Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”
When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Mark 2:15-17
I will limit myself to one more story about the cigar store before some of you decide this is a book about smoking cigars. It is not. But that is a book I would like to write! The research would be a blast!
I grew up in a very Baptist, very fundamentalist tribe of churches. Our church covenant listed dozens of things we chose not to do in order to be holy. That same church covenant did not say anything about a relationship of faith with Christ. But I digress.
In my early years as a Baptist pastor, I was very careful to avoid questionable places. I had grown up being taught that “we don’t smoke, drink or chew, and don’t hang out with folks that do.” It was simply part of my heritage.
But as I began to develop a heart to see people that were far from God come to faith in Christ, I also began to realize that as a pastor, I was spending all my time with the already convinced. I really did not spend much time with people that were far from God. It is hard to catch fish if you never go fishing. It is hard to fish for men if everyone you are around has already been caught for God.
A friend had introduced me to cigars and I had discovered that I enjoyed smoking them. At first, that only occurred on my back porch. How could I go into a cigar store where there were so many sinners and where my church members might see me? That is literally where my thinking began.
But before the days of internet, if you were going to smoke cigars, you had to go to the cigar store to buy them. And once there, why not light one up and chill out for a time? And wow – it was a good place to have conversations with others about Christ. Soon I was all in.
Let me fast forward twenty years. I have now overcome any hesitation to go into a cigar shop. I now realize that you must deliberately schedule time with people that are far from God if you want to see them come to Christ. And I have married those two things into one twice a week activity. I now deliberately hang out at the cigar shop because I am sent. I am on mission. The cigar shop – which is called Outlaw Cigar - is my parish. It is my fishing hole. It is my missional third space.
About five years ago, a group of my cigar smoking buddies gave me a surprise birthday party at the cigar shop. They brought me some nice gifts – mostly cigars. They told stores about me and laughed. And then they did something I will never forget. They gave me a plaque that looks like a license tag and says “Outlaw Chaplain.”
I was speechless.
I was moved.
I was in awe.
I took that “Outlaw Chaplain” plaque back to the church office. I removed the sign that said “lead teaching pastor” on my office door and placed the “Outlaw Chaplain” sign in its place.
That is what I want to be.
I want to be a friend of sinners more than a pastor of saints.
I want to be a regular guy who hangs out with regular guys to share good news.
I want to be a sinner who tells other sinners where to find love and grace.
I have accumulated a lot of degrees (more that I need) and plaques (more than I want) and recognitions (more than I deserve) over the years. None of them means as much to me as that Outlaw Chaplain sign.
It is who I am. An outlaw because I am a sinner. I chaplain because I am saved by grace.