Wednesday, March 14, 2001
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Wednesday, March 14, 2001 |
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'Spiritual snobs' take note ... sinners, social rejects welcome at River's Edge By REV JOHN HATCHER Last week I went to Juvenile Court in support of one of our dear church families. Yes, even Christian family members get in trouble with the law. As their pastor, I am there for them and in their corner. Waiting for our case to be called, I looked around the room and saw parents with their children, all waiting to be called before the judge. Good looking kids. Surely spruced up for court day. Respectable-looking parents, all probably thinking they never would have thought the infant they brought into this world was not being brought into court. I felt intensely for the parents, more so than for the kids. Waiting, boys and girls. Crime favors no gender. Daddy's little girl now has to appear and give an accounting for her behavior. And, it's all very intimidating. It was designed for that reason. The judge sitting higher than anyone else. The prosecutor presenting the case from one table. Offender and parents sitting at the other table. As I looked around in the waiting room, I wanted to invite every family and every teenager to come to our church in order that we could love up on them, accept them, and teach them a better way. Isn't that the way churches should respond? In fact this may blow some of your snobbish noses but the church ought to be filled with former public offenders and social rejects and former convicts. The Apostle Paul made it obvious in his correspondence that the church at Corinth had members who at one time were "idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers..."(1 Corinthians 6:9-11). That had to be some kind of church, in fact, my kind of church. God's church should be filled to the windows with people with all sorts of sordid backgrounds. Don't jump on me at this point. Of course, the church should also be filled with Christians who did not have to go the sewers of life to find out they needed Christ. There are many godly Christians who are in church because their godly parents led them in that right kind of direction. My wife and I for two. But the folks who never visited the sewers should not that is, should not look down on those whose unfortunate decisions took them down the road well-worn with traffic (see Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Less Traveled"). Jesus had his harshest criticism for those I call "spiritual snobs." They are folks who are in deep trouble if it started raining in church like the raining of the Holy Spirit. In fact, I was in a church one night when the Holy Spirit started raining on repentant teenagers and parents all of them getting their hearts right with God and one another. Well, the "spiritual snobs" were close to having a total sinus breakdown. I am sorry if I offend all you sterile, sweet to the touch Christians. But church is not your kind of place. You should stop offending God, join the country club and faithfully pay your dues (a la tithes). There you can vote to keep out the riffraff with a clean social conscience and thereby keep the place clean. But the church is not a club! It's the one assembly for God's people people who know all too well they are sinners to talk about the fact while, at the same time, brag on God who forgave them all their sins. After all, didn't our older brother, Paul, often tell folks he was the "chief of sinners?" Advertisement at River's Edge Community Church: "Sinners welcome!"
The Rev. Dr. John Hatcher is pastor of River's Edge Community Church in Fayetteville. |
