[easyazon_image add_to_cart=”default” align=”left” asin=”0062321366″ cloaking=”default” height=”160″ localization=”default” locale=”US” nofollow=”default” new_window=”default” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Nb8YiPnXL._SL160_.jpg” tag=”douloschristo-20″ width=”106″]Page 2: Chris Hoke – Wanted
Interlaced throughout the entire book is the story of Richard, a young man who was abandoned at birth and who frantically looks throughout his life for people to want him. Richard does bad things and gets locked up. In jail, he is a charismatic leader who drags other prisoners to the bible studies that Hoke and his mentor, Bob, lead together. When Hoke leads a study on the parable of the wedding feast, Richard jumps. He starts explaining it to everyone, excited that this God is sweeping through the streets, looking for people like him, people no one else wants.
In another story, Hoke travels to Guatemala and visits a recovery house for men who are detoxing and trying to start over. During a praise and worship time, they sing together (You saw me when nobody saw me, You loved me when nobody loved me) and it’s impossible not to see that these are exactly the people Jesus came for: the invisible, the unwanted. Hoke writes to David James Duncan, writer of The River Why and The Brother’s K, about homies recently released from prison and Duncan offers two free spots in a fly fishing course. The subsequent scene of locals who call the cops on the tattooed young men for merely showing up at well-known fishing spots reflects the social ostracism the homies face. In another chapter Hoke drives a five-year old girl to meet her absentee dad who is locked up in solitary confinement. The encounter with a daughter he has never met makes the prisoner shed his first tears in over fifteen years, breaking a dam within. Soon, he is weeping all the time (“Like a child, bro…I’m starting to let it all open me more to God”).
That’s not to say that Hoke is romanticizing gang life, but he humanizes the tough men by bringing us inside those jail cells. He shows us how Richard breaks into people’s homes, sometimes to steal, but sometimes to just plop down on the floral print sofa and look around at the living room–just to pretend that it’s his house, something that he never had growing up. Hoke takes us beyond the criminal records and statistics and shows us kindness and personality and hints of God’s transforming work around the edges. It makes me wonder more about the stories I consume through mainstream media everyday, the ones that justify our system, that prop up state actions against people. There is so much more, Hoke shows us, and it’s in these dark corners that God starts throwing sparks.
This is not a “how to” book on prison ministry among gang members. There is no altar call, no “let me show you by this miracle” sales pitch. Hoke sits with his own unanswered questions; his stories don’t tidy up. Some men re-offend, others get killed, one literally rots to death in prison. But the glimmers that Hoke sees, that he offers, of how God works in and through the lives of criminals, at the common humanity and desperation we all have, is enough to make me hopeful that God, indeed, is moving in the lives of people in this world.
In writing down their stories, Hoke gives comfortable Christian readers a solid jab in the side, showing how God is moving in society without them. How people on the outskirts are being blessed, how solitary confinement can be just as transforming as the monk’s cell, how scripture stories can speak new life into dead bodies. Hoke shows us what is valuable to God: all people, especially the despised ones, everywhere.
These are stories that the American church needs to hear. Because this is where Jesus is showing up again and again, opening the doors, pulling in people from off the streets, blessing the marginalized and those who find themselves drawn to them. We all need to be reminded of God’s priorities; at how wide, how deep, and how long His love runs. We all need glimmers of His elusive movement to have the courage to journey onward.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
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