I was sitting on the already-packed and hot bus in Santa Barbara waiting for the driver to finish lunch (or whatever) to take us home. Amid the ten-year olds coming and going selling Coca Cola and deep-fried plantains stepped on board a well-dressed thirty-something year old man. He had on a tie and a man bag on the shoulder. And, unusually, he started to preach.
Let me clarify. If you happened to have read my last post about riding buses in Honduras, you already know that it’s not entirely unusual for people to get onto buses and start preaching, praying, speaking in tongues, generally proselytizing, incoherently yelling, blabbering, and/or spitting. Usually they’re spitting, I guess. And the common themes of their brief and fiery sermons are one or several of the following:
1) IT’S THE END OF THE WORLDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!
2) Don’t follow in the footsteps of those greedy sinners in countries like the United States [read: it’s God’s will for you to be poor and Americans are evil]*
3) Muslims, gays, women who wear pants and the like are doomed to eternity in Hell.
*the ironic part is that most of these preachers belong to various Pentacostal denominations based out of the “sinful and greedy” United States and thus receive their paychecks straight from churchgoers in the US… for me, the irony is that, listening to some of these guys, it’s as if I’m back in the Bible Belt again
Needless to say, these common bus sermons (and “sermons” may be a little bit generous here) don’t usually end up making me hop up out of my seat and run to the nearest Evangelical church. Some people listening, though, shout out halleluiahs and amens, some give the preachers cash, nobody seems as put off by it as I am, but generally people are kinda indifferent.
Anyway, this particular fellow in Santa Barbara who started preaching was nothing like what I’ve become used to: He was quiet, well spoken, seemingly quite educated and open-minded, and, most surprising, wasn’t radical in anyway except for his lack of radicalism. He talked about how we all have sinned and how we should seek God in our own way, not to be pressured or fooled by judgmental denominations that are “wolves dressed as sheep.” It was a nice, simple message that I felt okay with.
Then, he closed his Bible and pulled out a couple new toothbrushes from his bag and asked who was interested in “buying quality toothbrushes for the low, low price of 2 for L10.” Alas…
