, about 18 months old, sat in the back of the visiting room. I was tired, my voice was a bit hoarse. The baby was asleep. “How about we just sit here at the table and have your wedding here?” Sure.
But first, the inmate said … “I’ve done things in my past I’m not proud of. And she can’t let them go.” He looked across the table at his daughter and her mom. They were ready to tie the knot, but …
“I’ve forgiven him,” she said reluctantly. “But I still feel angry.”
At our Kogudus prison retreats, the fifteen volunteers and sixty or so inmates stood in a circle on Saturday night after we shared a meal together. Our pastor-leader explained what we were going to do and asked the inmate next to him to kneel. He put his hand on the bowed head of … let’s call him David.
“David, in the name of Jesus … all your sins are forgiven.” And David stood, turned to the next guy and repeated the beautiful words. Over and over around the circle. All of us, especially the tough incarcerated guys in blue jeans and work shirts, struggled with our tears.
So last week, sitting at the table with them, I asked “David” to bow his head and said those words. “David, in the name of Jesus, all your sins are forgiven.” And then, eyes wide, he leaned over and put his hand on his fiancee’s head. “In the name of Jesus, all your sins are forgiven.”
Then she looked at me, and at her friend, and said, “Can I do this with him too?” And she did.
I guess maybe I was the only one with tears in my eyes. They just looked happy, the old feeling of failure and resentment falling away from them both on this new day. We went on with the ceremony. Jeremiah’s gift from God … plans to give him hope and a future … belonged now to them as well, not just as separate man and woman, but as one flesh.
“When you come and pray to God TOGETHER, he will listen to you.”
But I will leave as a remnant in your midst
a people humble and lowly,
who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD:
They shall do no wrong
and speak no lies;
nor shall there be found in their mouths
a deceitful tongue.
I’m getting older. My voice is often hoarse. Sometimes I have what seems like double vision, and I had to close one eye to see the words I was sharing with them more clearly. After awhile I wanted to sit down rather than stand for the seventh … eighth … ninth wedding. It worked out, though. And I felt so happy. Just like I always do. We’re all in this together.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
In the prison’s parking lot, about to leave, I saw one of the women in the car next door, the gal who’d been waiting for a year. I had shared my clean blue farmer’s handkerchief with her in the ceremony when she began to cry and it became very difficult for her to read her vows. We rolled down our windows.
“Thank you so much! It was wonderful to be married to the friend I’ve loved so long, and during our ceremony I didn’t feel at all like we were in a prison! Thank you.”
I smiled, felt my own tears again. “I’m so glad! That’s exactly what we hope for.”
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
We put our cars in gear and drove on back home.
 (Zephaniah 2, Psalm 146, 1 Corinthians 1, Matthew 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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