Good Friday

"I'll tell you this, and I bet you never had anyone tell you this before, Jesus is gangster."

Protesters at Five Points. Photo borrowed from Gordon Bell.

Over the past few months, Rachel and I have gotten to know a group of people that are different from anyone I've known before.  These folks love Jesus, and they talk about Him like he actually matters.  Shelly Douglass, who I've mentioned before, lives out one of the most consistent theologies I've come across.  I've learned a lot from our new friends, but I've yet to develop the conviction (or is it the courage?) to stand with them as they cry out for justice, at least at a protest rally.

A group of them that regularly stages protests at Five Points South in Birmingham's Southside, typically holding signs against war or nuclear weapons.  Commemorating Good Friday, they've staged a Station of the Cross today as an objection to the death penalty and state-sponsored killing.  One of the protesters is dressed in the white jumpsuit of an Alabama death row inmate, and he is strapped to a cross with an IV running into his arm.  They hold signs that say things like, "Execute Justice, not People," "Let Him Who is Without Sin Start the Injection," and "Blessed are the Merciful..."  Though their numbers may be few, the scene is a powerful statement against capital punishment on a day remembering the execution of Roman criminal.

While I am terrified of protesting, I did stop by and say hello to my friends who were there.  And in dropping by, I had the good fortune to meet Johnny, a conspicuously intoxicated but remarkably congenial man who introduced himself as "a street-person."  Johnny is 5 days removed from a 25-year prison term, and is celebrating his release by partaking generously in libations.  Given his state of mind, I unsuccessfully tried to dismiss him.  His persistence was unshakable.  And then something interesting happened: Johnny started to preach.

Rachel works at a homeless shelter, and I am familiar with the ways in which addicts and panhandlers can manipulate religious "heart-strings" to get something out of us.  But I decided to hear Johnny out, and I shortly realized he knows Jesus in a way I don't.  In spite of the alcohol slurring his speech and giving Johnny a slight attention-deficit, he rattled off in colorful language what he'd done, ranging from theft to homicide, with a wide swath in between.  "And I know God was with me the whole time," he continued, "because that's who Jesus was with.  He was with the whores and the homeless and the criminals - the people like me.  I'll tell you this, and I bet you never had anyone tell you this before, Jesus is gangster.  He didn't play.  I'm telling you, he didn't play the radio.  Jesus is f*cking gangster."

Amen.