A Kentucky Court Clerk and Romans 13

            So, there’s this court clerk in Kentucky who is refusing to issue marriage licenses because she, as a Christian, doesn’t believe she can have her name stamped on a marriage license for a gay couple.  It’s doubtful that this blog is the first that you’ve heard about this.  She’s gone about this the right way, I believe.  She’s made her stand in love for one thing.  No hateful diatribes, no screaming matches with anybody (as far as I’ve read in the news anyways).  She even went out and gave a bottle of water to one of her LGBT opponents sitting in the heat outside.  Speak the truth but in love (Ephesians 4:15).  Also, she’s not discriminating.  The Supreme Court says the government can’t discriminate in handing out marriage licenses.  So she’s stopped handing out any. Gay or straight.

            It’s a losing battle of course. Which is a shame.  Sure, the law is the law, but if she can risk her job and everything that she’s worked for, then so could that judge who jailed her today. And then the politicians could have gotten behind him.  It could have been a snowballing effect of people standing for truth.  But it isn’t and it won’t be.  Ultimately she will stand alone with only you and me to cheer her from the sidelines.  It’s a losing battle, yet she fights.  Why?  Because any battle fought for Christ, even if a losing battle in the temporal short-term, is always a winning battle in the Kingdom of God.  Her reward will be greater than mine for all she’s going through (2 Corinthians 4:17).  Few of us can imagine the stress she’s under.  Personally, I applaud her. 

            But this all raises a very interesting issue, which has been brought out by most media outlets: the tension between being a person of faith, and being a public servant.  This tension is not new in American democracy, although with the secularization of our society the tension has been more visible; more palpable.  One article I read pointed out that Romans 13 commands Christians to be obedient to the laws of civil government.  This, the article claimed, was another example of Christian hypocrisy as we pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow.  This is a powerful argument against the stand this clerk is taking.  How does it square with the Christian values she has espoused?  How does it square with the sermon from Sunday?

            Well, let’s look at it like this: if we take this passage in Romans like that article claimed we should, and always be completely obedient to civil government, than what of the Boston tea partiers?  Surely they considered themselves devout Christians, even as they protested tea taxes by dumping tea in the harbor.  For that matter what about George Washington, Paul Revere, or any other of the thousands of Christians who rebelled against their civil government during the American Revolution.  How about the many Christian women who defied government in support of women’s suffrage?  Or how about the civil rights movement?  Was Dr. King - himself a minister - violating Scripture when he fought for equal rights?  Do we honestly believe that the African American community should have just silently and obediently suffered oppression indefinitely?  Do we believe that God would have preferred that?  I, for one, do not believe that.  Nor do I believe that any of these past patriots violated Biblical teaching in making their stands against the injustices of their societies and their government.  So how do we square it?  We do so by looking at all of Scripture, not just a single passage.

            We won’t point out everything, since this blog is already getting long and we still have a ways to go yet; so we’ll just point out a few of the more prominent examples.  There’s Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who refused to worship the golden image and were thrown into the fiery furnace.  Daniel ignored a law not to pray to anyone but the Emperor and was thrown into the lion’s den for it.  Peter and John were told by the religious government to stop preaching in the name of Jesus and were flogged for ignoring it.  All of these examples are held up as examples of Godly behavior and courage.  Every credible commentator understands Paul’s injunction in Romans 13 (Paul was martyred for ignoring Roman laws against Christianity, by the way) as applying only so long as those laws do not conflict with Gods law.  When Government law has been contrary to God’s law, Believers have been expected to stand firm in their opposition. 

           However, the more specific question here is about participating in government.  It’s one thing to be outside government and standing up to it.  It’s another thing to be in government and participating in it by virtue of your job description.  Does a person have to choose between their faith and a job in government?  As freedom loving Americans we are loath to say yes.  Those who think this clerk should “just do her job” should ask just how freedom loving they are.  Unfortunately, the answer may in fact be yes.  Not because I believe it should be that way; but because I believe that that is simply the way it’s become.  For example, while a Muslim who would have to shut down a government office five times a day for prayer would be likely be accommodated, the exact same accommodation would not be given to a Christian without a media firestorm (if Christianity required that, that is).  (It should be noted that many counties are trying to find ways to accommodate the law while allowing objecting clerks to opt out.  But many lawyers say that even this will eventually run up against the legal system).  The plain fact is this:  Christianity is no longer an acceptable religion to our culture or to many in our government.  The time may be fast approaching when Christians can no longer participate in our government through certain government positions, such as a county clerk, or a justice of the peace for example.  And that list is sure to grow.

             But if we don’t participate, then how can we hope to change things?  Well, we still have the vote, for one thing.  But let’s look again at the example of the early church.  Because they were persecuted, and living in a pagan culture with a pagan government, Christians tended to stay out of government almost completely.  There were a few here and there, and maybe more who didn’t admit their faith.  But for the most part you would have been hard pressed to find many Christians in a government job in the first 300 years of the Church.  They simply didn’t feel that such a job was compatible with their faith, and they choose to stay out of them.  And then came Constantine, the first Christian emperor who declared Christianity mainstream.  You know what Christians did to help make that happen? Absolutely nothing.  God did that without our participation and he can do it again here.  (Disclaimer: prayer was undoubtedly involved).  Although, if you believe we are living in the last days then nothing is going to change it. 

            Should she have just resigned?  I’m not sure I have that answer.  Perhaps she should have, but perhaps God has told her to make this stand so as to be a public witness for Him.  You’d be surprised how a Christian standing against long odds for their faith can influence people.  When people see that someone else has found something worth fighting and dying for it makes them curious.  And people’s opinions can be changed when they see someone going through what this clerk is going through.  When they see someone calmly standing up, despite severe opposition.  It’s been noted by historians that people’s feelings about the civil rights movement began to change when they saw marchers being pelted with stones and blasted with fire hoses.  So perhaps God is using this as an opportunity for something.  Perhaps she was going to resign - wants to resign – but God has commanded her otherwise and she is being obedient.

            And we must be obedient.  Obedient to continue in prayer for our nation and its leaders.  For our state and its leaders.  Our city and its leaders.  And we must come together in prayer for this clerk; for the judicial system she’ll be interacting with; for the politicians who have an opportunity to stand behind her.  And (brace yourself) that God would count each of us worthy to suffer for our Lord (Acts 5:41; Philippians 1:29; 3:10).  If we think we’re up to it. 

Is Biblical Marriage What You Think?

In her April 30^th article, Biblical Marriage is not What You Think, Rebecca Todd Peters brings up some very interesting points about how marriage is depicted in the Bible.  Points that might have some readers nodding their heads and wondering what the Christian answer might be to such things, if indeed there are answers.  Well there are answers, and in the interest of informed conversation it's important for readers to have those answers.  (You can read Ms. Peters’s post here).  There are a number of very serious flaws in Ms. Peters’s article that need to be explored.

            The first problem is the definition of “Biblical” that underlies Ms. Peters’s thesis.  She seems to define something as “Biblical” simply by it being in the Bible.  But this is not what Christians mean when they say that something is, or is not, “Biblical” (when using it in the sense of moral acceptability).  A more accurate definition would be to say that something is Biblical if it can be shown to have God’s approval.  Ms. Peters cites several examples of essentially negative expressions of marriage throughout the Old Testament but without regard to whether or not God has given these expressions His approval. 

            She's correct when she says that Christians use the example of Adam and Eve as proof that marriage is between one man and one woman.  She then makes the following statement: “Unfortunately, these folks must have stopped reading their Bibles at the end of Genesis, chapter two. Even a cursory reading of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament demonstrates that marriage was not understood or practiced in any way related to the modern idealism we have superimposed on this text.”  Her next paragraph is a list of all the ways that marriage was understood by people in the Old Testament.  Really, none of these assertions are false.  But how these folks understood and expressed marriage does not equate to approval by God.  Remember, God doesn't always smite or verbally admonish everybody who acts in a way he doesn't care for, and just because we don't see Him doing that, doesn't necessarily imply His approval.

            The first thing to understand is that Christian theology sees a fundamental shift in human nature after the garden.  While in the garden man and woman enjoyed a perfect existence, with everything functioning just as God had intended.  But after Adam and Eve’s disobedience sin entered into the equation of human nature.  Humankind now did things the way they wanted, rather than the way God wanted.  This is why Christians will point to Adam and Eve as an example of Biblical marriage; because at this point in the Biblical narrative things are still operating according to God’s principles.  Each of Ms. Peters’s examples comes after sin has entered world.  In the garden, God made one man and one woman and joined them in marriage.  He did not make one man and two, three or more women, or vice versa.  In the Garden there were no politics or any property rights to be had.  The sole purpose of marriage was companionship and partnership.

            Moving on from there we come to Lamech in Genesis 4:19-24.  This is not mentioned in Ms. Peters’s article but we mention it here because it is the first example of Polygamy in the Bible.  It is significant to our point because Lamech was not a nice man.  He is a murderer without remorse; we can hardly take him as a positive example.

            Ms. Peters does use the example of Abraham who, by the suggestion of Sarah, his wife, consorted with Sarah’s maidservant in order to finally have a child.  Whether or not this was culturally acceptable is irrelevant to whether or not this is an example of “Biblical” marriage.  What is relevant is whether or not it has God’s approval, which it clearly doesn’t.  While the union does produce a child it also produces discord among the household (which is not an indication of blessing), God does not make Ishmael the child of the promise but keeps that status for whom it was intended (Isaac), and after this it is 13 years before Abraham hears from God again.

            It is surprising that Ms. Peters does not cite Jacob.  Would not a Biblical patriarch make the perfect example?  Not always.  Even the Patriarchs did things displeasing to God and the Bible is faithful to not gloss over their mistakes.  There is no indication that entering into marriage with two women was something God had intended.  An important contrast is that when Abraham’s servant goes to seek a wife for Isaac he prays for God to lead him to the right woman (singular, by the way), whereas Jacob does no such thing.  And if we look at children as indications of blessing in this narrative it certainly seems that God is blessing the first wife – the first marriage.

            Ms. Peters does reference the marriage of a Levitical priest and the horrendous events in Judges 19.  I would simply point out again that this is Humankind in their fallen state, and add that this takes place during a period when Israel was falling away from God.  Evidence of that is the priest himself who, rather than performing his duties where he was supposed to, was going around hiring himself out as a private priest to whatever family was willing to pay him.  Hardly an example of “Biblical” marriage – or anything else “Biblical” for that matter.

            Solomon is another example Ms. Peters uses.  Certainly a much stronger example than she has used previously.  After all, God blessed the kingdom under his rule and blessed Solomon with great wisdom.  However, he is really just another example of a lack of divine approval for his (many) expressions of marriage.  His wives pulled him away from his devotion to God, and the blessings of the kingdom only continued because of God’s promise to Solomon’s father, rather than because of anything about Solomon. 

            What is most interesting is that, while her post is directed at Christians, Ms. Peters makes no mention of New Testament passages, other than a brief summary of some words from Jesus (which we will deal with shortly).  After all, it is the belief in these texts as authoritative that distinguish Christians as Christians.  Jesus, for example, emphasizes the importance of marriage when he tightens the restrictions on divorce in Matthew 5.  And whenever he talks about marriage the words used always indicate one man and one women.  He never talks about the proper relationship between a man and his wives.  

            And let’s not forget Paul.  1 Corinthians 7:2-4 teaches that marriage is to be monogamous, heterosexual and with an equality between husband and wife.  So, even if we were to grant that Ms. Peters’s Old Testament interpretations were correct (which they aren’t), we see here that Christians are being given different set of marital ethics, since Jesus calls Humankind to live how God really intended rather than by how they had lived previously.

            In 1 Timothy 3:2 Paul teaches that leaders in the church, because they are an example to others, must “be the husband of one wife…”  Anything that is considered an example is considered something to emulate.  So if this is the standard for leaders it is the standard for the rest of us.

            Now, as to Ms. Peters’s summary of Jesus’s words, she says, in part: “He encouraged people to leave their wives, children, parents and families in order to follow him (Lk 18:28-30); encouraged followers to reject their families (Lk 14:26); and challenged conventional notions of family (Mt 10:34-39).   First of all, her reference to Matthew 10 has nothing to do with challenging conventional marriage.  It is basically saying the same thing as the two passages she mentions from Luke.  And what Ms. Peters fails to understand is that Jesus is using Hyperbole.  Hyperbole is an exaggeration (without deceit) to drive home a point.  What Jesus is emphasizing here is that our central relationship needs to be with him; that the strength of all our other relationships comes from that centrality.  Leaving our families, and setting one member against another both speaks to that centrality and provides a warning that accepting Christ, in some families, will cause problems; but we are to hold fast to our relationship with Christ. That is how these verses have been interpreted since he said them.  It is Ironic that Ms. Peters offers a prayer against literalists, since throughout her article, and certainly here, she has interpreted Scripture in exactly the literal way she claims to detest.  In reality, a proper “literal” interpretation means that passages are interpreted in light of both the genre and communication device being used (such as hyperbole), and in context.  Ms. Peters ignores all of those, choosing to interpret with a form of literalism rarely seen outside circles of extreme fundamentalism.

            One would have expected that this article was written by someone unreligious, using only anecdotal knowledge of Scripture.  But given Ms. Peters’s extensive academic background and impressive resume in the area of Biblical studies, it is unfathomable how she could use such clearly flawed exegesis in her arguments.  Even chalking it up to differences of conservatism and liberalism in our respective approaches cannot account for this.  One has to wonder why, if she is so disgusted by Jesus teachings, that she would chose to label herself as a Christian social ethicist.

            Ms. Peters is correct when she says that the truth of the Bible is its “message of justice and love as moral norms for humankind…”  Let us just be thankful that it is God’s Justice, love, and moral norms, and not Ms. Peters’s.

In the Valley of the Shadow

     I was reading through Judges chapter 7 the other day and noticed a curious detail.  A detail I had read past many times before; a detail that seems almost insignificant.  If you recall, this is the story of Gideon.  In chapter 7 Gideon has gathered his army and they are looking down at the sprawling Midianite army.  God tells him to whittle his group down and in doing so Gideon ends up with only 300 men.  That night the Lord tells him to take his servant and sneak down to the enemy camp so that he can overhear the conversation between a couple of soldiers.  The conversation basically reveals that they are as scared of Gideon as Gideon is of them.  Gideon is thankful for this and - this is where the curious detail comes in- 7:15 reads:

"And so it was, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, "Arise, for the Lord has delivered the camp of ..."

     What I noticed was that Gideon worshipped first, and THEN he returned to the safety of his own camp.  Think about when you were a little kid and you woke up in the middle of the night and had to go to the bathroom.  And you had to walk through the dark house to get there.  The fear was almost paralyzing and you probably held it as long as you could.  And maybe, when you were done, you ran back to your bed as fast as you could, almost in a panic, and pulled the covers over your head.  Well here's a man who is such a coward that he's practically scared of his own shadow; who probably had to work up enough nerve just to sneak down and get that close to the enemy.  And rather than go back to camp, to relative safety, and then give thanks to the Lord, he stays and gives thanks where he is.  Within ear shot of the enemy.

     The 23rd Psalm talks about walking without fear even when facing death.  The Psalmist says in verse 5, "You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies..."  in the very presence of our enemies the Lord provides for us.  Something I've had to work on along my Christian walk (and I'm probably not alone) is the concept of giving thanks in all things.  Sometimes, when I'm facing a tough situation, I forget to give thanks until I'm on the other side of it.  But I've learned that whatever is going wrong, there is something going right that I can be thankful for.  Whatever I have lost, there is still plenty I have that I can be thankful for.  No matter who I am up against, I still have a God who is bigger.   And one thing I've learned along the way: the more I've remembered to give thanks in the midst of trial or tribulation, the bigger the table that God has spread before me.  

Diary of a Vegas Vacation: Entry Three, Housekeeping & Fishnets

Days two and three sort of blend together.  I woke up on day two with the street preacher still fresh in my mind, and an unusual, ministerial energy that I hadn’t felt before.  Like there was purpose today and something was going to happen; like maybe I was supposed to make something happen.  I intended to use part of my interruption-free time to work on some other writing projects that I had been moving too slowly on and sat down at the desk in our hotel room (I don’t mind saying it was a NICE hotel room) to do just that.  I ended up beginning this series instead. 

As I was wrapping up the first post it was around lunch time and I decided I would take my laptop somewhere with Wi-Fi and post the first entry while I had lunch.  As I was saving and closing down, housekeeping came to the door.  I smiled at her and assured her it was ok to come in, I would be leaving in a few minutes anyways.  Her name was Olivia and her smile and demeanor were friendly and confidant and not at all subservient or like she had to pretend I was better than her.  I was glad for that; I hate it when people act like that with me.  And I felt that this was something.  I decided to strike up a conversation.  An oddity for me since I hate conversation because I feel so inept at it, but this day was anointed and I planned to press in and find out why.

As I packed up my stuff to head out I made small talk (which I don’t generally know how to do, so it MUST have been God) and asked how long she had worked at the hotel.  She had worked there since August.  She had been blessed to get the job with no prior experience after the printer she worked at let her go after many years of service.  She had developed fibromyalgia and so they had found a reason so as not to incur extra benefits costs.

Her biggest worry was her oldest son.  Her 24 year old son had started doing drugs some time back.  It started with marijuana, and she had learned that it had progressed to heroin.  She had a hard time not blaming herself and wondering what she had done wrong.  She had tried everything but the boy didn’t really want help yet.  She had taken him to a treatment center but he left after only four hours. 

Brian (that is her son's name), had two little girls who are old enough now to know that something isn’t right with daddy, and his girlfriend (the children’s mother) has given up on him.  The thing that Olivia found to be both perplexing and an assurance was that Brian had always been the one most in the Word and knew his Bible inside and out.  He had taught her everything she knew about faith and had been the one to make her faith strong.  And yet here he was now telling her to stop praying for him, that God wasn’t going to help; that he was already lost, had sold his soul and now had to worship Satan. But it also meant that he had a foundation.  He knew the truth.

Her church, Victory Church, had a strong recovery program with a smart pastor.  He was there for her to lean on and was helping her to realize that nothing would help Brian until he wanted help.  But she should keep praying and not give up.  She wished she could get to church more but weekends were the busiest time for the hotels.

I knew her room quota and schedule were probably tighter than UPS’s and I didn’t want to get her in trouble, so rather than pray with her there I assured her that I would pray for both her son and her fibromyalgia (which the doctors had said in 2009 was so bad she wouldn’t be able to use her hands much longer (but look at her now, praise God).  So I parted company with Olivia.

To get where I was going I had to leave the hotel and head up to a pedestrian overpass to cross Las Vegas Blvd.  These bridges were spacious, wide and full of people pedaling things.  On these bridges, as well as on every street corner, were people promoting the bars and clubs.  They did so by trying to hand out drink coupons with pictures of naked girls provocatively posed.  Only about half of these promoters where male.  Many of the females were short, squat little old ladies.  Maybe somebody’s grandmother.  But there were younger girls, too.  And they were usually dressed for the part. 

As I came to the other side of the bridge I started down the escalator.  But as soon as I stepped onto it my mind finally registered the girl I had just walked by and seen purely in my peripheral vision.  I didn’t notice her until it was too late to stop, and turning back would have made me look creepy.  But once she registered, the image was clear.  She had been standing next to the escalator leaned up against the bridge rail, one foot up against the wall behind her like some gunslinger in a clichéd western.  She was young, mid-twenties maybe, with long, straight dark hair down to the middle of her back.  She had on aviator sunglasses, was holding a fake police baton, wearing a fake badge, a police-looking bikini top, black bikini bottoms, fishnet stockings and mid-calve boots.

As soon as she registered in my mind (Vegas is kind of keep-your-eyes-to-yourself kind of place unless you want to get taken for something), I realized I missed an opportunity for another something. It was quite windy out and the temperature was just barely on the positive side of comfortable for me in a long sleeved shirt and sweater.  Had I seen her sooner I would have asked jovially, “Aren’t you cold?”  In my mind I could see the smile.  It would be the same one all the girls wore.  It would be full of well-practiced genuiness.  Not flirtatious, but with warmth and seemingly sincere happiness to see you.   Vegas girls could make money as smile consultants, teaching service staff around the country how to flash that smile.   She would have answered honestly enough. “A little.”  “How long do you have to stand out here?” I would have asked next.  And she’d have answered.  “What do you do in December?”  Answer.  “How long have you lived in Vegas?” Answer.  “Are you going to school or something?  Must have an important goal to be standing out here freezing like this.”  This is how the conversation would begin, and I would have learned her story.  What it was that made her do what she did.  No little girl says that when she grows up she wants to stand on a crowded walk-way in next to nothing, getting ogled, mentally undressed, and probably ‘accidentally’ groped by guys ‘accidentally’ getting jostled into her by the crowd. Maybe it was the only way she could find to pay for school.  Maybe her parents had shuffled her out of the house as soon as she turned 18.  Maybe she got pregnant at 16 or 17 and her parents had thrown her out and now she had a kid at home to feed.  Maybe she ran away from home, to get away from the abuse, and found that exploiting her only known asset was the only way for her to survive.  I would have learned all those things about this otherwise anonymous girl, who was standing on the Vegas strip and hoping that this would be as far as she would ever have to go in using her body to make money.

How much would she have appreciated that conversation?  A conversation that was about her as a person.  A conversation that didn’t begin “hey baby,” or end with “When you gettin’ off tonight?”  A conversation with someone who looked her in the eye the entire time and then moved on, no motives.  What kind of hope might that have left her with?  There were many girls like her along the strip, but it was only her that I had had a strong conviction that I needed to start a conversation with.  A something missed.

In the end the day played out pretty much like that.  I had places to be that evening and I needed to get back and get ready.  I should have had more than one Olivia that day but I missed the other opportunities.  The day had been anointed but I wasted that anointing.  Not too big a deal; it happens from time to time.  Especially when it’s for something totally new to you (like talking and conversing).  Upon reflection I know that I didn’t give in to my wife asking me to go with her – I had given in to God.  Upon reflection I know that the disappointment a couple months before at deciding not to go was really that feeling you get when you have just made a decision that was opposite what God was telling you to make.  Upon reflection I know that it was a vacation that was not supposed to be a vacation.

They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  But something about Vegas didn’t stay there.  Something about Vegas nags at me, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.  Jesus looked out at the crowds and said that “the harvest is so great, but the workers are so few.” (NLT.  Matt. 9:37 [or, if you don’t like Matthew, Luke 10:2; but who doesn’t like Matthew?]).  For three days I walked Las Vegas Blvd and saw so many sheep in need of a shepherd, and none in sight.

Diary of a Vegas Vacation: Entry Two; The Street Preacher

On our first night here, after all the convention stuff was out of the way, my wife and I decided to walk to one of the other hotels that I remembered visiting.  I had wanted to show her some of the novelties that these places are famous for.  Tonight I wanted to show her the little show the statues put on at Caesar’s Palace.  It’s kind of neat.  In one of the shopping centers in the hotel is a statue of Caesar and some other people and at appointed times they come to life and move and talk to each other and the crowd, and the ceiling (which is beautiful anyway) changes colors and scenery and stuff. Of course it’s been so long that I couldn’t find it so after walking around the casino for a bit we decided to head back.  (I mean, it’s interesting but it’s not THAT interesting).

On the way there (it was a walk of about a block.  A very large block), there was a street preacher.  He was like every other street preacher we’ve all seen.  He had stationed himself on the corner of the Bellagio property, next that resorts famous fountains.  People flock to see the Bellagio’s fountains do their little dance so it’s not a bad location. (Not that there IS a bad location on the Vegas strip). He had someone with him who held the “Jesus is coming back soon sign”, while he had his portable sound system, pacing the corner repeating over and over again that everybody there needed to repent of their sins and believe on Jesus.  True enough.

As we walked by him on our way to Caesar’s Palace a young couple, nicely dressed, walked quickly by, arm in arm.  As they walked by him the young woman turned her head and yelled, “You’re an A#@-$&le.”  And then her companion, as if he was her parrot, echoed, “Yeah, you’re an A#$-#$le!”  I thought THAT was little harsh.  He hadn’t seemed to be doing anything that would qualify him as anything more than annoying. 

On our way back from Caesar’s palace we passed him again.  He was still saying the same thing, apparently the only bullet point – the only sentence – in his sermon:  Repent of your sins, and believe on Jesus Christ.  He was a normal looking person.  Clean cut, late thirties or early forties, clean clothes, a t-shirt and cargo shorts and tennis shoes.  Not yelling at all, just speaking calmly through his microphone.  However the person who had stopped to engage him this time was not at all normal looking.  He was a few inches taller than me, and a few inches thinner (which is to say he was very thin), and had chosen for his outfit this evening a police uniform.  But not just ANY police uniform.  No, this was a “naughty” police uniform with shorty-shorts and a halter top for which he had not the breasts to do it justice. I’m going to go out on a limb and say he was probably gay, even though he obviously had no fashion sense whatsoever.

So here is this street preacher with one line to his schtick, and a cross-dressing gay guy.  As we walked up within hearing distance I heard the gay guy yell (he wanted to make sure everyone could hear him as he debated the street preacher), the he was being insulted for something he had no control over.  And it is true that he had no control over it.  I mean lets face it: some people are born with good fashion sense and some people aren’t.  But I found it a bit hard to believe that he had actually been insulted.  Street Preacher only had one line, after all, and he didn’t seem to be getting into the specifics of what people had needed to repent of.  More than likely Gay Guy had simply assumed an insult because the Street Preacher was talking about Jesus, and Christianity is virtually an implied insult to his kind. 

So Gay Guy, gesticulating dramatically and ridiculously (I think at one point I might have seen him use jazz hands) and yelling so everybody can hear how logical and right he is, is saying he has been insulted and asking “Is THAT Jesus??” And Street Preacher responds, without drama or much inflection to his voice that “the only thing you have control over, sir, is to repent of your sins and believe on Jesus.”  To which Gay Guy responds that Street Preacher has no response “because you have… NO… LOGICAL … ARGUMENT!” (jazz hands!)  And with that my wife and I were back on the other side of the street and no longer within hearing distance.

I only heard a small portion of the exchange, but what I heard was significant, and the whole scene stuck with me.  I’ve always been conflicted about the street preacher 'calling'.  On the one hand, I believe more street level ministry is needed.  A majority of Jesus’s ministry was street level ministry.  On the other hand, they make me cringe.  The attitude of those that defend them remind me of the chain emails that go around with a nice story and picture of Jesus that tell you that if you’re not a shamed of him you’ll forward the email.  I NEVER forward those emails.  I know who I am, and what I have, in Christ and I don’t feel the need to prove it by forwarding an email simply because I don’t want to fall into the category of people who say they love him but then never do anything to evangelize for him.  And I don’t feel the need to approve of the street preacher simply because we are brethren in Christ and it’s expected of me.  I’m sure I am simply saying what most of us are at least thinking.

So yes, I find it uncomfortable to pass these people in the street.  I’m sure most of us do.  But not for “fleshly” reasons.  Not because I’m too shy to be public about my faith.  Not because I’m in Vegas and don’t want to hear about Jesus while on vacation in sin city.  I cringe because of what I see them doing to people.  I used to be where Gay Guy was. Well, not in a naughty outfit not meant for my gender.  I used to be the atheist laughing at the lack of logic in the Christian argument.  I used to be the guy throwing the criticisms at those who believe.  Maybe not publicly like Gay Guy was.  But I was in that place.  I know what pushed me away from Christ and I know what pulled me toward him.  And Gay Guy had a very good point: was THAT Jesus?

No, it wasn’t.  I’m not going to say that Street Preacher wasn’t called to do what he was doing.  That’s not for me to judge.  In fact, God probably did tell him to go do what he was doing.  And I applaud his courage.  He was taking a real beating out there but he kept at it, and remained calm.  But I don’t believe the message he was giving was the one God sent him to that corner with.  And that mistake is indicative of so much of the Christian message in so many places and in so many forms. 

Was repentance a valid message?  Absolutely, and Jesus himself preached it.  But it’s not all that Jesus preached.  He knew how to gauge his audience and tailor his message to their needs.

You see, Gay Guy was being told that HE needed to repent of HIS sins.  And what he’s wondering when he hears that is why HE needs to repent of HIS sins.  HE’S never sexually abused anybody, the way he was sexually abused growing up.  HE’S never beat people, the way his father beat him; the way others have beat him and left him lying and crying in back alleys because they found him disgusting and less than human.  In his mind he’s being told to repent of the 'horrific' sin of going against cultural norms in his choices of attire and companionship.  Don’t get me wrong - I’m not defending his lifestyle, I’m simply trying to give a glimpse into what he’s thinking when someone who knows nothing about him tells him he has to repent.  Too many times we see people where they are without bothering to see where they’ve been.

The people that Street Preacher is talking at on a corner of the Las Vegas strip are, in many cases, people who have been through terrible things and are living the way they are because the fantasy world of Las Vegas provides a salve for their wounds. What Street Preacher should have said to Gay Guy is that God is very fond of him.  What he should be telling the passers-by is that Jesus loves them beyond measure.  That Jesus is sorry for what they’ve been through, and is ready to walk them through it when they are ready for healing.

Proverbs 26:9 says “A proverb in the mouth of a fool is like a thorny branch brandished by a drunk” (NLT).  He’s going to hurt himself and those around him.  Love can just as easily be preached in a one line street sermon as can judgment.

Diary of a Vegas Vacation: Entry One

             Funny how quickly your mortality can get all in your face all of a sudden.  Like when the plane you're on suddenly dips, fish tails to the right and pops back up and corrects itself slightly to the left.  Why am I on an airplane?  Let me back up just a few hours.

            My wife had been scheduled to go to an industry conference in Las Vegas for the past few months.  We had thought that it might be a nice little vacation for both us if we could swing the money for my plane ticket.  But we thought it was too much to spend, and decided against it. But as the date got closer my wife starting asking me if I was sure I shouldn’t go.  She’s a very intelligent, capable and independent women.  But somewhere inside is still the small town girl I married 15 years ago, and the looming specter of Las Vegas was making her a bit nervous.  I grew up in large, busy suburbs and actually lived in Vegas about 20 years ago.  That, and the simple fact of her husband being with her would make her more comfortable.  So on the morning of the day she had to leave I finally gave in.  It was last minute but we got a really good deal on a flight so I got packed.

            We had to take separate flights but they were to arrive about the same time.  Hers was direct, mine had a connection in Houston.  The last time I flew was Christmas and as we taxied towards the runway I finally admitted to myself what I had only suspected those ten months ago:  I don’t like flying anymore.  I used to when I was a kid.  But I didn’t have a whole lot of sense when I was a kid.  Now I could comprehend the irrational physics of moving a metal tube through the air at several hundred miles per hour 34,000 feet above the ground.   So here I am on this plane getting ready to take off and the captain informs us that there is a line of “significant” weather moving just on the outskirts of Houston.  So here I was, flying through “significant” weather on the outskirts of Houston, keeping my best poker face on for the benefit of the woman next to me who was pretending to sleep, but was actually praying more fervently than even I was, since we boarded.

            It wasn’t death itself that made me nervous.  Being dead is the easy part.  It was the prospect of how getting that way might come about that was a little nerve wracking.  But even that wasn’t my primary concern.  It was my kids.  What would they do without a father?  What if today was to be a day of freak accidents and sad, impossible-to-believe Reader’s Digest stories and both mine AND my wife’s plane went down?  Then what about my kids?  Who would they end up with?  Would there be a fight between the families?  I’ve seen the pain of children mourning parents – how would they cope with that through life?  Would they know how much I loved them, or just remember the conflicts?

            All of this was very irrational because I knew very well that I was not going to die today.  But fear has a way of creeping in and paranoia strikes deep.  And it doesn’t help when the stewardess comes on to tell you to buckle up and that she has been order to sit down and buckle up because of some upcoming severe turbulence.  And then plane does its little dance as described earlier.

            But all that aside, what is really striking (and what I started out wanting to talk about) is how we think when suddenly faced with the fact that we are not given forever.  Jesus uses the parable of the bridegroom to warn us that we never know the hour at which he might come back and that we should therefore always be prepared.  I was amused at the way I was running over in my mind the times in the past week or two that I had fallen short of the glory of God and how I would suddenly do anything to make it right again.  I was thinking about the times I was a little harder on the kids than I should have been, analyzing whether or not I spent enough time with them or had always seemed to be too busy for that game of soccer.  Wondering how long it takes a plane to fall 34,000 feet and if that would be enough time for a quick call to my kids, or to leave a last message for them all on my wife’s voicemail.  I was worried about whether the people I loved knew I loved them and how much.  Just a few hours earlier death was nowhere to be seen.  I had plenty of time to correct myself, and strengthen the bonds with my family.  And all of a sudden (however irrational it might be), time was not a certainty.  My house was not in order and I was not prepared for the bride groom.  I had used the oil in my lamp carelessly, and was earnestly begging for more.

The moral of the story: take a bus.

Roots

There is a particular spot in my back yard, about a 10 x 15 foot area that my wife and I would like to someday turn into a little patio area.  Right now it’s an overgrown mess.  Tall, hardy weeds; tough, little weedy shrubs; various grasses and all sorts of other annoying vegetation call the place home. Trying to keep this area under control is a lot of work.  No matter how many times I cut it all down it keeps coming back, often times bigger and hardier than before.  And if I fail to stay on top of it for too long it becomes a solid weekends worth of work.

One of the keys to getting rid of certain things like tall weeds, shrubs and other things is to get at the roots.  If all you do is cut down what’s above the surface, leaving the roots alone, then the thing is bound to grow back.

My battle with this piece of landscaping is similar to the enemy’s battle with us.  His ultimate goal is to destroy our relationship with God.  To do that he keeps hacking away at our blessings.  Does it ever seem like whenever something good happens to you that you hardly have time to enjoy it before something happens to it, or something stressful pops up in direct relation to it?  Those are the garden shears of the enemy.  And, just like I have to be with my landscaping, he has to be on top of them all the time, lest they grow and bear more fruit than he can handle.  It may not be what anybody wants to hear – but he’s not going to let up.  But the good news?  He can’t ever get at your roots, if your roots are Jesus Christ.  Which means those blessings will keep coming back to annoy the enemy.  As long as you don’t let him discourage you into letting go of those roots, then he can never achieve his ultimate goal of killing your relationship with the Father.

UNLIKE my landscaping problem, our blessings are not weeds they are flowers. Nor is the enemy the gardener.  He’s just a thief in the garden who has no legal right to be there. The gardener is you.  Expected me to say God, didn’t you.  It is true that there would be no flowers in the garden, or even a garden at all, if not for the grace of God.  But God gave us the responsibility of tending the garden.  We can plant the seeds of our blessings by ardently following after Him.  (…I will not let you go unless you bless me – Gen 32:26).  We can water and fertilize our blessings, and make them to be hardy plants resistant to the enemy’s shears, with prayer.  Prayer can insulate and protect our blessings the way piles of leaves insulate flowers against the frost.  Prayer keeps the weeds that would choke our flowers at bay the way fertilizer with weed control works in the natural.  Why?  Because prayer is the active nurturing of our relationship with Jesus Christ, who provides the right amount of rain and sun for the garden we are tending.  It strengthens the roots.  And the flowers are really just the visible manifestation of the strength of our roots.  If we protect our roots then we will always have flowers in our garden.  (Here on Earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I (JESUS) have overcome the world. – John 16:33 [Parenthetical emphasis added]).