A Parable on Holiness

On the wall at the local coffee shop bulletin board was a poster, among about a hundred others, which read:
Jesus: Myth or Man
Come to a discussion at Kells
7:30 pm Wednesday nights.
Franklin was in awe that someone, whoever it was, decided to host a discussion about Jesus. For him, it felt like there was hope and that maybe there was a Christian influence in the city. He was warned before he left home by everyone, it seemed, to stay away from sin and find a good local church and get involved. But finding a faith community was becoming harder and harder to do. For him, he felt like the area was full of stuffy churches that were either traditional or else seemed to be a “haven” away from the culture. He didn’t like either option. This was San Francisco and by moving here he knew this would be different than anything he knew from growing up in the Southeast.
Franklin decided to go and he asked his two roommates to attend with him. All three left the house about 7:00 and by 7:20 were completely lost. “Have you ever been to Kell’s, Franklin?” Rob asked.
“No but I pulled directions from online so I didn’t think it would be this hard to find.”
“Wait there it is! Kell’s Pub? I thought we were going to a coffee shop, Frank.” Mike said from the backseat.
Franklin got a lump in his throat and just acted like he didn’t hear him.
“This will be interesting I guess.” Rob said.
The three walked in to the bar and searched for the group that was to meet. They asked the bartender if there was a group that was meeting and he pointed to the back of the room where there was a few couches and said, “The Jesus Group meets back there.” There was one guy sitting reading a book with a long beard circle glasses and long thin blonde hair. Franklin thought he looked like a cross between a hippie and Harry Potter. The man closed his book and looked up.
“My name is William. Are you here for the conversation?”
“If by conversation you mean The Jesus Group then yes.” Franklin said. They all laughed and exchanged names with William. William talked with them and it turned out that they had a lot in common. William grew up in the South and moved to San Francisco to be a youth pastor. After several years of working in the ministry, William had enough. He retold his feelings about how he lost sight of Jesus while he was busying himself with ministry. William said that he started a discussion group about Jesus to save his faith from reckless abandonment. 7:45 rolled around and another group of people came into the bar and joined the conversation. By 8:00 William spoke up and asked the question, “Who is Jesus?” The group that was all talking before in sub-groups was suddenly joining with each other to participate in sharing their point of views and discus the things that they have learned. For the most part Franklin, Rob, and Mike were silent. They sat back and watched as people discussed what they thought of Jesus. For each person, their seemed like a different view. It was 10:00 when people started to leave. By about 11:00 pm the three roommates walked out of the bar drenched in the smell of cigarettes. The three guys walked silently to the car and started to leave Kell’s Pub. Franklin was the first to speak.
“I really like William. It is so refreshing to know there are Christians out there that are engaging the culture.”
Mike sighed and said,”It was interesting. I guess I don’t understand why they meet at a bar.”
By that Rob spoke up and chimed in,” Yeah! I really was uncomfortable with how many people claimed to be Christian but smoked and drank that way. Some of those views seemed really far off.”
Franklin drove in silence as the two roomates talked about how aweful the evening was critisizing everything that was said.
Franklin, Rob, and Mike never returned to Kell’s Pub to meet with the Jesus Group, as was known by the bar’s patrons. In fact, after several more failed attempts to find a good church, Franklin decided that organized religion was a waste of time. Rob went on to become a pastor of Evangelism back South at his home church and no one ever heard from Mike again.
What does holiness look like?