If you read the gospels carefully, you will discover that Jesus goes to the places and the people who are totally respectable, and to the people who are…at the other end of the spectrum, shall we say. (Note Luke 7:36-39, which nicely encapsulates both ends of the respectability spectrum, or compare John 3 to John 4, or Luke 11:37 to Matthew 9:9-11//Mark 2:14-16//Luke 5:27-30, Luke 19:2-7, Matthew 11:19). There was a point in my Christian life where I noticed that fact in a more-than-theoretical way, and it’s had a profound impact on me. For your amusement and edification, Gentle Reader, here are a few of the places I’ve been….
Bacon, Beer, and Body Paint
Once upon a time, I had a minor role in launching/promoting an event to benefit an oil field worker named Dan who’d been handicapped in a vehicle rollover. Insurance covered his medical expenses and bought his motorized wheelchair, but didn’t cover the necessary modifications to his house so he could get around in there. Doors needed to be widened, etc. And of course, he also needed a new job, and training for it. Dan’s brother had a few thousand bucks, but that wasn’t nearly enough to fund everything that needed to get done.
But Dan’s brother was also a good salesman and knew a little about event planning. So he piled the money into a fundraiser: a beer-and-bacon festival. He got a local business with a big parking lot to let us use their property for the weekend, and a handful of other businesses to sponsor the event with give-aways, door prizes, etc. They had a couple of breweries, Denver Bacon Company, I think some insurance and real estate brokers, a local pot shop, that sort of thing. They got musicians, face painting for the kids, all kinds of stuff. A good friend of mine worked for one of the businesses, and asked me to help promote the event. I took posters to businesses in high-traffic areas, personally invited everybody I knew, everything I could do to promote it.
Come the day, I showed up and hung out most of the day. I still have a set of 4 tin cups from Sailor Jerry’s rum that I won in the door prize drawing. It was all going swimmingly until the spokesmodel from the pot shop visited the face painters. I recall passing through that area and noticing one of the painters doing a piece on her back, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Half an hour later, I see a huge crowd over by one corner of the building. I wander over to see what’s going on and discover this same model doing an impromptu photo shoot wearing nothing but her Daisy Dukes and expertly applied body paint. So then I get to decide, do I just leave? Do I just avoid her? Something else?
Right on Target
I was down at Centerpoint chatting with one of my regular guests. He was a bit drunk, as is usual for him, and he asked me to pray for him about something. I did so. When I finished, he thanked me, and then he grabbed my shoulder and said “Now I’m gonna pray for you.” I didn’t want to tell him not to, so I let him. In minutes, there were tears in my eyes — without knowing it, this Jesus-loving drunkard was praying for the deepest concerns I had that week. Was he in active sin? Yes. Was he being led by the Spirit despite that? Undoubtedly.
“Tim won’t go!”
Went to a friend’s thirtieth birthday party. She’s one of my favorite felons, and has a friend group to match. We closed the restaurant where we started out, and then tried to go to a pop-up haunted house down by the highway (this was in mid-October). By the time we’d re-convened in the haunted house parking lot, they were closing. So we’re standing in the parking lot as the last carload of our people arrives. Someone catches them up on the situation and explains that we’re trying to decide where to go next. One of the guys says, “Titty bar!” My friend vetoed it immediately: “No, because Tim won’t go.” She wasn’t just assuming (although she was right); she’d been there when I declined an invitation from her boyfriend a few weeks earlier.
If it’s spiritually risky to be like Jesus, it’s spiritual suicide to knowingly refuse to be like Him.
Suicide by Tim
I’m sitting at a kitchen table with a man who’s threatening to kill me. It’s not an idle threat; he’s a combat veteran, a Marine turned cop. I know he’s drunk; I assume he’s armed. If you were watching through the window, the scene would look pretty calm. Samuel (not his real name) is talking; I’m sipping a glass of water. Below the table, I’ve quietly drawn and opened my carry knife. Plan A is talk him down; Plan B is “I go home to my wife, no matter what happens to him.” At the moment, the most likely approach is to send the water glass flying at his face while three inches of very sharp steel comes in low for whatever I can reach, before he can draw whatever he’s carrying.
This was not in my plans for the day. I’d gone down to the Springs to spend an afternoon with my friend Jack on his day off. We’d eaten and talked, and I hung out for a while at his church’s coffee shop while he worked a volunteer shift. (That shop itself is a cool story for another time.) Afterwards, we went back to his house, and a bunch of his friends and coworkers came over to hang out. The beer and whiskey flowed freely, and in due time Samuel took offense at something I said. The initial threat was just a generic “We can take it outside” type of thing — I forget the exact words — but things turned ugly when Jack tried to intervene.
“You don’t want to do that, Samuel. Tim would do you. Just let it go.”
That was like pouring gas on a fire. “I’ll kill him!” Samuel said. “I don’t care!”
He didn’t, in fact. Samuel’s squad had been on patrol when their humvee got hit by an IED, killing his three buddies. He had a massive case of survivor’s guilt that he medicated with whiskey when he was off-duty. Samuel really didn’t want to be alive; the only reason he hadn’t killed himself was because he was afraid to face God after committing suicide. Jack’s attempt to deter Samuel had the opposite effect: Samuel wanted to die, and Jack had just told him I could get it done for him. He escalated and threatened my life in a roomful of witnesses in order to create a situation where I’d kill him. But that didn’t mean he’d go down easy.
Until He Stood Up
Back when I first started Centerpoint, I would have one of the guests assist me in serving the Lord’s Table. One night a fellow I’ll call John asked me if he could assist me. He had been interacting reasonably well during the service, so I didn’t see any reason why not, so I said yes. He stood up next to me, and it quickly became apparent that he was drunk enough that he wasn’t going to be able to continue standing without help.
By this time, we were serving, and I couldn’t see how to swap him out for someone else without conveying a rejection I didn’t want to convey. So I got my arm under his elbow to give him a little extra stability and soldiered through. Right decision? Probably not, but I couldn’t see my way around it in the moment, so I went with it.
And So On…
Am I telling you that you should be willing to go anywhere, with anybody, anytime? No. Please note, they knew I wouldn’t go to the strip joint. If a particular place or group of people presents you with a temptation you can’t handle, then don’t do it. “Flee youthful lusts,” remember? If you can’t go to the place and be with the people and give God thanks, then turn down the invitation. “Whatever is not of faith is sin.”
But if your misgivings about going to the place or being with the people are founded in some ridiculous notion that Christians are supposed to be country-club respectable, if you’re worried about what other people will think of you, if you think “it’s just a bad testimony,” for vague and unspecifiable reasons…repent. You need to re-read the Gospels and have a hard look at how Jesus ministered, who He was willing to talk to, what He was willing to be accused of. They called Jesus a glutton and a drunk that pals around with traitors and whores. When’s the last time anybody accused you of that? Never? So that would be a way you’re not like Jesus. A servant is not greater than his Master. Repent.
I’ve got more such tales. I wouldn’t handle them all the same way now that I did then. Sometimes that’s a matter of brainstorming after the fact and coming up with a more gracious or wiser approach. Other times, I’ve grown in discernment and interpret things differently than I used to. I didn’t do everything right in the past, and I have no illusions that I’ll do everything right in the future. And you know what? Back when I refused to go to those places and spend time with those people, I never made any of those mistakes.
But avoiding people and places that Jesus wouldn’t avoid was just one more thing I needed to repent of. I did, and I’ve no regrets. If it’s spiritually risky to be like Jesus, it’s spiritual suicide to knowingly refuse to be like Him. Get out there. Whoever those people are for you, Jesus loves them. You should too.
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