Sadness

Every time that I see a scene resembling the following picture I am saddened.



But not for the reason you might think. All over America, churches put up these mock "graveyards" to remember all of the babies murdered at the hands of their mothers and evil doctors through abortion. I saw one such display this evening on my way back down 11-E from Johnson City. It had a sign citing some statistic about beating hearts being stopped every 3 seconds or something, and their church marquee read "God is pro-life."

What makes me sad about this is not so much the statistics about abortion. I'm not a big fan of abortion by any means, though I've also never been in the situation to have to make that decision (certain aspects of my anatomy prevent that.) There are situations in life (especially rape / life of the mother issues) where abortion may very well be a neccesary evil. But i'm not writing today to argue about the issue of abortion itself. As I was told in English 101 at UT, everybody pretty much has their own view on that issue, and its pretty much carved into stone. There really can be very little meaningful debate on the subject.

What I want to talk about it is the role of the church. Why does the church exist? In short, the church exists as a place where sinners like you and me can gather together, learn about a God who loves us despite our sins and out of his love offers us the chance at redemption, and we worship this God. As such all sinners are (or at least ought to be) welcome. In the United Methodist Church, we advertise "Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors." There's an old hymn that says God accepts us (me) "Just as I am." And in modern contemporary church music, i've sung "Come just as you are."

The fact is that many women today have terminated unwanted pregnancies via abortion. Some of them were married and didn't want kids, but many more were single, maybe even teenagers, who didn't want to deal with the hassle. Many, if not all of these people got into that abortion situation in the first place as a result of living a lifestyle of separation from God. They were "living in sin" we might say. What better candidate for God's Grace is there than someone who is living in sin? All of us who have already accepted Christ and now live (or do our best to, with His help) in relationship with him were all sinners at some point. In fact, we still fall each day. As Paul says, we have ALL sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

What message do these mock graveyards and marquees that talk about God being pro-life convey to a woman who has had an abortion? To me, it says "you are not welcome here." THAT is what saddens me. In putting up these displays, the church, which at it best welcomes all sinners into the fold where they may find Grace and healing and forgiveness, is ostracising an entire population of God's children who are likely just as, if not more, in need of that grace than we are.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.. The church is here to offer grace, not to decide who can and can not recieve it. that is God's job, and God's alone. As for me and my church, we will SERVE the Lord; we will NOT try and take his place on the judgement throne. No matter what a person has done, God is always willing to forgive. Moses was a murderer. Paul, when he was still Saul, made a career out of persecuting Christians before he wrote a large portion of the New Testament. Luke tells us the story of a young son who told his father he wished the dad was dead, and took his inheritance, spent it all, and was welcomed back.

It doesn't matter what a person has done in the past, and it doesn't matter what a person's political beliefs are. If a person is seeking a relationship with God, why should the church shun an entire portion of the population with such a divisive and grace-less display?

Grace and Peace

Jim