The Pardons of a Pentacostal Preacher

I have done a lot of stupid, silly, and awkward things in front of a group of people before, such as competing in an air guitar contest and break dancing in front of hundreds of people. My retarded antics have been recorded and photographed and are posted all over YouTube by now and have made it into more than a dozen stories from total strangers, I'm sure of this fact. My most recent escapade to date involved an improv dating game where I played a fiery Pentecostal preacher. Allow me to explain...

Wednesday night youth group played out just like normal. The game that night was a take on the popular TV show, Whose Line is It Anyways. We were playing the dating game, where three bachelors with quirky identities joke around with a clueless female interest. Tonight's clueless female interest was one precious Rachael Irmen. Her outstanding choices were Garrett Messer as a Mexican Chef, Zane Radar as a nostalgic high school football player, and yours truly as a fiery Pentecostal preacher. Now that you're all caught up, let me tell you the embarrassing part.
"Bachelor Number 3: What sort of qualities do you find most important in your woman?" By this point in the game, I had gotten rediculously into character and was waving my Bible around on top of a chair and yelling "Hallelujah" and "Amen" like a bafoon. I started rambling around about something that had to do with a selfless, giving heart and a lovely woman of God. "May she fall at the feet of Jesus and wash his feet with her hair!" I yelled as I then proceeded to fall on my knees in front of her and rubbed my hair in her feet. Her look of surprise and horror matched my surprise as to what I had said. Of course, it got a pretty uproarious laugh and we all enjoyed the game, blah blah blah.

So I got to thinking that night about the story I quoted in a rather, um, unique fashion. So I read it. It's all about how Jesus was having a dinner with a Pharisee when a prostitute barged in and fell at her face before Jesus. Her tears ran down her face and onto his feet, and she then wiped his feet clean with her hair. The Pharisee was befazzled, if that is a word, and started questioning Jesus- "What the heck, chief? She is a whore and I am a beautiful, sexy man with money! Umm... hello???"

Jesus, in his Sunday school happy face of course, retorted, "Say you got two guys who have outstanding debts 'cus they bet on the Bengals- obviously their first mistake- so that one is out fifty and the other is out a hundred. The bookie says that they are free to go, right, 'cus the boss is in a good mood. Which guy is more grateful?"

"Obviously the guy who was more in the dirt- the guy with a hundred!"

Point made.

And of course, I got started thinking. Both of these guys are out money. Both are in red, whether it was one penny or one million big ones. We are all in the red; we all screw up, whether it's once in our lifetime or once a day. Maybe it's not about how bad in the gutter we are, but it's about realizing we are in the gutter at all. Could this story, which I so butchered in front of dozens of teens, be about learning to fall at our knees in reverence of mercy? That we realize our faults and then realize the mercy we have been given. It's enough to make us fall on our knees and rub our hair on some feet.

So I guess what I was really saying in front of all those people was that I was looking for a woman who can fall at the feet of our Lord and Savior and can admit her wrongs and then admit that the mercy of our Almighty God is unbelievably true. And despite my sarcasm on stage and the laughs that followed, I think that this is just about spot on for the real thing. So here's to a woman of God out there, who right now I pray is falling on her knees before the God who saves. Here's to me, learning to do the same thing. And here's to the Pentecostal preachers who make Wednesday nights a joy for sarcastic dorks like myself. Now go wash some feet with your head.

KB