Last night I was at a bar with some friends. Good times. Everyone left except me and one other and we were talking about life, which turned to religion, which turned to Jesus and what he's taught us in our years. Our waitress came up and asked us what we were talking about and my friend told her, "About Jesus." (More or less a paraphrase) and asked her what her views on the subject were and she told us a story that just made me hurt.
She doesn't like Christians. She said her brother has a son who is now six years old. Six years ago her brother's ex-girlfriend's mother threw a baby shower for her expecting daughter and invited her neighbors to come to the party. The "Christian" on the block was invited and refused to come. In the words of our waitress, "She told my mom that she wouldn't come and support a child being born outside of marriage but that she would still give a gift because it's not the baby's fault. Can you believe that?"
The trouble was, I could believe it. I wasn't hurt because of her views at all, I really admired and appreciated her honesty. I was hurt that something like that would happen by someone claiming Christ. It's so painful to think of the hurt that woman caused while thinking she was in the right. My friend told her that the woman probably wasn't a Christian because that's not what Jesus' response would be. And I told her about how we're all creatures of God's wrath (Eph). The neighbor's attitude was so opposite to the actions of Jesus (who met prostitutes at wells, invited tax-collectors to eat, humbled himself to become sin).
I laid in bed last night wide awake thinking about it. I'm still haunted today about that story though. Jesus hung out with the lowest rung of society--intentionally. It was the high-class people who "had it all together" that didn't like what he had to say. Matthew 37-39 talks of the greatest commandment - to love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. So in loving God we love our neighbors - people, believers and non-believers alike--Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Hindus, bums, prostitutes, tennis players, country music singers, our bosses, those who have wronged us, those who have done us no harm at all. There isn't a disclaimer that says anything about "unless they have a child out of wedlock".
Living in the BIble belt is scary. So many people that claim Christ but don't live it, making it an extraordinary painful task for those who claim Christ and live it to witness to both groups. The secular world down here has been burnt out by the hypocrisies of Christianity and it hurts me to see.
I'm a filthy; sinful hypocrite in need of grace myself. Saved by the blood of Christ.
I hope her story keeps haunting me. I need to cling to Jesus.
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