Cigareettes and Beer and Wild, Wild Women

Last night, Chris and I went to hear Adam Wright and his band play. Wow. They are so incredible. I completely enjoyed it. Their sound is so ecclectic and polished. It's so cool to watch really, really talented people get together.

They played at a bar and grill. If you ask me, it was way more bar than grill. Lots of drinking and even more smoking. Loud talking. People trying to 'find' someone. It was my first time in a bar. I didn't see the appeal. If it hadn't been for Adam's music, I wouldn't have stayed. It was uncomfortable to me.

That whole scene was strange and not 'normal' to me. I watched women flirt and seduce. And the men evade and then flirt back. My first internal response was, at the very best condescending, and at the worst judgemental. Why would you do that? Why take the risks? Do you really expect good to come from it?.... You can hear my attitude can't you? I wasn't condemning as much as confused and a little curious. With a dose of self-righteousness thrown in.

On the way home, Chris and I talked about all of this. My take was to wrinkle my nose and avoid that situation from now on. Chris' heart was touched. Where I had seen weird people doing pointless things, he had seen lonely people in need of Christ. Those were his words... "Crissy, they're lonely and they don't have God. What else can they do?"

It reminded me of the passage where Jesus wept for Jerusalem. His heart was 'filled with compassion'. He didn't avoid them or wait for them to come to church. He sought them out. He went to the places of ill repute. Yet, we are so afraid of our reputation or our 'testimony' that we avoid these people like lepers... (which coincidentally, Christ wasn't afraid of either.)

Am I willing to throw my reputation away? Am I willing to reach out to the addicts, the whores, the drunks? Or am I only willing to reach out to the religious, the pure, the repentant.... the Pharisees? Christ said the sick need the doctor not the well. The ones who would condemn me for ruining my 'testimony' are the ones who have no need of Christ themselves. They've got it all together. They're good people. They go to church, tithe, take meals to the sick, vote pro-life, uphold the law and have morals..... wait, I just described myself.

Can I love the gays and the drunks and the loose-moraled? Only if I identify myself with them and cling to the cross of Christ. Then and only then can they see the cross. I can't just point to it like a landmark. I have to hold on to it like a drunk clings to his bottle. That they can identify with. That they can see.