She sat on a stool, legs crossed, in a flowered dress.

I was in the Red-Light District of Koh Samui, Thailand. Why? Because I was invited by the groom-to-be to accompany he and his friends for drinks. If you want to get drinks in Koh Samui, you cannot avoid the Red-Light District.

It’s an island known for its stunning beauty, breath-taking sunsets, picturesque beaches, and high-end but affordable resorts. As a result, Koh Samui’s economy is dependent upon tourism. Tourists, mostly Western and European men, frequent Koh Samui in pursuit of a different kind of picturesque beauty…something all together gruesome that will, no doubt, take their breath away. They come here for sex.

She’s still sitting in the same posture on the same stool. Only now, she forces a smile.

I know the story of this place. I’ve read countless books and articles about the reality of sex slavery. Every year, I scour the Persons in Trafficking Report that documents its global progress and problem spots. I subscribe to the email of every abolition organization in an effort to feed the break in my heart for this particular form of injustice and to learn how I can continue to be a part of its solution.

I’ve read of how it all works. Now, I’ve seen it.

Twelve girls, ages 14-19, dressed in little more than thong and boots dance to the rhythm of their DJ inside of and on the street in front of their bar. They are aggressive in their work, dancing in front of you, reaching for your hand, asking for your name…anything to get you to stop, even for a moment.

Then, there are the little girls, ages 7-10, no doubt in training to fill the boots of their mentors. These little ones are bold. They walk up with arms filled with roses, placing one in your hand. Their objective is to sell you a rose which you, in turn, offer to the girl you want. Little girls, courageously approaching Western men, talking seductively to them outside of the bars at midnight…

The den mother sits near the back of the bar watching everything. She is the matriarch who, no doubt, is too old to wear the thong and boots. Now, she runs the show. I watch as she screams at and slaps under-productive girls while simultaneously pushing men at the most seductive ones.

All of them, the dancing girls, the little girls, the den mothers…all of them are owned by someone.

She hasn’t moved in three hours. Same posture…same stool…same forced smile.

“Who is she?” I wonder as I walk by her again with the groom-to-be and his friends.

“Why hasn’t she moved?”
“What will happen to her if she doesn’t?”

Our next stop brought us to a bar where I could periodically check on what seemed to be a human manikin in a flowered dress. I knew she wasn’t a manikin. I knew that she was a real person with a real story…she and I had made eye contact…but what I saw in her eyes left me wondering about her story.

She wasn’t like the other girls. She made no attempts at aggressive seduction, her smiles were forced and her eye contact was labored. She didn’t expose her thong or wear black leather boots. She wasn’t moving to the rhythms of her DJ. She simply sat there, in a conservative flowered dress, obviously wishing that she was anywhere else but on that stool.

Was she a young mother with children in bed somewhere selling herself so that her family could eat?
Was she a young wife with a husband working on the main land selling herself so that she could eat?
Was she a slave owned by someone selling herself so that she could be free?

“Hi, my name is Jeremy.”

She sat up uncomfortably, the forced smile growing progressively strained. Was that panic I read in her eyes? Fear? It was certainly not relief.

“I just wanted to say hi.”

I was in Thailand a couple of weeks ago

Had dinner with the crew from the Pepper Drive community tonight and was struck by how time flies when stories move from the catacombs of one’s memory into the collective shared experience of a community.

Isn’t that why we must remember stories out loud? That we would experience them anew/afresh?

Isn’t that we are must remember the story about a community centered around Jesus that included bread and wine? That we would experience it anew/afresh? That it would become our collective shared experience as a community?

4:30 came too early this morning. I awoke to my friend pounding on the door, my dog going crazy, and my little girl shouting, “Be quiet Jade!” Moments later I was up and out the door…it was Easter Sunday.

For months, my church has been imagining an experience that would help people step into both the complexity and the implications of this ancient-present-future moment. As we considered how that weekend may have played out, we were struck by the difference between our waking moments and the waking moments of the original Jesus-community.

My day began with a pounding heart (due to the knocking and the barking) but quickly shifted to excitement as the cobwebs receded and it dawned on me that I had awoken into a day alive with resurrection potential. The experience is very different for the three mentioned in John 20. I imagine that the waking moments for Mary were accompanied with the immediate return of the jack-hammer pain of loss. I can’t help but to imagine that tear-stained cheeks were wet again by fresh tears as the memory of the brutal murder of the now-deceased flooded her mind.

“He’s gone.”
“I was convinced He was who He said He was.”
“Why did I remain silent?”
“Would it had been easier if I had never met this man?”
“What am I going to do now?”

Note the contrast between our heartbeats.

Mine were quickened with anticipation as, before long, I knew that I would be gathering with my community of the Resurrected, remembering the Story so to more fully embody it.

Mary’s were slowed due to the weight of outrage and inescapable sorrow. Like me, Mary remembered, only she remembered not the alive but the dead.

In an effort to capture the complexity of it all so to also capture the hope and today-implications, we invited our community into the story through the lenses of the original Jesus-community. As we hiked in the pre-dawn moments, our attention was periodically drawn to lantern-lit questions and everyday ancient elements. I watched as individuals paused longer by some questions/elements than others…I watched as a community journeyed deeper into the resurrection reality.

The longer (and higher) we hiked, the lighter it became…the sun was going to rise soon! The irony was unmistakable as, while we know the outcome of the Story, Mary had no idea. As we approached our destination (a ridge overlooking Mt. Diablo) Mary reached her’s (a tomb encasing her beloved Rabbi…or so she thought).

The image of the broken seal of a stone tomb elicits two different realities: for us, both the hope of new life and participation in the God-mission; for Mary, despair. Here, again, we are faced with the complexity of being human participants in the God-life. Why couldn’t Jesus have met her as she gazed at the inky blackness of the tomb’s entrance? Rather than awakening Mary in that moment, the resurrected Jesus is absent…or at least silent.

Next, we read of the foot race between Peter and John to the grave. What are they thinking? Is Peter still replaying a fusion of sounds: rejection, rooster’s crow, whip-ripping flesh, hammer-striking nail? What pushes John’s threshold for pain as he runs faster, faster, faster? Why doesn’t he go into the tomb when he arrives? Why does Peter descend in without a second thought? What do they truly “believe” as they depart?

And then we find Mary, by the tomb again…as our celebration continues with “Jesus conquered the grave; He conquered the grave!”

In the simultaneous journeys of two Jesus-communities, both are communities of the Resurrected…one knows it, one doesn’t…yet.

But before long, both communities knew it.

In the simultaneous journeys of two Jesus-communities, one lived like it was true…will the other?

Abyss,
Formless and void;
Tranquil darkness filled with inexpressible love
Shared by the Divine with Himself.
Gusts of unimaginable colors burst into being,
Exposing everything and nothing
…but love.

Disciplined silence echoing throughout eternal history.
Contained within Elohim’s self-sealed lips
Words yet unspoken leaving creation yet uncreated.
Mystery imagining eternal future;
Vivacious images inhabited by the Spirit
Of love.

Communal anticipation mounting;
Imagination soon to become reality.
Thunder reverberates across time outside of time;
His sealed lips crack open at last.
First ever light illuminates the void
At the sound of His voice.

A friend invited me to listen to and reflect upon Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” where, in the third verse, he rhymes:

“Jesus can’t save you;
Life won’t begin ’til the Church ends.”

An observation, a question, and a challenge…

An observation:
Jay-Z, rightly, links Jesus and the Church.

A question:
What kind of Church, and therefore, what kind of Jesus has Jay-Z encountered? If it’s anything like the irrelevant, locally and globally ignorant and indifferent Church in the West that my friends in SF with a soul craving for Jesus are experiencing, then sadly, he has a point.

A challenge:
To the Church: wake up! This is what the world thinks of us. It’s time to live a different, true Story. It’s time to live the saving Story of Jesus in a language that our world can understand.

If and when we do, I wonder how the lyrics will change…