27 January 2009
I'm part of
St Ebbe's Church, Oxford, and on Sunday some friends from church managed to make the front page of the
Oxford Mail along with the headline "
Oh-Porn All Hours". Bad pun, and not a great sentiment. It was in reference to a pub, the Thirst Lodge, 20 metres from the church front door, which has recently obtained a license to have lapdancers.
We're protesting against the license as a church, and there's plenty of good reasons to do so. But in a moment that was both profound and also slightly cheesy, I looked down at my little black wristband and wondered... What Would Jesus Do?
Make no mistake - Jesus hates sin. He talks about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible, using disturbing and graphic language, of burning bodies, and insides being eaten out by worms. Truly horrifying.
And from Jesus' teaching there's no doubt that perversions of God's good design for sex, like lust, pornography, lapdancing and prostitution will land people in Hell.
Yet when he was on earth, Jesus was notorious for hanging out with those kinds of people - prostitutes, crooks, cheats. He went to their houses for dinner. He talked with them, ate meals with them. The religious people of the day were disgusted with him, the man who hung out with 'sinners'.
Why did Jesus even go near these people?
It was because he loved them. He saw their need to be rescued from their slavery, their addictions, their obsession with sin. They were guilty as Hell, and they deserved complete punishment for their sins, yet Jesus went in amongst them to offer them forgiveness and life, in and through himself.
It's easy to distance myself from such obviously wrong, distasteful and sinful lives. But without Jesus, that would be ME, no doubt. By nature I've got a lust for sin, a craving for anything that displeases God yet promises cheap pleasure. But Jesus saved me, and tells me to fight that sinful nature, for the sake of greater joy in relationship with him.
Jesus came to save me, and Jesus came to save lapdancers.
How are we at St. Ebbe's going to reach the people of the Thirst Lodge?
