French Hookers

I read this account in a book I borrowed and absolutely love it.

An acquaintance told me about Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a great Christian scholar with whom he was studying in Europe. Dr. Schaeffer decided to take a weekend off to visit Paris with a couple of his students. One night as they strolled the streets of Paris, they saw a prostitute on a street corner. To the student's horror, they watched their mentor walk right up to the woman.

He said, "How much to you charge?"

"Fifty dollars."

He eyed her up and down and said, "Nah, that's too little."

"Oh yeah, for Americans, it's one hundred fifty dollars."

He stepped back again, "That's still too low."

She quickly said, "Uhh, oh yeah, the weekend rate for Americans is five hundred dollars."

"No, that's still too cheap."

By this time she was a little irritated. She said, "What am I worth to you?"

He responded, "Lady, I couldn't possibly pay you what you are worth, but let me tell you about someone who already has."

The two men watched as their mentor -- right then and there -- knelt with her on the sidewalk and led her in a prayer to commit her life to Christ.

That's the end of the story. I don't know what happened to the woman after. Maybe it was just the emotion of the moment that she got caught up in and she's on the streets today. Maybe she's the most zealous Christ follower in her part of the world, letting his light shine through her everywhere she goes.

But that's not really the point. The point of the story for me is not the woman, but how the man saw the woman. As one of Shane Claiborne's college buddies has put it in the past -- Jesus never spoke to a prostitute. What?! That's right. He never spoke to a prostitute because he never saw one -- all he saw was a child who was lost and needed to come home.