Dear Rev.,

So you ask me in this ridiculously dramatized voice, 'What if "he" came into your church... What if he sat down and you could literally smell; not just see, but smell how dirty he was? What if he sat down right beside you?" I know you were trying to get me to think, but probably not like this:

I think we are trying to be "post-modern" in a "post-post-modern" world. We assume that the homeless and downtrodden, that the black eyeliner and white faced ones, that the pierced and tattooed, the the ones without teeth and the ones without SUVs need something we have. We generalize and profile and we become hell bent on "showing them Jesus." On ministering to them, because of course, they are the ones who need to be ministered to.

These, clearly, are the ones who don't know Jesus because if they did they'd be wearing pleated front Dockers and driving Ford Explorers and trading in art for theology and communal living for a 9-5 at Kinkos or wherever it is that you've chosen as a career. Obviously, poor people are lost and kids with dog collars and mohawks need YOU to go TEACH them something that they couldn't have possibly learned from the Holy Spirit themselves.

And while we're at it, the Catholics need to be "saved," too. And if one ever walks into your church, so help you, you're gonna be the one to do it. You're gonna explain to them exactly what's wrong with their doctorine and you're gonna be the one that leads them to Jesus because there's no Catholic on God's green earth - not Mother Theresa, not the Pope, no way, not anybody who claims Catholicism that knows more about who Jesus really is and what he really wants than you. Because you're Protestant. And you're wearing pleated front Dockers. And you drive a Ford Explorer.

And because his hair is matted together and hangs over the collar of his visibly dirty shirt and his shoes are worn on the bottom and he doesn't smell like he's had a bath yet this year there is clearly no way that he could have something that you need. That he could minister Jesus to you. That the very word of God could be in his mouth or that he know who Jesus really is and what Jesus really wants.

Yeah, what if? What if John The Baptist came into your church? What if he came as a thunder in the dry desert of your congregation? What if he came as a voice crying out to the wilderness of your comfortable and safe doctorines? What if he came preparing the way of the risen Lord to the spiritually dead places you've kept in your heart? What do you think he smelled like? What do you think Jesus smelled like?

What if someone with blue hair had the prophetic word of deliverance for your life? What if someone dressed as a mourner, a wailing woman - I think you would probably want to call them "a goth" - came saying "Repent. Mourn. Weep. Lament?"

You would automatically take John the Baptizer down the Romans Road, right? Teach Blue Hair the ABC's of Salvation and have Gothic Girl repeat the Sinner's Prayer. Am I right? Because surely that's what they needed. They need to be delievered and set free and born again into the Church of the Pleated Dockers and Ford Explorers who consistantly reject the Word of God Made Flesh unless it comes from someone in pleated Dockers or a Ford Explorer, or whatever your Sabbath Day Observances may be.

Yeah... what if?
Kayla