The Meeting Place - (Unfinished)

It was called the Meeting Place.
Allegedly, God was doing mighty things there, in a small corner of the city park where curious, ruined souls would congregate every Saturday morning and listen to the Word of God. There had been whisper of several unconfirmed salvations, a scandalous rumor over the choice of hymnal (Southern Baptist? Lutheran? African American? Choices, choices!), and the most controversial incident to date; apparently, the “leader” of this group held his first baptism in a blow-up pool fed by the city sprinkler system! It was ridiculous – all of it, blown completely out of proportion. Like a bad joke. The local church pastors (all football buddies from the local high-school) had counseled one day over black coffee in Lorraine’s Doughnuts. It had been their favorite place as growing jocks.
The conversation had begun at 8:00 sharp, and wasted into noon before everyone realized that it was pointless. This new church, if you could muster up the imagination to call it that, this Meeting Place, was quite simply a danger to the city. Not only did their pathetic baptisms steal water from the luscious greens of the environment, but their ragamuffin leader hadn’t even bothered to give Bill Johnson or Ted Drake a ring – or give anyone a ring. It was simply out of hand.
So they sent Harv Chandler.
Harv was a white-haired, gold-toothed radio preacher. He’d been all over the local Christian stations for thirty years now; he was a spiritual giant. As he paced calmly across the city park on Saturday morning, shod in his Sunday best, he tried his best to reassure himself. Harv, old man, God’s used you mightily. You’re the man for the job. You aren’t here to accuse anybody, just spy out the ter’tory. Spy out the ter’tory. Like Joshua in the Promised Land. Just like Joshua.
Trailing scuff-marks in the sun-washed concrete path, he rounded a bend and found himself directly in front of the Meeting Place. He must have approached from an odd direction, because everyone was facing him, staring at him with muzzled curiosity, as if he was an alien in a space suit. There were two figures, backs facing him, plopped in the grass. One was strumming a guitar, and the other was playing some kind of drum. Some African thing.
Harv maintained his perfect, golden grin, and walked around to the back. He looked for a chair, and finding none, opted to stand beneath a tree while everyone else sat. The music was playing; it was a song he didn’t know, and everyone’s eyes were closed, so Harv took the opportunity to size up the crowd. In the back: frazzled-looking college students with T-shirts and shark tooth necklaces, drug addicts, girls who looked like cheap prostitutes, a few videogamer types, and one biker-chick. Okay. In the front: an extremely thin, drooping man with bloodshot eyes that leaked tears as he sang (meth addict), a muscled Hispanic fellow with all manner of gang tattoos sketched across his body, and a small clan of goth teens with black corsets and makeup that brought to mind Dante’s Inferno. Or a particular piece by Frank Peretti, which, in Harv’s church, was practically canonized. Harv Chandler kept his opinions in the back of his mind, and waited out the worship silently.
The two musicians prayed something very simple and indecipherably fast (amateurs!, thought Harv) before taking a seat in the front. The muscled, Hispanic gang-member stood up and immediately began pacing.
“Brothers, sisters,” said the man, to Harv’s puzzlement, “God loves each and every one of you. He knows exactly how many hairs are on your heads. He knows everything you’ve said, everything you’ve thought. Nothing is a surprise to Him, because He’s everywhere! Isn’t that just… just amazing?”
Harv was unmoved. Really, it wasn’t a very engaging sermon, so far. It was actually quite basic. It was the same old “Jesus loves you!” stuff that everyone was getting tired of. Harv thought back to the great theologians and religious philosophers of the Church: Luther, Calvin, Edwards… theirs was a message of harsh truth, of sacrifice, and a vicious call for reformation. People wanted that! People needed that! This gangbanger-turned-amatuer-pastor obviously needed to read his theologians. And, frankly, he might need to learn to read first. Analysis in-progress, Harv listened attentively to the tattooed, pacing preacher as he continued.
“I think it’s amazing that men like King David actually made it into the Bible. I mean, he murdered people – he went to bed with another man’s wife – he constantly complained to God. But God forgave him every time. Every single time. I know that a lot of you,” he gestured toward his audience, “do things that David did. Or worse, even. But you know… God forgives you every single time.”
True, thought Harv, but we, as Christians, are called to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48…
The man continued his monologue: “God isn’t disappointed when you sin. He already died for all of the things you’ve done, and all of the things you’ll do later. How can he be disappointed if He knows everything before it happens, and He still died for you?” He cleared his throat. “I know this might be confusing. Let me try and get to the bottom-line. God wants you to choose Him. That’s it.”
He’s leaving an awful lot of Bible out of there. And he still knows none of the theologians. Self-educated, self-important, self-sustaining. This is all about self, isn’t it?
“You don’t choose sin, brothers and sisters! You fall into it when you don’t choose God. Am I making any sense? Let me give you a picture – close your eyes and imagine this: a box. There’s nothing around it, just darkness. Now listen: the box is God, and the darkness is sin. You can’t choose to open “sin” because it’s not a box. But if you refuse to make the choice to open the God-box and turn on the light inside, you’re still in darkness! That’s what sin is. It’s just not-choosing God! So how do you get away from sin? You choose God!”
This, thought Harv, is ridiculously oversimplified. You can’t reduce God to a box with a light inside! That’s not an exhaustive allegory. People don’t get it!
A hand went up. Actually, it was one of the goth people (boy or girl? Harv couldn’t tell.) who was raising their hand. What was it supposed to mean? Was it a gesture of charismatic contentedness? Maybe he/she was stretching? The gangbanger-pastor stopped pacing immediately and addressed the one with their hand up. Harv frowned, half-surprised, but listened.
“A question?”
“Um. Yes.” The goth thing appeared quizzical beneath its makeup. “You said that I can’t choose sin. But what if I purposefully ignore God to make Him angry?”
The gangbanger nodded, smiling as if he agreed. “Very good point!” He turned and addressed the others, like he’d anticipated this question and was already prepared to incorporate it into his sermon. “She asked: what if you’re sinning on purpose to ignore God? Would that be choosing sin? I’ve got a weird answer, because honestly, it’s a weird question. If you’re going to ask it that way, you’re still begging the question. In that case, what you’re doing is ignoring God, which is the same thing as not-choosing Him. You see what I mean? So yes, you can choose sin. But on that same token, the root of your intent isn’t to choose sin, it’s to ignore God.” The pastor paced one lap silently. It occurred to Harv, suddenly, that this gangbanger-pastor might be making things up from the pulpit! Or, at least, the theoretical pulpit. The pastor continued. “You might argue: ‘what about an atheist? What about someone who doesn’t believe in God? What is their intent when they sin?’ Well, the answer is simple. Everyone knows God exists. In their core.” The gangbangers face looked angry, or focused, or something. Maybe just intense. Perhaps Harv had underestimated the gangbanger-pastor’s intellectual capacity. “If you live on Planet Earth (it’s beautiful, isn’t it? Look at the tree back there, and the grass, and all that stuff), anyways, if you live on Planet Earth, you know God exists. Causes are always more complex than their effects, and so we know that there’s something out there. Something intricate and intelligent enough to create Planet Earth and everything in it.” He faced his congregation again. “Basically, that would be God. When you boil everything down to fundamental truth, you’re faced with a crazy idea: God exists, and not only does He exist – He talks to you. When you take the only system of belief that incorporates a graceful God and actually addresses the Resurrection evidence, you have to realize that Jesus Christ was really the Son of God. He really came. And really died for you. Crazy, huh?”
Harv’s lips were pursed. It now seemed apparent that this gangbanger-pastor was an intellectual, and also that his sermon was a completely unstructured mess. It was probably all improvised. Somehow the man had strayed from “you can’t choose sin” to some apologetics rant that didn’t make sense anyway. The pastor continued.
“Sometimes people say, like, ‘every time you sin, you crucify Jesus all over again’. That’s, well, that’s the farthest thing from the truth. Our Lord died once, for all. And now it’s done – Jesus no longer suffers. The reality of the gospel is quite simple: all your sins are paid for in heaven, so you don’t have to go to hell. You could live the worst imaginable, you even do it on purpose, but the minute you repent, it’s all gone. It’s all struck from the record. Living the Christian life, guys… it isn’t necessary for salvation.” The pastor searched the crowd, eyes alighting on Harv briefly, but then perusing the rest of the congregation before continuing. “But we must do it to honor God. No matter how hard we try, we won’t make a cent of difference in our salvation. But we really, really have to try, you know? The effort won’t pay off, except to hear Jesus tell us we were faithful when we get up there. Okay?”
Nods all around.
“Okay then. Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this time, Lord, when we can come and worship you, God. It’s a privilege, Father, to be in your presence here in this beautiful park, Father God. In Your, holy, holy name… Amen.”


Not quite finished with this one. I'm kind of putting it on hold while I get a lot of musical practice done... I'm applying for two camps this summer (a prestigous, month-long music one, and a prestigous 2-week writing one).