The other day, while the band was on a break, the subject of the new Denzel movie, "American Gangster" came up. A couple of the guys were talking about how good it was, and since it hadn't come out yet, I asked, "Waitaminnit. How y'all see the movie and it ain't came out yet?" (My conversational grammar is not always as polished as my published grammar. Besides, there were no White folks around!)
They laughed at me, the church boy.
"Bootleg, mane*! You wont it? I got it," Dude 1 said. (I'll not name names here)
"Naw," I replied. "I'll wait to see it at the movies." Chuckling.
Dude 2 laughed and said, "The preacher don't want to tick the Lord off!"
Dude 1, the seller, eyed me sideways over the top of his shades and asked sarcastically, smiling,
"The Lord don't like bootleg?"
"Nope."
It is important for the sake of timing, to note that the rest of this exchange came rapid-fire, without pause:
Dude 1 asked, "Aw, rilly**? Where dat at in the Bible?"
" 'Thou shalt not steal!' (They fell out laughing!) Yeah, thass EARLY in the story! Thass in the firss act, even before the firss commercial!" (They're rolling, laughing now falling backwards and stomping like we Black folk do. We LOVE to laugh.) Yeah, man, you ain't even gotta be a theologian to know that one! I gotcha, didn' I?"
"Yeh, mane! I can't argah*** witcha right there!" We kept right on laughing.
I don't get many opportunities to preach to the guys with whom I work, and it is cool when I do. It is a delicate balance-- trying to be relevant while not selling out the Lord. They see me as separate, not doing many of the things they do, yet they do not shun me, thereby rendering me ineffective.
This is one small reason why I do not see a problem with what I do. I play music for a living. "Secular music." (I HATE that term! Is YOUR job "secular"?) I don't get high, I don't get drunk, I don't run around with women, etc. And if I slipped, my entire Christian witness would be torn down. But how many street folk read the Bible recreationally? How many of them go to church and ACTUALLY adhere to the ad they hear? We are told to go out inTO the world. That's where the people are.
These guys knew that selling and buying bootleg movies was wrong. That's common sense. I didn't impart some startling new revelation to them. But what I hope I did was to let them know that God is in every corner of life. And that, hopefully by my meager example, it is possible to be holy and still be an enjoyable person to be around. Christian life is not to be boring and stiff!
Will Heaven be that way?
*Man
**Really
***Argue
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