I almost got converted at the old Majestic Theater in downtown Brownsville when I was a high school. Can’t remember how I came to be there, but it was a special screening of The Cross and the Switchblade, a true-life movie about a gang leader, Nicky Cruz, who gives his life to Jesus and becomes an evangelist. Erik “Ponch” Estrada plays Cruz, and Pat Boone plays the preacher who leads him to Christ.
When the movie ended, someone walked to the front of the theater, talked for a few minutes, and then invited us to come forward and, like Nicky, repent and give our lives to Jesus. So I’m sitting there in the dark with all these other teenagers when I get an elbow-in-the-ribs-move from the cute Baptist girl sitting next to me. (Oh, wait, NOW I remember why I was there.) So I go forward and kneel down and somebody leads me in the sinner’s prayer, and . . . well . . . nothing. Not then, anyway.
I remember feeling awkward, confused, a little embarrassed, a little manipulated. But I felt like that most days back then. I was glad the theater stayed dark. I worried that through yet another personal flaw, I’d botched my conversion. I worried that my own religious upbringing was deficient. At times, I could be Woody Allenesque in my worrying.
Born, baptized and raised in the Episcopal Church, I’d been praying the Confession since I could read, so I knew I was a sinner. (This was before the discovery of self-esteem, so I wasn’t harmed by this knowledge.) I also knew I was forgiven because Jesus died for us and for our salvation because he loves us. But I never heard anybody at Church of the Advent talk about “getting saved.” Could be I wasn’t paying attention, or it might’ve been one more thing adults talked about when the kids weren’t around.
I’ve since come to understand that “conversion” — as the Bible talks about it — is less about a powerfully emotional moment than it is about turning and reorienting, a change of direction away from sin and death and toward a restored and true relationship with God.
Conversion is the life-work of followers of Jesus. It can be prompted by a profound and distinct moment — what I missed at the Majestic — but it’s what follows that’s more important. (Now that God has gotten your attention, what are you going to do?) When St. Paul tells the Philippians to “now work out your own salvation in fear and trembling,” he’s not advocating “works righteousness,” but calling for a continual consideration of the singular, historic, saving act of Christ and its unfolding meaning in our lives. He’s calling for on-going conversion.
I know people whose lives were a living hell until, in a shattering moment, Jesus saved them. And I know people who can’t remember a time they didn’t know Jesus loves them. For all of them, conversion continues.
I said nothing happened at the Majestic. But it did. I think about that evening from time to time, and it’s apparently become part of the grit and grist of Christ’s conversion of me. And I’ve learned that the Lord of all creation who’s not too proud to send his Son, nor too huge to give us life in Bread and Wine, is also not too solemn to use the elbow of a Baptist girl to direct one more redeemed sinner home.
by The Rt. Rev. David Reed, bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas. Reed grew up an Episcopalian at Church of the Advent in Brownsville and earned a degree in journalism from The University of Texas at Austin before his call to the ordained priesthood. He served churches in Victoria and Harlingen before being ordained bishop in 2006. He lives in San Antonio.
This article from Reflections magazine, spring/summer 2010, produced by The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas. All rights reserved.
Read the entire spring/summer issue at http://www.dwtx.org/index.php/prayer/Reflections_Online