Sunday, April 2, 2017

"A Place for Sinners" April 2 Readings: Joshua 9-10, Luke 5:17–39, Psalm 41, Proverbs 10:7-8



Today's Readings - Joshua 9-10, Luke 5:17–39, Psalm 41, Proverbs 10:7-8


Devotional 


Bart and Beulah were in despair. Their entire family was sick, a sickness they didn't understand, that had held on for months, even years, and just seemed to get worse all the time. Nothing helped. They moved several times to find a climate that might suit them. They changed diets. They exercised. But no matter what they did the sickness in the family just grew worse. 

Bart had grown up in a family that went to the hospital often, but he never really liked it, so he stopped going when he was on his own. Now it seemed that there was no option. One morning he roused his family, got them all dressed up and loaded up the minivan to head to the nearest hospital, hoping to see if something could be done to help them. 

But the moment they arrived at the hospital they knew something was wrong. People stared coldly, turning away from them. Clearly, they were not welcome. Bart went up to the window and told the lady behind the counter that he and his family needed help. She shook her head. "Oh, sir, I'm sorry, but we cannot let you in. At this hospital we value health and you folks are sick. We cannot have sick people like you around all us healthy folks. We can only remain healthy if we keep sick people like you out of our building." 

Bart and Beulah loaded their family back in the minivan and headed out discouraged. If the hospital wouldn't help them get well, where could they go?  

Absurd? Of course. We all know that a hospital is a place for sick people to go so that they can get well. It is not the healthy who need a hospital, but the sick. It would be absurd, contrary to the very purpose of the hospital, for sick people to be disdain or excluded. Nonsense. 

All too often, though, churches engage in the same kind of absurdity as this fictitious hospital. Churches sometimes become retreats for the righteous - places where good people gather to enjoy the presence of other good people while avoiding all those sin-sick people out there in the world. 

Absurd! The church is meant to be a hospital for sinners not a country club for superior saints!

Jesus ran into this attitude from the Pharisees who harassed him because he dined with "sinners." The Pharisees were strict in their separation from unworthy sinners and were scandalized that Jesus involved himself in their lives. But the Savior made his purpose clear in Luke 5:31-32. 
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Christians are not people who have never sinned, or who are better than others, or whose burden of sin is less than other folks. Too often, that may be the image we present. In reality, we are people who have realized we are unworthy sinners, have repented of that sin and trusted our lives to Jesus Christ. The church is the place where people go to find out who God can fix what sin has broken in their lives, to experience the healing power of God's grace. 

And to make sinners feel unwelcome in the church is as absurd as a hospital that only allows healthy folks. 
Father, my heart is so sinful that sometimes I forget my sin and think that I am better than others. Forgive me for that. May I have a heart of compassion for sinners as Christ did. 

Think and Pray


Is our church a place of welcome for sinners, or a place of judgment and ostracism?
Do you look down on the broken and depraved, or do you see them with the eyes of Christ?




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