Getting hammered in Mexico

Rick Cole

Rick Cole

Yes, I got hammered in Mexico. Not only that, but I got hammered right in the middle of the day. Maybe I should explain.

You see, a bunch of us went to Juarez during Christmas break. Actually, it was a group from here at SDSU and a group from Oklahoma State. There I was, sitting in the corner, when I really got hammered. In Juarez. In Mexico. I mean, I literally got hammered.

We had gone down to help build a house with a group called Casas por Cristos (Houses for Christ). I was sitting in the corner working on some chicken wire that we put around the house before we stuccoed and all of a sudden, got hammered.

What actually happened was really just an accident. Chris Hill was on the roof working and accidentally dropped his hammer, which immediately descended onto my head.

So you see, I did get hammered in Mexico. But not in a way you might have thought earlier. I got hammered in a good way – doing something in the name of Jesus with a great group of people.

As I thought about our crew there, it occurred to me that this is what following Jesus is all about. One of his radical demonstrations of the breaking-in of the Kingdom of God was the act of table fellowship.

Gathering around the table was an act of acceptance and Jesus ate with a lot of people who usually weren’t accepted around the table of religious folk. It was also a table of all different kinds of people – a lot like our group in Juarez. There were the college students, but from different denominations and backgrounds. There was a 60+ motorcycle salesman and ex-Marine nicknamed “Chuck Norris.” There was a young Asian man named Mike who recently became a Christian and whose parents are Buddhist. There was Zok, a non-believing, Croation geology professor, and two old campus ministers, one whose bald head was hammered by my friend, Chris. And there we all were, coming together in the name of Jesus to share a meal with a Hispanic family in their newly-built, little house. Jesus said that when you do it for those in need and without hope or power it’s the same as doing it for Him.

So I was glad to be hammered in Mexico. There, I got a taste of what happens when the kingdom of Jesus, and not the kingdom of man or religion, has its way.

#1.884628:3204096272.jpg:rickcole02.jpg:Rick Cole, Religion Columnist: