Dinner with a Perfect Stranger

by David Gregory

  I had been stuffed with God talk years ago, and I still felt the need for a good purge. But here I was, forty minutes into this dinner, and I hadn’t reached my fill. I’m not sure why. To be honest, this guy both intrigued and baffled me. There he sat, one minute eating his salmon as if this dinner was the most natural thing in the world, the next saying stuff about God I’m certain I never heard in Sunday school.

  “Do you have something to write on?” He took a pen from his coat pocket.

  I pulled out my wallet and searched through it. “Not really. A couple of receipts. A business card.”

  “That’ll do.”

  I turned it to the blank side and handed it to him. He continued. “Who is the best person you can think of?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Morally speaking. Who is the best?”

  “I don’t know.” I thought for a moment. “Living or dead?”

  “Either.”

  “Mother Teresa maybe. She had a fairly good reputation.”

  “Okay.” He drew a short line near the top of the card and put “Mother Teresa” next to it. “Who is the worst?”

  “Well, Osama bin Laden turned out pretty bad, but there have been worse. Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot.”

  “Pick one.”

  “Hitler.”

  He marked a line near the bottom and wrote “Hitler” next to it. Turning the card around toward me, he offered me the pen. I took it from him. “Now, Mother Teresa is at the top. Hitler is at the bottom. Where do you think you fall on this scale?”

  The busboy appeared behind my companion and filled his water glass. I let the conversation pause while he came around and filled mine. He left, and I returned to the question at hand. “How can anyone answer that? If you put yourself closer to Mother Teresa, you look vain. If you put yourself closer to Hitler…” I let that speak for itself.

  “So where do you think?” he asked, unmoved by my dilemma.

  I raised the pen. “Here.” I drew a mark above the middle, somewhat closer to Mother Teresa. “So what do I win?”

  “Nothing. But I will tell you how you stack up in God’s eyes.”

  “Okay.” At least, that’s what I said. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to hear my score.

  “Actually, this business card doesn’t constitute the entire scale. Hitler is here.” He pointed at the bottom. “You say you are here, and Mother Teresa is here. But to get a feel for how high God’s actual standard is”—he stood the card on its end—“imagine that we went to Chicago and put this card at the base of the Sears Tower. God’s moral standard is the top of the tower, over one hundred stories up.”

  “Are you saying that to God, Mother Teresa and Hitler are essentially the same?”

  “Oh no. Hitler was horribly evil. Mother Teresa did very much good. It is not the same. But the point is this: Mother Teresa, in her own goodness, is no closer to bridging the gap to God than Hitler is. They are both sinners, and both on their own merits are separated from God.”

  I thought about that for a few seconds before responding. “So you’re saying that no one can make it.”

  “Not on their own merit. No one is even close. God’s standard is perfection. And you wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  I was still thinking about the implications of his prior statement; this new one took a second to register. “I’m sorry. What? What do you mean, I wouldn’t want it any other way?”

  “You wouldn’t want the universe run by someone who wasn’t perfectly holy and perfectly just.”

  “Why not?” Perfect holiness is the last thing I need to deal with.

  “Because it would offend your God-given sense of justice. Would you want a universe where crime went unpunished? Where, if someone harmed Sara, there’d be no justice? Where evil reigned unopposed? God has to punish sin, because if he doesn’t, he lets all creation be sabotaged. How would it have been if, after the Holocaust, God had said to Hitler, ‘That’s okay, Adolf. We all make mistakes. Don’t worry about it’?”

  “But everyone isn’t Hitler!”

  “No, but everyone is a rebel against God. It doesn’t take horrific outward acts. For the universe, humanity’s rebellion is more like cancer than like a heart attack. It isn’t mass murder that destroys the world. It’s selfishness, resentment, envy, pride—all the daily sins of the heart. God has to deal with the cancer.”

  “But we’ve all felt those things. We’re human.”

  “Yes.”

  I waited for more, but he returned to his salmon. The import of what he had said slowly sank in. “It just doesn’t seem right that God sees everyone the same way. Some people are worse than others.”

  “And God will judge them all rightly. But that’s the point. Everyone is already under God’s judgment, because everyone has violated his moral law. On what basis are you going to stand before a perfectly holy God and say that you’ve been good enough?”

  I picked up my fork to stab another piece of veal, then put it down again and reached for some water. Suddenly the conversation unsettled me.

  “You read Lord of the Flies,” he resumed, “about the shipwrecked English boys who created their own society and ended up brutalizing each other.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did they come to accept such brutality as normal?”

  “They were cut off from civilization. I suppose they gradually forgot what was right. At least, it got all mixed up for them.”

  He nodded. “It did. They lacked a compass to guide their behavior. Humanity is the same way. People are cut off from God, so they’ve lost a sense of how abhorrent sin really is. They live in a sinful world, and it almost seems normal. But to God it is grotesque. God is holy and just, in an absolute sense. Humanity doesn’t have any point of comparison with that. That’s why people continually try to water down God’s holiness. The way Islam does.”

  My ears perked up on that one. “Like Islam? If there’s one thing Muslims emphasize, it’s God’s justice and his punishment of wickedness.”

  “That’s what they claim. But ask them what happens on the judgment day. They say that if you’ve done enough good deeds, Allah will overlook your bad ones, and you’ll get into paradise.”

  “So?”

  “So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There’s no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn’t work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn’t say, ‘Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.’ In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That’s what perfect justice is.”

  I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. “But I thought God is forgiving. You’re implying that because of justice, God can’t forgive.”

  “God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I’m saying is that God’s desire to forgive doesn’t negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God’s justice demands it.”

  This seemed like a Catch-22 of the worst kind. I reached for a piece of bread, mostly to buy time to think. He finished off his salmon, apparently content to let me formulate my next question.

  “So what has to happen to get us back to God?”

  “God had two options. He could let people pay for their own sins…”

  “Resulting in…”

  “Humanity being separated from him forever.”

  “That’s not a good one. What was the other option?”

  “Or God could pay the penalty himself.”

  “How?”

  “He is God. The Creator is greater than the creation. For the Creator to take the penalty of death himself, instead of those he created, satisfies perfect justice.”

  “Why would God do that?”

  He reached for his water. “Let me ask you something. Imagine tha
t Sara is seventeen, and she falls in with a bad crowd and gets hooked on heroin.”

  “That’s a little bleak, don’t you think?”

  “Just hypothetically. Now, if while on drugs, she murdered someone and was sentenced to death, would you take her penalty if you could?”

  That was a hard one. Needless to say, I hadn’t exactly pondered it before. But…

  “I’m sure I would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love her. And she would have the rest of her life, and I would want to give her the chance to make it a good one.”

  He leaned toward me, moved his plate forward, and rested his forearms against the table. “Don’t you think God loves you at least as much as you love Sara?”

  I shifted back in my chair, but my eyes never left his. “Maybe. I really don’t know.”

  He leaned back himself. “I heard about two boys in fifth grade. One of them made straight A’s; the other barely passed every year. Despite their different grades, they were best friends—had been since kindergarten.

  “Near the end of the school year, they had a big math test. The first boy sailed through it; the second, who needed to make a C to pass, struggled. After class, the first asked the second how he did. ‘I don’t think I made it,’ he said. That day at recess, while everyone played outside, the first boy sneaked back into the classroom, shuffled through the stack of tests, and found their two. He erased his name on his and wrote his friend’s name there and then wrote his name on his friend’s.”

  I waited for a second, but he seemed to be finished. “That’s all?”

  “What else were you expecting?”

  “Well, the story’s not over. When the teacher returned and graded the papers, she would have known what he did.”

  “No. The story ends there. What does it tell you?”

  “That the first kid was willing to exchange his grade so that his friend could pass.”

  “Yes, and more than that.” He ran his hand across his chin. “What would have happened if the second kid had failed?”

  “He would have been held back the next year probably.”

  “And then…”

  “They couldn’t have gone through school together anymore.”

  He paused for a moment, then spoke a little more softly. “God longs to have you with him. That’s why he created you. But your sin separates you from him. It has to, if God is just. You have to be innocent before God. So, to get you back, God took your sin upon himself, and he died to pay for it. That satisfies his justice. In exchange, he offers you a not-guilty verdict. He offers it as a free gift.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure about this alleged gift, which sounded too good to be true, but I had to ask the logical question. “What do you have to do to get it?”

  “Just receive it. That’s all.”

  “You don’t have to do anything for it?”

  “No.”

  “And how do you receive it?”

  “Just trust him. That’s what all relationships are built on: trust. You reestablish a relationship with God by trusting that he died to pay for your sins. Believe that he will forgive your sins and give you eternal life. That’s why he died for you. He wants you back. All you have to do is accept the gift.”

  I wanted to look away, but my eyes seemed frozen. I wasn’t convinced that God loved me all that much, and I sure didn’t know if I wanted him. And this last statement confused me.

  “I don’t get it. The Bible says that Jesus died on the cross, not God.”

  “Nick,” he replied, “I am God.”

  7

  “EXCUSE ME A minute, would you?”

  I stood and headed toward the men’s room. Passing the lattice, I hooked a right and entered the bathroom. I took care of business, stepped to the sink, and looked at myself in the mirror.

  Now what?

  It’s not every day that someone tells you he’s God. Maybe if you worked in a psych ward—I don’t know.

  This guy is either a nut or a really good actor or…

  I dismissed the last possibility. But why would anyone want to put on this show? What would be the point—to bamboozle me “into the kingdom”? Who would do that? Okay, I can think of a few televangelists who might, but this guy doesn’t come off that way. I can’t refute anything he’s said. I don’t necessarily agree with it all, but it’s not off the wall. Except that last statement.

  I splashed my face with water, dried off, and headed back toward the table, unsure what to do. I considered taking a right at the lattice and going straight for the parking lot, but something stopped me. I couldn’t help wanting to know more about this guy who claimed to be…

  I returned to the table. Our plates had been replaced by dessert menus.

  “The waiter recommends the strawberry amaretto cake.”

  He looked over his menu. I stared at him, waiting for him to put it down and look up at me. He finally did.

  “Prove it.”

  “Prove…”

  “That you’re God.”

  “What would convince you?”

  Good question. What could anyone possibly do to convince you of that?

  “You couldn’t even turn wine into water earlier.”

  “That’s your assumption.”

  “What?! Are you saying you could have but just chose not to?”

  “And what if I had changed it?”

  “Well, it might have gotten my attention.”

  “And then what?”

  Another good question. It’s not like he doesn’t have my attention sufficiently.

  The waiter interrupted with a request for dessert selections. I motioned across the table and glanced at the menu. I couldn’t concentrate. My host ordered the cake.

  “And for you, sir?”

  “The tiramisu.” An old standby.

  I watched him collect the menus and walk off. My host resumed the conversation. “You’re having a hard time believing that God would become a man.”

  “Well,” I half chuckled, half snorted, “wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe. It depends on what I expected from God.”

  “I don’t expect him to look as if he just finished the day at Merrill Lynch.”

  He laughed gently. “No, I wouldn’t either, I suppose.”

  I leaned back and folded my arms. “And to be honest, I really don’t believe that God asks people just to take a blind leap of faith about him.”

  “You’re right. He doesn’t. That’s what the world’s religions do.”

  “What’s the difference between them and what you’re saying?”

  “About one hundred eighty degrees. In this case God gives proof before he expects faith. But the world’s religions have no evidence for their claims. Various forms of Hinduism count over three hundred million gods. What proof do they have of their existence?”

  “None, as far as I’m concerned.”

  He motioned his index finger toward me. “That’s why you’re not a Hindu. You see no reason to believe it. What evidence can Buddhists offer that ultimate reality is an unknowable void called nirvana? Who can demonstrate to you that God actually spoke to Muhammad? Or to Joseph Smith of the Mormons? Or—”

  “But Jesus is just the same. What evidence is there that Jesus was God?” I noticed that my elbows had migrated onto the table.

  “Well, for one thing, that’s exactly what God said would happen.”

  “When did he say that?”

  He took a drink of water before continuing. “You’ve read some of the prophets.”

  “I never paid much attention to that Nostradamus stuff.”

  His brow furrowed. “The real ones,” he insisted.

  I had, in fact, read some of the Hebrew prophets. Elizabeth, my girlfriend back at NIU, had successfully goaded me into attending a dorm Bible study that covered them.

  “They said the Messiah would come,” I answered. “I don’t think they ever said anything about his being God.”

  “You focused
more on Elizabeth at that study than on the Bible. I suggest you reread Isaiah, Daniel, and Micah.”

  “How did you know—”

  “I was there.”

  I looked intently at him for several moments. He kept his eyes on mine, but I couldn’t read his expression. I ignored his last comment. “I know what they wrote. They said the Messiah would be born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem. They described his crucifixion, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “That’s a pretty good tip-off, don’t you think? Micah predicting seven centuries in advance the village where the Messiah would be born? David describing in detail death by crucifixion, centuries before the Romans invented the practice? Daniel telling the year of the Messiah’s death, five hundred years ahead of time?”

  “Really?” I was genuinely surprised. “What year?”

  “Calculating by the Jewish calendar, AD 33.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I emptied my wineglass.

  He continued. “As for saying the Messiah would be God himself, the prophets said that he would be called Mighty God, Eternal Father, that he would be from days of eternity, that he would be worshiped.”

  That did sound eerily divine, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “Still, that doesn’t mean Jesus was God. Did you see that two-night miniseries they did on Jesus?”

  “I know the one you’re talking about.”

  “And that show Peter Jennings did awhile back on the historical Jesus?”

  “Not particularly accurate.”

  “You say that, but how do we know? It portrayed Jesus as someone who never claimed to be the Messiah, much less God. It said he struggled with his identity, got swept up in events, and was killed as a political threat.”

  He answered matter-of-factly. “I forgave sins on my own authority, healed people, raised people from the dead, exercised power over nature, said I existed before Abraham, claimed to be one with the Father, said I was the giver of eternal life, and accepted worship. Who does that sound like to you?”

  “Just because you claimed to be God doesn’t mean that you are.”

  “No. But it does mean that I wasn’t just a good religious teacher. Either I told the truth about who I am, or I lied, or I was insane. Those are the only real options. Good religious teachers don’t claim to be God.”