Hello, this is pastor gary from first baptist church of laplata. Today’s “Throwback Thursday” is from Tuesday, December 22, 2020. Back in the 80’s Russian comedian, Yakov Smirnoff used to celebrate the amazing opportunity of living in America by declaring, “What a country!” I had one of those moments the other day when I read that inmates in the county jail from where I used to live in Pennsylvania are getting their hourly wages doubled. Prisoners who have committed crimes worthy of losing their freedom get paid while in prison and just got a huge raise! What a country! These prisoners had not had an increase since 1996, but they now make an hourly rate of 40% more than current restaurant wait staff and about what I made when I worked a job in college. What a country! Let me get this straight: you commit a crime, you get caught, you go to jail, you are given a job, you get paid, and you get a raise. What a country! While prisoners don’t make a lot of money; and their earnings can only be used to purchase approved, overpriced personal items from an in-house vendor; and having a paying job builds a sense of personal responsibility, it still amazes me that prisoners get paid while they are incarcerated. Jesus did teach in Luke 10:7 that a “laborer is worthy of his hire,” but He was not addressing those who forfeited that right by committing crimes. I drove a fellow seminary student from Togo, West Africa, by a local prison in New Orleans on our way to church; he asked what the building was since it was surrounded by barbed wire fence. I told him it was a prison. He said, “In my country, people would be climbing the fence to get in.” I would never want to trade in my freedom, but, perhaps in America, prisons are not always the deterrent they are intended to be. What a country!
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