In the hillside slums of Caracas, Venezuela, young men-turned-street criminals terrorized entire neighborhoods, including ours, where an InnerChange team took up residence in 2002. This story involves two important figures: a street criminal nicknamed Calimero; and an old, bed-ridden Spiritist we called Señor Oscar.
Calimero, at just 18 years of age, had already made a name for himself in the streets, and a whole host of enemies. He held up many of us at gunpoint. Thus, it was no small thing for us to pay Calimero a visit when recovering in the hospital from a gunshot wound.
From his humble makeshift dwelling, the bedridden Señor Oscar was a captive audience too. We sat at his side, singing gospel tunes, engaging him with scripture, and getting him to share widely about many things, including his efforts via occult practices to get revenge on Calimero for killing two of his sons.
In the end, just 36 hours before two men from our neighborhood stabbed Calimero to death, we had the honor of ushering Calimero into Christ’s Kingdom, praying with him in his dilapidated little shack. Señor Oscar, on the other hand, never released his right to stand in judgment upon his enemy, dying later, in the pain of his sin.
“Indignant, the older brother refused to enter. So his father came out and pleaded with him...” (Luke 15:28).
In Luke 15, Jesus’s parable deals with two sons, not just one. This is not incidental. Nor is it incidental that my story involved Calimero and Señor Oscar. The good news “for all” means that God has a party that’s incomplete without both sons; the one who judges and the one who is judged. Both must turn and trust the father’s judgment. It’s his party! Good news “for all” means we all—the self-righteous and the sinner; Jew and Gentile—find the door to the party via the same invitation: Christ’s merciful arms.
The heart of the matter for you and me becomes: will we enter the party if the other guests are not to our liking?
For Additional Reflection:
Song recording: Heaven help us all, by Bob Bailey.
Article by John Shorack: Jesus, friend of sinners: The Gospel’s Three-Party Framework for Disciplemaking.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Shorack has served with InnerChange since 1993; first in downtown Los Angeles, California (1987 – 2000), then in Caracas, Venezuela (2001 – 2021), and most recently in Medellin, Colombia (2021 – present). One ministry John initiated in Venezuela is called “Amigos Adversarios” (adversarial friends). Currently, he is steering this effort toward the US context to reach out to his ministry partners who face an adversarial political environment.