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This was the theme of our sermon on Sunday. Our congregation is currently at a crossroads. The last minister was forced out resigned because of opposition to his teachings and the more liberal bent thereof. Several of his last sermons focused on opening our hearts to others outside of the congregation and becoming the shining beacon that Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). He spoke about Christians closing themselves off to the world and how it is having a negative effect on congregations as well as Christianity as a whole. This made a lot of people who home school their children upset as he specifically referenced the home school movement as dangerous.

We’ve had members of the congregation doing the sermons and the Youth Minister did the one on Sunday. His sermon was on Matthew 9:9-13, the story of Jesus, the tax collectors, and the Pharisees. He asked our congregation if we were the tax collectors (sinners) or the Pharisees. Everyone would naturally answer sinners as we are all sinners and the Pharisees are often portrayed as righteous idiots by many congregations.

His sermon concluded with the fact that if we truly followed in Jesus’ path we would invite those who sins we abhor, including openly gay individuals, into our congregation. This clearly made many in the congregation squirm in their seats. His response was fantastic:

“If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe your halo is on too tight”

There was nearly a shocked gasp in the room. I hope the message sunk in. As Christians we need to less closing off and more opening up. Jesus himself said “it’s not the healthy that need a doctor” at the end of the passage that I referenced above. Christians do need to do a better job being the city on the hill rather than putting their candle under cover.

Unfortunately, the caricature of Christians as only those that follow Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or worse yet, Fred Phelps (I’m certainly not going to link him, Google if you want) is pervasive because many Christians that think they’re all crazy won’t stand up. We need to point out that a minority of Christians in this country follow these individuals and certainly not everyone is a nut. We need to embrace the sinners in our community rather than stand and scream at them from courthouse steps.

Until this happens, people outside of the community will not see Christians as a beacon of light rather than bigots that want to push their morality on everyone else (though everyone tries to push their morality on everyone else, it’s just one side has done better making this claim). We need to hate the sin but love the sinner, not hate both. The use of God for divisive politics by the GOP has made this harder by making both sides dig in and distrust one another. But there has to be some reconciliation and it may as well start with us.