Life in the City

It had just gotten dark, but it was a beautiful evening so my two friends and I decided to take a drive downtown to check out the weekend festival. Being away for so long made me miss those relaxing strolls across the Grand River, the diversity of people, and the buzz of city life. As we walked, I thought about my life in India and how vastly different that life was from this one. I thought about the landscape, the people, the day to day activity. In India, you can see pain and suffering around every corner. You can smell it in the air. You can see the desperation in the eyes of the orphans and widows, and of the single mom with AIDS struggling to survive.

Here, we often tend to mask our struggles and shortcomings behind our fake smiles and new iPhone. As I walked past the happy college-age couples, the weekend bar attendees, and the eccentric high schoolers, I forgot for a moment harshness of this life. As we walked by tent after tent of workers cleaning up for the night I wondered if this is all some people will ever know of this world.

As I thought about these things, we stumbled upon a group of 20-somethings in an obvious heated discussion. I quickly saw the large picket sign that the man in the center held. It read: "REPENT! Prostitutes, strippers, homosexuals, rock n' rollers, thieves and all other sinners. God will judge you! Romans 4:14." Curious, I moved closer in earshot of the main conversation. The man with the sign was quite passionately arguing with a guy around college-age who was expressing his obvious disagreements. The man was openly gay and arguing that even so he had done more to further the kingdom of God through serving the poor and the hungry than this man will ever do by holding a picket sign and persecuting homosexuals. Although I don't agree with his lifestyle of sin, the guy had a point.

As the cops sent everyone away I stood there in silence watching the man roll his sign up and disappear into the distance. I had no words that night -- not for that man, the crowd, my friends, or even in prayer. As I walked back to the car, I couldn't help but feel a sense of shame for allowing such a distortion of truth to take place. Thinking back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and all that his ministry meant to those he reached, I see a message of grace, forgiveness, and love. I don't see condemnation, hated, or judgment. I was appalled at the labeling of sinners and the apparent exclusion that the man with the sign had from being in the group of "sinners." Aren't we all sinners?

It is people like that who put up walls in the lives of nonbelievers that turn them off to all things Christian. No wonder the world hates Christianity...