On a quiet Sunday morning in August of 1971, a Palo Alto, California, police car swept through the town picking up college students as part of a mass arrest for violation of Penal Codes 211, Armed Robbery, and Burglary, a 459 PC. Suspects were picked up at their homes, charged, warned of their legal rights, spread-eagled against the police car, searched, and handcuffed -- often as surprised and curious neighbors looked on. Suspects were then put in the rear of the police car and carried off to the police station, the sirens wailing.
What suspects had done to warrant such punishment was to answer a local newspaper ad calling for volunteers in a study of the psychological effects of prison life. Dr. Philip Zimbardo and his team at Stanford wanted to see what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard.
The study of prison life began, then, with an average group of healthy, intelligent, middle-class males. These boys were arbitrarily divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners. There were no differences between boys assigned to be a prisoner and boys assigned to be a guard.
The prison was constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford's Psychology Department building. That corridor was "The Yard" and was the only outside place where a prisoners were allowed to walk, eat, or exercise, except to go to the toilet down the hallway (at which point they were blindfolded so as not to know the way out of the prison). To create prison cells, they took the doors off some laboratory rooms and replaced them with specially made doors with steel bars and cell numbers.
The prisoner was then issued a uniform. The main part of this uniform was a dress, or smock, which each prisoner wore at all times with no underclothes. On the smock, in front and in back, was his prison ID number. On each prisoner's right ankle was a heavy chain, bolted on and worn at all times. Rubber sandals were the footwear, and each prisoner covered his hair with a stocking cap made from a woman's nylon stocking.
As with real prisoners, our prisoners expected some harassment, to have their privacy and some of their other civil rights violated while they were in prison, and to get a minimally adequate diet -- all part of their informed consent agreement when they volunteered.
Every aspect of the prisoners' behavior fell under the total and arbitrary control of the guards. Even going to the toilet became a privilege which a guard could grant or deny at his whim. Indeed, after the nightly 10:00 P.M. lights out "lock-up," prisoners were often forced to use a bucket that was left in their cell instead of being taken to the toilet. On occasion the guards would not allow prisoners to empty these buckets -- further adding to the degrading quality of the environment.
They were humiliated, they were denied parole, one of the student prisoners even broke down in tears and had to be reminded of his humanity. Dr. Zimbardo relates that he had to remind the student what his name was, as if simply giving him his name back was enough to break the spell. With positive reinforcement the student came out of his disillusion and was able to go home.
By the end of the study, the prisoners were disintegrated, both as a group and as individuals. There was no longer any group unity; just a bunch of isolated individuals hanging on, much like prisoners of war or hospitalized mental patients. The guards had won total control of the prison, and they commanded the blind obedience of each prisoner.
On the fifth night, some visiting parents asked Dr. Zimbardo to contact a lawyer in order to get their son out of prison. At this point it became clear that the staff had to end the study. They had created an overwhelmingly powerful situation -- a situation in which prisoners were withdrawing and behaving in pathological ways, and in which some of the guards were behaving sadistically. Even the "good" guards felt helpless to intervene. None of the guards quit while the study was in progress. Indeed, no guard ever came late for his shift, called in sick, left early, or demanded extra pay for overtime work.
Two months after the study, the reaction of prisoner #416, the would-be hero who was placed in solitary confinement for several hours, was recorded:
"I began to feel that I was losing my identity, that the person that I called Clay, the person who put me in this place, the person who volunteered to go into this prison -- because it was a prison to me; it still is a prison to me. I don't regard it as an experiment or a simulation because it was a prison run by psychologists instead of run by the state. I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was that had decided to go to prison was distant from me -- was remote until finally I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number."
Less than one month later, prisons made news when a riot erupted at Attica Prison in New York. After weeks of negotiations with prisoners who held guards hostage while demanding basic human rights, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered the National Guard to take back the prison by full force. A great many guards and prisoners were killed and injured by that ill-advised decision. One of the major demands of the prisoners at Attica was that they be treated like human beings.
The Stanford Experiment lasted only six days and after observing the simulated prison for only six days, Dr. Zimbardo and his staff knew well and could relate to how prisons dehumanize people, turning them into objects and instilling in them feelings of hopelessness. As for the guards, the staff realized how ordinary people could be readily transformed from the good Dr. Jekyll to the evil Mr. Hyde.
I tell you about this experiment to highlight a very crucial and innate human flaw. We easily and certainly become the person we are told it is okay to become. When we are given authority over others, when we command when they can eat, and when we are able to tell them how much territory they can possess it takes something away from both parties. Both the oppressed and the oppressor end up becoming a little less human in the process, each falling short of their true grace.
I work for Habitat for Humanity as the Warehouse Associate at their new ReStore location in the Third Ward. As part of my job I oversee Community Service Workers. A good portion of our workers are felons or have served time in some way or fashion. After learning about this study and the effects it had on the students that volunteered I looked at the dynamics of my own work environment a little differently. When I began working for Habitat I trained at the ReStore location on 114th and Burleigh.
I was one of the good guards there. When asked for change for the vending machines I gave it, when asked if I could lend my phone I offered it, if one of our workers needed a smoke break I allowed it though it was outside of their alloted time. I did these things as a reward for work done well and to not come off as harsh as the other staff members or authority figures. While these actions gave me street credit among the workers they also created a bit of a mess. Rewards for work not yet accomplished often resulted in a higher asking price the next time around.
I refused to let myself act out the same scenario in my new position after my transfer to our new location. Instead, I started with mutual respect regardless of where our workers were coming from. It started with simply giving them a name.
Our workers wear bright blue vests to signify them as volunteers and not staff. It is good to point out that neither role wears name tags, both parties wear shirts or vest signifying them as volunteer or staff. In discussion with my assistant and general manager it came out that writing our names on a swatch of duct tape was a tradition that Habitat long held firm. With resources being light it was easier to do something like this than to pay for ID badges, lanyards that could cause injury, or the traditional 'Hello My Name Is' stickers.
I gathered my workers for the day, as I often do to delegate projects and responsibilities and made each of my them write their names on duct tape and attach it to their vests. The transformation was immediately evident and wonderful. My workers excelled and became encouraged when customers addressed them by name or asked them by name to help them lift, stack, or move their purchases from the sales floor to their vehicles.
Dear friends, I tell you these things because I wish to show you a little something of the human experience. When we are given power over someone else how will we show our authority? Will we be like the guards who punish to get results or like the ones who precipitously reward in hopes of accomplishing the task at hand? Are we willing to call our brothers and sisters by their names?
In the Gospel today we are told that Christ was led off into the wilderness where he spent 40 days and 40 nights alone. Eating no food and drinking what little water he could find, Christ suffered the agony of being alone and having to face certain challenges without support or encouragement save that which he received through prayer from God. Not much is discussed about what happened in that time and we can only assume that when he returned even Christ did not speak of it. In the very least it has never become part of our traditions and was never written down in scripture.
What we are given is a glimpse of what happened near the end of his time. We can speculate that Christ was weary, tired, hungry, and in pain. I am sure we can all relate, maybe not on such a scale, to having had this experience in our own lives. Maybe some of you gathered here this morning are in your own wilderness and hopefully coming to its end. In such a time of great grief and anguish what happens to our Lord?
In the Gospel, Satan, the devil, the fallen angel from Heaven who was once heralded as the “Morning Star” approaches Christ and offers him reward. He first offers food, knowing that our Lord is suffering from hunger. Christ leans on the scriptures for strength and responds, “Man cannot live on bread alone.” Satan then offers all the kingdoms of the world in all their splendor and majesty. Again, Christ leans on scripture and responds, “Worship the Lord your God alone and no others.” As a final act, Satan whisks Christ off to the height of the Temple in Jerusalem and commands him to jump from the spire reminding Christ that angels will catch him as he falls, quoting scripture, using Christ's own defense against him. And yet our Lord takes refuge in his newfound strength and faith and responds, “Do not test the Lord your God.” Our Gospel tells us that Satan left him until an opportune time and that now at the end of his suffering Christ was attended to by angels.
Personally, I would have loved to have been there at the moment when our Lord stared Satan down and said, “Do not test the Lord your God.” If you give in to a certain level of Christian mysticism or simply love a good story, you may know that Satan was thrown from Heaven by God eons ago. In John's Gospel we are told that Christ existed with the Father, as one being with the Holy Spirit long before his ministry here on Earth. If both are true, could Christ's response have also been a reminder? Could he have been reminding Satan of his fall from grace? If he didn't win the war before could Satan hope to win it now?
Dear friends, we are given comfort in the words of Paul from our second lesson. We are told that if we proclaim the works of the Lord we will be saved. “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”” That is Romans 10 and 11.
Paul was writing to the church of Rome but his words ring true to us today as evidence in the Gospel story. If we, take the example of Christ and the words of Paul, if we add our experience, our human experience, into the mix what we come up with is a power unlike any other. One we all share with each other in community and one we all possess in our hearts and minds.
This is the power to overcome plight and famine, psychological pressure and abuse, any and all obstacles that sand in our way. Both Jew and Gentile are blessed by calling on the name of the Lord. In our wilderness we need to remind ourselves that we have this power, no one else we do it for us because there is no one else around. As we walk through the dry heat, seeking nourishment for our hunger and refreshing water for our thirst we need to lean on the example that Christ has given us. He is the bread that alone can feed us and make us hunger no more. He is the water that is unlike any other that will quench our inexhaustible thirst.
I end brothers and sisters with the same quote Satan used to tempt Christ the final time. Listen though to the words of encouragement contained in it. Take these words as your sword to fight off temptation and raise them high in times of doubt and despair. Take comfort in the knowledge that the One God chooses to want to know you better.
The Message (MSG)
91 1-13 You who sit down in the High God’s presence,
spend the night in Shaddai’s shadow,
Say this: “God, you’re my refuge.
I trust in you and I’m safe!”
That’s right—he rescues you from hidden traps,
shields you from deadly hazards.
His huge outstretched arms protect you—
under them you’re perfectly safe;
his arms fend off all harm.
Fear nothing—not wild wolves in the night,
not flying arrows in the day,
Not disease that prowls through the darkness,
not disaster that erupts at high noon.
Even though others succumb all around,
drop like flies right and left,
no harm will even graze you.
You’ll stand untouched, watch it all from a distance,
watch the wicked turn into corpses.
Yes, because God’s your refuge,
the High God your very own home,
Evil can’t get close to you,
harm can’t get through the door.
He ordered his angels
to guard you wherever you go.
If you stumble, they’ll catch you;
their job is to keep you from falling.
You’ll walk unharmed among lions and snakes,
and kick young lions and serpents from the path.
14-16 “If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
“I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life,
give you a long drink of salvation!”
