Red Letter Christians

Did I Just Tweak Jesus’ Nipple?

by Jamie Arpin-Ricci Sunday, June 26th, 2011

“Jamie, can I ask you something?”  Jimmy, our homeless friend, was being unusually cautious with me.  We were sitting in our living room, gathered for our weekly potluck and worship at Little Flowers Community, the inner city church we planted. As an adventurous hitchhiker, we never knew when he would show up, but we were always pleased when he’d stop by.

On this trip he’d moved in with us for a few months, riding out the bitterly cold Canadian winter.  Jimmy is a great guy- generous, kind and really very funny.  He also lives with severe, untreated mental illness, subjecting him to dark visions and fearful hallucinations, usually involving demons and vampires out to get him.

More often than not we could count on Jimmy to say exactly what was on his mind, with no thought to censoring the wild ideas or bizarre visions that came to him.  Now, however, he was clearly hesitant and so he had my full attention immediately.  Assuring him that he could ask me anything he wanted to, he went on.

“Well, I don’t want to offend you or say something sacrilegious or anything, but something happened to me.  The other night I was riding the bus trying to get some sleep, so I was laying back with my eyes closed.  Then I had this feeling that someone was standing over me.  I opened my eyes and… umm, well, Jesus was standing over me with His arms spread wide.”  He looked at me, waiting for a response.

Given the terrifying nature of most of Jimmy’s visions, which usually left him agitated and afraid, he seemed excited (if perplexed) by what he was sharing with me.  I asked him to go on, but he hesitated, looking a little embarrassed.

“That’s what I don’t want, you to be offended or anything.  I mean, I was half asleep so I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or nothing.  When I saw Him standing there I did the first thing that came to mind.  I reached up and tweaked His nipple.  You don’t think I am going to Hell for that, do you?”  I grinned widely at Jim and assured him that Jesus completely understood.  Relieved, he continued:

“I am glad you said that, because I am pretty sure it was really Jesus too.  A couple of nights later, it was getting cold out and my buddy wasn’t home so I needed to find a place to crash for the night.  I found a corner in a public parking garage where I could wrap up, but it was getting colder and colder.  I remember saying out loud, ‘Oh God, I could use a blanket!’.  Just as I said that, I felt as though a blanket was being pulled over my body, immediately keeping me warm.  No one was there, but I knew right away that it was Jesus.  You know how I knew?  Because after the invisible blanket was in place, I felt a hand slip down to my chest and tweak my nipple!”

For some, this story might seem to reflect a person with no respect for Jesus.  Yet for those of us who know Jimmy, we see it as a divine encounter where a loving God reached past the cloudy confusion of mental illness to demonstrate His love for one of His children.

When we began our ministry in our neighborhood nearly a decade ago, we could not have anticipated that we would have found ourselves in relationship with so many people struggling with various degrees of mental health.  Neither could we have anticipated how deeply so many of them longed for a place of love and acceptance, a place to explore faith without fear or judgment.  For many people with mental illness (who represent a significant number of the poorest of the poor in North America), the church has not been a place of welcome or understanding.  The stigma attached to mental illness is deeply rooted in most Christian circles nurturing an ignorance that makes connecting to these people nearly impossible.  They represent one of the single most neglected “unreached people group” in our cities.  This must change.

And yet, it is not only the mentally ill who need the church to reach out and love them.  We are in genuine need of them.  Encounters like we have with Jimmy and others force us to push our faith beyond intellectual ideals and shallow spiritualities.  They demand that we confront the messy reality of a broken world and rely entirely upon God to reach past the impossible circumstances with His divine grace and love.  Beyond the romanticism that often clouds reality, we must learn to genuinely see Christ in these children of His.  Then we will learn what it means to live the words of Jesus with our lives.

Jimmy is still very ill.  He still is tormented by his demons and hunted by vampires.  Yet, in the midst of that, he has encountered Christ in a real way.  During his most recent visit with us, he interrupted our meal to tell us something:

“I just want to thank you guys for taking me in and being my friend.  No one else would.  You guys are good Christians- and I don’t mean in a cultish way!”

We all laughed with appreciation and left humbled that God has chosen to use us to build His kingdom in Jimmy’s life.

—-

Jamie Arpin-Ricci. CJ, is a writer, 3rd order Franciscan and pastor of Little Flowers Community (www.littleflowers.ca) an inner city church plant in Winnipeg, MB. He is the author of the forthcoming “The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom” (IVPress, Nov 2011). He blogs regularly at www.missional.ca .


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  • http://twitter.com/sjsoco Mark Barrentine

    Thanks for sharing Jamie. I hope I have that kind of courage, to do something outstanding, when I meet the Divine instead of fall on my face trembling in fear. I would love to hear Jesus laugh instead of say, “Get up. Go change your pants, you ninny! I got something for you to do.” Peace and all good.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Thanks Mark. Jimmy has been more of a blessing to us than we have from him, I am sure. God is good, which is most obvious when we risk those moments of costly obedience. Peace & all good!

  • http://www.missional.ca/2011/01/faith-poverty-mental-illness/ Faith, Poverty & Mental Illness « A Living Alternative Our Missional Pilgrimage

    [...] Check it out here: “Did I Just Tweak Jesus’ Nipple?” [...]

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_E4VJDFUWZAD4DUMOM4QNAZX7EI Jessica M

    It’s amazing how Christ will reach down to individuals in unique ways to communicate his presence and love to them. I am inspired by the way you reach out to those in the margins of society, may we all have the courage and compassion to do so.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    In truth, Jessica, Jesus reached for Jimmy long before we did. And Jimmy made it so easy to love him. Thanks for your kind words.

  • Jean C.

    Your story reminded me that Jesus can even come to visit us in te form of someone dealing with any kind of mental illnesses. He told us: Whatever you did for them… for did it for Me. Thank you for sharing your heart with us to make us sensible to those dealing with mental healt. It is a sickness often discarded by the followers of Christ because they don’t understand it, and feel threatened by who doesn’t fit into their church setting.

  • http://twitter.com/badyouthspeaker Chris Whitler

    I have seen first hand how the Little Flowers community absorbs the pain and idiosyncrasy of the inner city. It is a great yet quiet testimony to Jesus’ love in a place most would just as soon forget. Thanks for the story.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Thanks Jean. I believe that the mentally ill have been something of a forgotten people group to the church. As you say, in them we discover Christ. It has been a humbling journey.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Thanks Chris. You guys are doing amazing stuff yourself. Miss ya!

  • http://www.debbiehaughlandchan.com Debbie Haughland Chan

    Jamie, you inspire me! Thank you for being willing to think outside the box when it comes to loving the unwanted.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Thanks Debbie. Hope to see you soon!

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  • Jim Murdock

    Bless you bro for sharing and being there for Jimmy, melts my heart, takes you to a special place or actually a place where you would find Jesus, how I need to be there where real joy and peace exists. Shalom

  • Elizabeth Laine

    Tony a heart warming, encouraging story about true Christians at work. Well done and may God bless your work, richly.
    Elizabeth Laine author of A butterfly landed an eagle.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Thanks Jim. As I’ve said elsewhere, I feel like Jimmy has given more to us!

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    Thanks Elizabeth!

  • jw

    I read the title of the article, and that was enough. Call me a moron for not reading the article and making a comment. It is now cool to be a cool Christian. Postmodern, witty lines like nipple tweak, relating to a current cultural generation…..all this stuff is so oppressive, depressive, and repressive. It is like the leadership in the small c christian world is saying “let me throw a few bones to the dogs and get them salivating”. Now I need to read the article.

  • http://www.missional.ca Jamie Arpin-Ricci

    jw, I hope you did read the article. The title was not meant to get people salivating, but it was meant to offend. However, it was not meant to offend for its own sake, but rather to demonstrate that the grace and love of God expresses itself so radically at times that it reaches across our propriety to speak directly to the hearts of His lost children. That God chose to let a homeless schizophrenic “tweak his nipple” may sound offensive, but it is far less an indignity than the cross- an offensive indignity we take for granted all too often.

  • http://www.missional.ca/2011/01/why-red-letter-christians/ Why Red Letter Christians? « A Living Alternative Our Missional Pilgrimage

    [...] Campolo invited me to become a regular contributor to at Red Letter Christians (which I accept with this piece on the church & mental illness).  Tony sums up the sites [...]

  • Me

    Awesome! Totally pegs our relational God.

  • http://twitter.com/ladyketo Ladyketo

    Ohhh this warmed my heart.  So very much.  Thank you, Jimmy.  Thank you, Jesus.

  • Liftmanproductions

    good to hear that…
    in hungary, the government had closed down the most important mental health care centres, and quite simply let the people living there out to the streets, among the people, to the busses, trams, public squares. they provide no state program to facilitate the lives, or offer any kind of state support or care system for these people, and also accepted bills to almost make the work of charity organisations impossible, and is about to accept another that would penalize living on the street. budapest streets in some districts are covered with defecate and waste. the exact same type of mentally (and physically) handicapped people are stalking churches, for money and food, and i could not say that they are very much accepted, but in some places they are. at some places they dont want to see them. and sadly almost none of them seems to want to understand that what they need is not money or food but jesus. pray for them. thanks.

  • Liftmanproductions

    and i know a homeless schizophreniac man who complains that witches of satan perform fellatio on him all night long and he is suffering and praying and cant help it. what do i tell him? pray again and again, i try to carry this, and know no better.

  • http://georgepwood.com/2011/06/27/the-world-wide-religious-web-for-monday-june-27-2011/ The World Wide (Religious) Web for Monday, June 27, 2011 « GeorgePWood.com

    [...] “Did I Just Tweak Jesus’ Nipple?”: For some, this story might seem to reflect a person with no respect for Jesus.  Yet for those of us who know Jimmy, we see it as a divine encounter where a loving God reached past the cloudy confusion of mental illness to demonstrate His love for one of His children. [...]

  • Chris

    I work with folks who live with mental illness and I am glas to say that more and more churches are becoming open and welcoming those with MI into there congregations, hearts and homes.

    Many of my clients would love to have even one person to share the faith and faith issues with.

    Keep up the great work!

  • Andy J. Funk

    I truly appreciate this story about Jimmy. I think we have such a long standing tradition of building protective barriers around our perceptions of Jesus that even he can’t take a good humiliating “nipple tweak”. Jesus identified himself with the “lowest” in our world/society, so this act of giving “purple nurples” may not be as “out of character” for Jesus as we think. One truth I have come to, due to losing our 2 year old daughter to brain cancer, is that until you personally experience immense pain, loss, and suffering, you can’t truly come to the liberating realization that even through our irreverent, undignified expressions of anguish and disappointment with God, we are still accepted by God as children of the Heavenly Father. I have no problems being more expressive with my Lord whenever I encounter the Divine, not like I used to. Nothing we do will surprise God, and these various ways of encountering God are all part of what it looks like to live in relationship with our Creator. Praise God for people like Jimmy who make a lot of us uncomfortable.

  • Andy J. Funk

    I would like to call you a “Moron” for not reading the article, but that will not solve the problem. 

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