Commentary: A Church Where ALL means ALL

I was told a story today about an individual in our town who was making payment on an account at a local business the week before Easter. As they were doing so the staff person processing the payment asked if the individual would be going to church on Easter Sunday. When the individual said no, the staffer then invited them to attend her church, which just happened to be a local Baptist church.

“No thank you,” said the individual. “I’m not big into the Baptists.”

“But you’ve never been to our church,” came the reply.

“Can women lead from the front in your church?”

“No.”

“You see … I would really struggle with that,” said the individual, thinking it would be the end of the conversation.

But it wasn’t the end. The cashier had one more thing to say.

“Well, whatever you do, don’t go to the Methodist church. They have a transgender there.”

“Really? That’s awesome!” said the individual. “That sounds like exactly the kind of church I would like to go to.”

I have to confess when this story was relayed to me, my initial thoughts toward the cashier and her church family were not charitable; the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth were far from gracious or righteous – they were downright sinful. It would have been really easy for me to respond here by writing a hit piece filled with my own perceptions of the failures and shortcomings of this individual and her church family.

But then I was reminded of Jesus’ teaching towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7, we read these words of Christ:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”

Here’s the thing – Methodists and Baptists have all sinned and all fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). In the same way my church is full of sinners, so are Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, Episcopalian churches, Roman Catholic churches, Non-Denominational churches, and so on. To advise a stranger to stay away from one church because of your perception that that church welcomes people you think ought to be unwelcome in church is an act of the kind of judgment and hypocrisy Jesus was warning against in the above passage. Sister in Christ: can’t we do better than that?

But behold what manner of love God has lavished on us. As sinful as we are, we are also called children of God (1 John 3:1). Where sin abounds in us, grace abounds all the more (Rom 5:20). Even though we are sinners, Jesus Christ died for every one of us, proving God’s love for us (Rom 5:8).

Even though we are sinners, we are beloved of God, and God welcomes us as children in God’s own family.

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that all people are invited to be part of God’s family; all people really are welcome. And if my church provides a place of such welcome for those excluded by other church families; if my church provides a place where those same excluded people will hear of God’s love for them and will be invited to open their hearts to the work of God’s Spirit in their lives … well … actually that just makes me a church leader who’s extremely proud of the way we do life together in our United Methodist Church.

Rev. Dr. Mark Charles is senior pastor at Memorial United Methodist Church, Fernandina Beach