Matthew 9:12-13
12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
I would like to start by explaining myself before I even start. My purpose in writing this is not to bash on the church or any particular culture. It is purely to point out observations that have truly brought me to a state of brokenness. Sort of a continuation from my last blog.
Over the course of the past few years, since I really started to be in ministry, I have began to notice a few things that never lined up about the bible and our churches. (Please by no means am I referring to all. There are many churches that are depicting what Christ intended for us to be like.) I have many friends, who due to various issues and of pressure of life, fell to sin. In fact, I too fell to sin. But what really got to me was what happens when the church finds out, or even assumes about this sin.
What often happens is because of the fear of polluting the identity of who they are they choose not to do anything with these "sinful" people. What happens is we seem to forget that just because they are in a church does not mean they are not sick. In fact a high majority of the people in a church are sick. Maybe not on a physical level, but they are emotionally and spiritually gone but because of the fear of being disowned they feel the need to hoard everything and to act like everything is fine.
Think about this, have you been to a hospital waiting room before? If you have, you know that there are always people who have different problems, some more serious than others; nevertheless they are all in need of some kind of help. Imagine this, what if you were sitting there and all of a sudden this man who is bleeding profusely comes and sits next to you, trying to stay calm and collective. You become frantic and ask "are you ok????" All of a sudden he looks over to you and says, “O yah I’m fine. I’m here to get my son checked out.” You would instantly be like, "you are bleeding!!" And you would do everything you could do to find help for this man. Even if he didn’t want to admit his pain you saw a need to find help for him. What’s crazy is that then you would find people at the hospital who are ready and equipped to help this man. A cool thing I see about a hospital is that they will see everyone. They are not exclusive to economic standings or anything of that sort. Regardless of how serious or petty, they will still see them because they understand that if a person feels the need to be in a hospital, it is the duty of hospital workers to do what they are there to do.
Now do me a favor and refer back to the verse; Christ came here for the sick. In essence, he is calling us to be a hospital. If we see someone that is sick we are supposed to be there to say, "do not worry I am here for you." But sadly I have been to many states and to hundreds of churches and have seen the church being the worst depiction of what a hospital is supposed to be. And it really breaks my heart. When I talked to an individual who grew up in the church but because of a certain sin or addiction they are now excommunicated from the church. As sincere as possible looked at me and said, “If this is what Christ is about, I do not want it.” I was at a loss for words. How can we call ourselves “Christ”-ians and not do as Christ did? How do we walk around singing songs, having retreats, conferences, and youth groups but never acknowledge the lost or hurting as people we are to help.
This may be a bit hard for many of you to accept, but rather than being a hospital, I feel many (not all) church’s have become a graveyard. Rather than taking the sick and hurting and being there to comfort and help them overcome. We sure do acknowledge their sickness, but we then label them as dead and we dump them 6ft under hoping to hide the “smell”. We are scared others may begin to notice. We wouldn't want the surrounding churches to smell the dead in our church and wonder what is going on their. So we feel it necessary to hide it as much as possible.
I wish we could get to a point where we live out what we claim to be. We have people who are dying daily and ending up in a place where they don’t have to be. It’s about time to put our pride aside and say we will be the hospital for the hurting. That we will be in the world, but not of the world. We will be a reflection of Christ.
OnEaMoNgMaNy