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.
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