The streets of the red light district in Tijuana are a hard place, although the things that go on down here are also going on in just about every other city.
If you just kept your head down and walked through, you might only have to deal with the intense aroma of human waste and rotting garbage that permeates the air, and maybe notice some homeless people here and there as you hustle past the strip clubs and cheap hotels. But if you take your time and look around, your eyes will see the open drug use, alcoholism, and prostitution. You’ll see people suffering with all sorts of crippling handicaps, wounds, diseases, and mental disorders. The scenes you observe will absolutely break your heart, like the one yesterday where we bumped into some young boys dealing drugs. Boys! The elder was maybe 15, the younger 10 or 11.
Stop and actually talk to people, and your mind will be blown apart by story after story from each individual on how they got here and the problems they are dealing with on a daily basis. The more people you talk to, the more you recognize that you have to weed through their stories to find the real truth, which is most often a lot uglier than they are willing to admit.
The men and women who live here and walk these streets have it really rough. They are at rock bottom. Living on the streets, filthy dirty, no job, no money. Most of them are addicts of one sort or another, bound by their addictions, enslaved to the cycle of suffering. They are dejected, alone, depressed, forsaken by society and without hope in the world.
There were about 40 of these people at the service yesterday, listening to the message and waiting for a meal, when a couple of male transvestite prostitutes walked by with their heads down. Beth and I ran after them, introduced ourselves, and invited them back. They said they were too embarrassed and didn’t feel welcome. If the average person living on the streets here has a tough life, these guys have it even harder. Imagine being ridiculed by homeless drug addicts. Total outcasts. So we gave them some tracts and let them go. Within a few minutes, they came back. They were just going to walk by again, but we pulled them into line for some food. As we talked, we could read the nervous, self conscious insecurity on their faces, and they were literally holding back tears, obviously stunned by our love and the things we had to say. I looked at them and wondered what could possibly have happened in their lives to bring them to this point? What possesses a young man to grow his hair, shave his body, get breast implants and sell himself on the streets? What kinds of awful things are lurking in his past that cause such identity problems, and destroy his self respect?
A natural reaction would be one of disgust, but in reality, I couldn’t help but pity them.
As I watched their faces and their demeanor in the crowd, I was thinking to myself, “This must have been what it was like when Jesus showed love to prostitutes.” I thought of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus showed her mercy while the crowd cried out for her blood. I thought of Mary wiping Jesus feet with her tears while the Pharisees looked on in contempt. I thought of Zaccheus, a hated outcast who Jesus showed love to while the crowds complained that He was hanging out with sinners!
Jesus loved the unlovable, touched the untouchable. Shouldn’t we be doing the same? Can we show love to those nobody else does? Can we look beyond their sin and love the individual?
Jesus loved them and saw the potential in them of who they would be in Him.
Every rich con artist you know is a potential Zaccheus. Every sexually promiscuous person is a potential Mary. Every Christian-hating persecutor is a potential Saul of Tarsus who may become an apostle Paul.
What do you see when you look at the world around you? People and problems you need to shield yourself from? Or people who need your love?
Which course did Jesus take?