Honolulu, Whores, and a Hollowed Moment

Sociologist, author, speaker, and Christian activist Tony Campolo shares this from his book, Let Me Tell You a Story:

If you live on the East Coast and travel to Hawaii, you know that there is a time difference that makes three o’clock in the morning feel like 9:00 AM. With that in mind, you will understand that whenever I go out to our fiftieth state I find myself wide awake long before dawn. Not only do I find myself up and ready to go while everybody else is still asleep, but I find that I want breakfast when almost everything on the island is still closed—which is why I was wandering up and down the streets of Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning, looking for a place to get something to eat.

Up a side street I found a little place that was still open. I went in, took a seat on one of those stools at the counter, and waited to be served. This was one of those sleazy places that deserves the name “greasy spoon.” I mean, I did not even touch the menu. I was afraid that if I opened the thing something gruesome would crawl out. But it was the only place I could find.

The fat guy behind the counter came over and asked me, What d’ya want?”

I told him, “A cup of coffee and a donut.”

He poured a cup of joe, wiped his grimy hand on his smudged apron, then grabbed a pastry off the shelf behind him. Now, I’m a realist… I know that in the back room of that restaurant, donuts are probably dropped on the floor and kicked around. But when everything is out front where I can see it, I really would have appreciated it if he had used a pair of tongs and placed the donut on some wax paper.

As I sat there munching on my dry sinker and sipping my lukewarm brew about three hours before sunrise, the door of the diner swung open, and to my discomfort, in marched eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes.

It was a small place and they sat on either side of me. Their talk was loud and crude. I felt completely out of place and was just about to make my getaway when I overheard the woman sitting beside me say, “Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be thirty-nine.”

One of her friends responded in a nasty tone, “So what do you want from me? A birthday party? What do you want? Ya want me to get a cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“Come on!” said the woman next to me. “Why do you have to be so mean? I was just telling you, that’s all. Why do you have to put me down? I was just telling you it’s my birthday. I don’t want anything from you. I mean, why should you give me a birthday party? I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. I should I have one now?”

When I heard that, I made a decision. I sat and waited until the women left. Then I called the fat guy behind the counter and I asked him, “Do they come in here every night?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“The one who was right next to me, does she come here every night?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d’ya wanna know?”

“Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday,” I told him. “What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?”

A smile slowly crossed his chubby face and he answered with measured delight. “That’s great….I like it….that’s a great idea!” Calling to his wife, who did the cooking in the back room, he shouted, “Hey, come out here! This guy’s got a great idea. Tomorrow is Agnes’s birthday. This guy wants to go in with him and throw a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night!”

His wife comes out of the kitchen all bright and smiley. She said, “That’s wonderful! You know Agnes is one of those people who is really nice and kind, and nobody ever does anything nice and kind for her.”

“Look,” I told them, “if it’s OK with you, I’ll get back here tomorrow morning about 2:30 and decorate the place. I’ll even get a birthday cake!”

“No way,” said Harry (that was his name). “The birthday cake’s my thing. I’ll make the cake.”

At 2:30 the next morning I was back at the diner. I had picked up some crepe paper and other decorations at a store, got some balloons, and had made a sign out of big pieces of cardboard that read “Happy Birthday Agnes!” I decorated that diner from one end to the other. I had that joint looking good.

The woman who did the cooking, Jan, must have gotten the word out on the street, because by 3:15 every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. It was wall-to-wall call girls…and me!

At 3:30 on the dot, the door of the diner swung open and in came Agnes and her friend. I had everyone ready (after all, I was kind of MC of the affair) and when they came in we all screamed “Happy Birthday!!”

Never have I seen a person so flabbergasted…so stunned…so shaken. Her mouth fell open. Her legs seemed to buckle a bit. Her friend grabbed her arm to steady her. As she was led to one of the stools along the counter we sang “Happy Birthday” to her. When we came to the end of our singing, “happy birthday, dear Agnes, happy birthday to you,” her eyes moistened. Then, when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she lost it and just openly cried.

Harry gruffly mumbled, “Blow out the candles, Agnes! Come one! Blow out the candles!” She just kept staring at the cake. “If you don’t blow out the candles, I’m gonna have to blow them out.” And, after another long delay, he finally grew impatient and did blow them out. Then he handed her the knife and told her, “Cut the cake, Agnes. Yo, Agnes….we all want some cake.”

Agnes stared down at the cake. There was another pregnant pause. Then, without taking her eyes off it, she slowly and softly said, “Look, Harry, is it alright with you if I…I mean is it OK if I kind of…what I want to ask you is…is it OK if I keep the cake a little while? I mean is it alright if we don’t eat it right away?”

Harry shrugged and answered, “Sure…it’s OK. If ya want to keep the cake, then keep the cake. Take it home if ya want to.”

“Can I?” she responded. Then looking at me she said, “I live just down the street a couple of doors. I want to take the cake home and show it to my mother, okay? I’ll be right back…honest!”

She got off the stool, picked up the cake, and carrying it like it was the Holy Grail, walked slowly out the door. As we all stood there motionless, she left.

When the door closed there was a stunned silence in the packed diner. Not knowing what else to do, I broke the awkward quiet by saying “What do you say we pray for Agnes?”

Looking back on it now it seems more than strange for a sociologist to be leading a prayer meeting with a bunch of prostitutes in a greasy spoon in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning. But it just felt like the right thing to do. I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed and that God would be good to her.

When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and said “Hey…you never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?”

In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.”

Harry waited a moment, then he answered, “No you don’t…there’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I would sure as Hell join a church like that!”

Wouldn’t we all? Wouldn’t we all love to join a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning? Well, that’s the kind of church Jesus came to create. I don’t know where we got the other one that’s so prim and proper. But anybody who reads the New Testament will discover a Jesus who loved to party with whores and with all kinds of left-out people…the publicans and the “sinners” loved Him because he partied with them. The lepers of society found in Him someone who would eat and drink with them. And while the solemnly pious could not relate to what He was about, those lonely people who usually didn’t get invited to parties took to Him with excitement.

Our Jesus was and is the Lord of the party. That’s what we as His followers should make blatantly clear. We should highlight an often-forgotten dimension of what Christianity is all about: The Kingdom of God is a party!

My next installment will tell the rest of the story—about what happened with Agnes.