I can honestly say that I’ve lived most of my life without having given Las Vegas much thought at all, nor have I ever had any desire to visit. I could think of 1000 different vacation destinations for my family and me to explore and the bright lights of Las Vegas, Nevada wouldn’t even make the top ten.
Perhaps it’s because I’m not a gambler; nor do I possess endless amounts of money to spend on things that do not hold my fancy. So, when my wife told me that one of the big conferences she was required to attend for work was in “Sin City”, I was less than enthusiastic then perhaps many would be. The only familiarity I’ve had with Vegas was what I had seen on television, and so I knew what I’d be exposed to traveling to such a place. And what I witnessed certainly matched with what I thought I knew.
A great preponderance of opulence and sensual flamboyance cast in stark relief against extreme poverty, corruption, and unprecedented greed. I discovered this one immutable truth about it:
Everything about the Vegas strip is designed to part you from your money. Whatever you intend to buy is three times more expensive than what you’d find elsewhere. Concepts like “free” and “grace” are unknown realities there; almost nothing is “complementary” from the chairs you might want to sit in poolside; to the internet in your over-priced, over-blown, over-sexed gigantic Caesar-inspired campus of a hotel. Even the mini-fridge in your hotel room is weighted; sending an electronic notice to the front desk for an extra fee if you even slightly move a beverage from its resting spot inside. Free grace is a completely unknown and little-appreciated reality. Nothing is free in Vegas! Everything comes with a price tag or a string attached. No one is as they seem! It’s all a show!
The super-rich and high-rollers come to be pampered and flattered; milked and bilked of what they possess by the high-end merchandisers; entertainers and Casino hoodlums. In the midst of the opulent world of Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Harry Winston, the poor and dispossessed dig out of trash cans for their next meal; while slobbering drunks and casino losers sleep one-off on concrete ledges and park benches. Underneath the mesmerizing color of one-hundred-foot Led-lighted signs advertising this and promising that scantily-clad prostitutes and bare-breasted showgirls proposition and pretend that you’re their favorite hunk; feeding the egos of amorous, beer-bellied men who could only hope to have the attention of such well-endowed women if they paid for it.
Vegas is a city that is built on hedonistic pleasure of every kind…every sensual, Eve-like delight, can be yours…if, (and this is a big “if”), if, you have the money to pay for it! It’s a place where people are both literally and figuratively pleasured to death.
Las Vegas is truly, “Sin City”. And they don’t shy away from that troublesome, and shameful moniker, no, in fact, they embrace it, as their souvenir shops can well attest. For it is the “sin” part that has brought those who run it; and those who profit from it, a wealth that is beyond imagining.
Having witnessed this past week what, the Vegas Strip has to offer, I discovered how out of place I was in the midst of all it. How, the life I live; the things I value are in such stark contrast to how so many live in that wild place, that I may have seemed strange to those who live that kind of lifestyle as a matter of course.
Having reflected upon what surrounded me, what became clear is how loud sinful indulgence really is in many ways; from the advertising; to the lights; from the pounding music; to the noxious gambling; the climatic shows; the hawking vendors; the sequined prostitutes and feathered showgirls. All of it! All of it was loud, relentless and in your face! I longed for the quiet beauty of my garden at home; the soft silence of being in the presence of the beauty of goodness and of God. Other than in my hotel room…there was no such place.
Which was probably why when my wife’s work conference was over, I was most happy to make my way home. I was like a fish out of water there, and really, have no desire whatsoever to return.
A Positive Reflection
Now, I know, so far, my memoirs about our trip to Vegas has been a bit negative, but there is a bright spot in all of this. Because it occurred to me, that Jesus had something to say about the people I encountered this week.
In Matthew 21:31, Jesus made a radical, mind-blowing, and obviously unpopular statement. A statement that would have shocked and angered the religious elite of his day…and probably still does today since it directly applies to the people I encountered in “Sin City”. Jesus said this,
“I tell you the truth, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”
Whoa! What was that Jesus? Talk about a shot across the bow of religious people? Are you serious, Jesus? Can you really tell me with a straight face that the people I encountered in Vegas this past week will end up getting into heaven before the religiously moral I’ve known all my life?
I can’t imagine a statement that would fluster and infuriate a church-goer more! Jesus certainly knew how to tick off religious people. How could he make such a statement? And what did he mean by it?
Well, he’s not saying that God doesn’t care about how the wicked live. Price-gouging is not ok; prostitution, public nudity, fornication, drunkenness, gambling, greed, and avarice are evil, and they who live in such a way are worthy of divine judgment.
But, the reality was and still is, those who live in such a way generally do not live under any illusions as to their own guilt. They know, deep down where their conscience still gnaws at them, that what they’re doing is evil. They may suppress that knowledge, even defend their lifestyle, but, in their rebellion, they are at least honest and open about their own depravity. Unlike the many depraved religious people I’ve witnessed to over the years, the people on the Vegas strip weren’t trying to hide what they were. True, they didn’t have any shame about what they were doing but neither would you have to convince them that they’re sinners.
“Sin City” admits what it is; it doesn’t feel bad about it necessarily, but at least they’re honest which often cannot be said of the religious for they hide their wickedness behind a cloak of religious respectability. Yet Jesus doesn’t pull his punches; he condemns them for their lack of faith; for their lack of honesty about what they are; and about their unwillingness to see their own need.
“For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax-collectors and prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not believe him.” V.32
I know this from experience, it’s easier to lead a someone to Jesus who’s convinced of their sinfulness than someone who’s not because often it’s their religiosity and personal morality that block their view of themselves.
Think of it in this way, for all that Jesus did do; for all the impossible miracles he performed; the one thing he couldn’t do was to convince the many smug, self-righteous Pharisees of their own need for grace.
Which is one of the reasons why they killed him! Jesus shattered their self-made illusion that they were good enough for heaven; that they didn’t need grace; that they didn’t need faith, and yet over and over through his teaching and life he placed a figurative mirror in front of their face, to show them what they really were.
They hated him for that…but the sinners…the wicked loved him. They loved him because, in Jesus, they found someone who loved them unconditionally. He didn’t condone what they did, but forgave them for what they were. And he changed their lives, as Mary Magdalene’s life can attest.
I didn’t come home from Vegas feeling that I was a better person than those who live so wickedly on the Strip. (At least I don’t think I did?) But I came home with an even greater appreciation for the love of God; for the grace of God than ever before. That God could love any of us is such an extraordinary reality? Who would ever think that the grace of God could have such power as to completely transform the lives of Vegas people which are so filthy…so repugnant? But it does! How can it be that he would want someone such as me, living in my own self-made “Sin City”? But he does!
Fulton J. Sheen is correct when he acknowledges, “Far better it is for you to say: ‘I am a sinner,’ than to say: ‘I have no need of religion.’ The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.”
Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.