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I. It was a game, "Prisoners and Free People," at Junior High Pilgrim Fellowship Rally.
A. I communicated the directions.
1. As students enter, ask them to make name tags, pin them on chests, and draw a colored slip. Direct them to sit in a large circle.
2. Open with introductions if necessary, and explain they'll be playing a simulation game followed by discussion. Ask students to reverse and re-pin name tags so name is hidden.
3. Ask help in forming a "barricade" across the middle of the room with folding chairs, tables, or whatever is handy and easily moved. Leave one opening.
a. Students holding one color of paper go to one side where they will be "prisoners."
b. Students holding the other color will be "free people."
4. Close the opening with a chair.
B. Read the rules aloud:
1. RULES:
a. No one can leave the room - it is our world!
b. Prisoners are supposed to stay in jail.
c. Free men are supposed to represent society.
d. No further directions will be given, and it will be up to participants to end the game.
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C. Instructions to the leader included:
1. Sit down in a neutral place on the free side and
check the time!
2. You may answer noncommitally if asked questions.
3. Do not attempt to solve problems or be apart of the solution!
4. Non-direction is exactly what we want students to experience.
5. Do not leave the room.)
6. Don't be alarmed if there's nothing but chatter and/or long silences.
7. After 10 minutes, quietly remove one chair, and sit down again.
a. Almost anything can start at this point.
b. If nothing happens within five minutes, remove another chair.
8. After 20 minutes, remove the entire barricade if no
one has done so, and call the students together for discussion.
9. Ask them to sit down in a circle for discussion.)
a. Begin discussion casually with loose questions:
(1) What went through your heads?
(2) What did you think was happening?
(3) What did you think prisoners were expected to do?
(4) What did you think free men should do? (Accept all suggestions for improvement, such
as "more teacher direction," "refreshments for free men," etc.)
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D. Read from "Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?, page 50, beginning at 2nd paragraph, through 2nd paragraph page 51, then ask such questions as:
INTERPERSONAL ENCOUNTER AN THE FIVE LEVELS OF
COMMUNICATION
Someone has aptly distinguished five levels of communication on which persons can relate
to one another. Perhaps it will help our understanding of these levels to visualize a
person locked inside of a prison. It is the human being, urged by an inner insistence to
go out to others and yet afraid to do so. The five levels of communication, which will be
described a little later, represent five degrees of willingness to go outside of himself,
to communicate himself to others.
The man in the prison—and he is Everyman—has been there for years, although
ironically the grated iron doors are not locked. He can go out of his prison, but in his
long detention he has learned to fear the possible dangers that he might encounter. He has
come to feel some sort of safety and protection behind the walls of his prison, where he
is a voluntary captive. The darkness of his prison even shields him from a clear view of
himself, and he is not sure what he would look like in broad daylight. Above all, he is
not sure how the world, which he sees from behind his bars, and the people whom he sees
moving about in that world, would receive him. He is fragmented by an almost desperate
need for that world and for those people, and, at the same time, by an almost desperate
fear of the risks of rejection he would be taking if he ended his isolation.
This prisoner is reminiscent of what Viktor Frankl writes in his book, Man's Search for
Meaning, about his fellow prisoners in the Nazi 'concentration camp at Dachau. Some of
these prisoners, who yearned so desperately for their freedom, had been held captive so
long that, when they were eventually released, they walked out into the sunlight, blinked
nervously and then silently walked back into the familiar darkness of the prisons, to
which they had been accustomed for such a long time.
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1. In the game we played these questions were asked:
a. What fears would prisoners have?
b. What fears would free people have?
2. What similarity do you see between the game and
real life?
3. How do we see ourselves, as free people or prisoners?
4. When do we see ourselves as prisoners?
5. What situations make us prisoners?
6. In what situations are we free?
7. When we're imprisoned, how do we see free people? (For example, "I have to earn my
money, your parents give you yours.")
8. When we're free, how do we see prisoners?
9. How do prisoners and free men see our leaders (teachers, parents, officials, police)?
E. There were more probing questions to get at the heart of the fears that bind us and the freedom that is to be found in relationship to God.
F. What was amazing to me was that nothing happened.
1. The prisoners met together and talked and played
their own games.
2. The free people did the same.
G. The game was fun but the experience produced mixed results.
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MAIN BODY:
I. Life is not a game.
II. The world is a vast prison in which we are incarcerated.
SONNETS, Lois Kilgore
The few dead leaves still hanging from the tree
Scratch helplessly, wind-tossed, against the, bark
Of frosted branches winter-trimmed and stark,
Stiff relics left from summer's greenery.
Such freezing cold as knifes the flesh would be
To men so bound more torment than their woe
At wishing they could will themselves to go
Where other happier leaves lie peacefully.
This tortured grace God gives to those who fear
His ever dimly known mysterious way:
Unending hours, imprisonment.
They hear The call of love outside and far away.
No language but their clinging cry makes clear
They only scratch the bark of any day.
III. Most of the prisoners are not in jail, the imprisonment is of the mind.
A. Richard Lovelace wrote in "To Althea from Prison"
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
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B. Ignorance is a prison.
1. Consider those who cannot read or write.
2. Consider those who fail to understand social relationships.
C. Faulty thinking is a prison.
D. Blaming is a prison.
E. Irresponsibility is a prison.
F. People who believe that everything is relative are prisoners.
G. Individuals who believe that there are rules to live by which can be applied across the board are prisoners.
IV. God wants us to be free.
A. One of the people in the Bible who is most free is Paul.
1. He declares that he is also a prisoner.
a. (Ephesians 3:1-6 NRSV)
(1) [1] This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— [2] for surely you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, [3] and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, [4] a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. [5] In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: [6] that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
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2. What is pointed out here very clearly is that at one time the Gentiles were also prisoners.
a. False religious system
b. Without faith
c. Without hope
B. What does it mean to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ?
1. In Christ there is freedom.
a. (Galatians 5:1 NRSV) For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
2. Love of Christ constrains us.
a. (2 Corinthians 5:14 KJV) For the love of Christ constraines us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
3. Do not worry
a. (Matthew 6:31-34 NRSV) Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' [32] For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. [33] But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. [34] "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
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4. You will know the truth and the truth will make you free
5. If you know the Son you will be free indeed.
(John 8:31-36 NRSV) Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; [32] and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." [33] They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?" [34] Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. [35] The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. [36] So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
CONCLUSION:
I. We trap ourselves into webs of the prisons we create.
A. Story of two university students
1. Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as "Bonkistry."
2. He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past him to come up with something like this.
3. Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterm and labs, etc, such that going into the final they had a solid A.
4. These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday), they decided to go up to U. Virginia and party with some friends up there.
a. So they did this and had a great time.
b. However, with there hangovers and everything,
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5. They overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.
6. Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor Bonk after the final and explain to him why they missed the final.
a. They told him that they went to U. Va. for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus.
b. Bonk thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following day.
7. The two guys were elated and relieved.
a. So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that Bonk had told them.
b. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin.
c. They looked at the first problem, which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth 5 points.
(1) "Cool" they thought, "this is going to be easy."
(2) They did that problem and then turned the page.
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8. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page.
a. It said: (95 points)
b. Which tire?
II. Which tire? That's the problem we face.
A. We live in the prison of a world.
B. We deeply desire to be free.
C. We try everything to get free; to live free.
D. But there is a test that we each must face.
1. Some of the answers are easy.
2. But then there is the question about which tire.
III. God comes along and says he can help us to meet the test.
A. God is the God of freedom.
B. In God there is freedom.
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