The Broken, Rag-Tag Group Called "Church"

Many of my conversations over the past few weeks have centered on the Church. Most of them have been about failings experienced by the former congregants. How the church, who says, “God is love,” treats the adulterer worse than The Scarlet Letter. How the church, who says, “God saves all kinds of people,” damns the homosexuals.

We, the Church, are a rag-tag group of individuals brought together by our similarity, our similarity of being wretched sinners saved by grace. We, the Church, are a ripped up jeans wearing (even if you wear a suit) band of broken people. There is nothing glorious about us, nothing beautiful about our problems. We, the Church, are messed up.

But we, the Church, are also the bride of Christ. Though our failings are oft and our wretchedness runs deep. It is in this despairing view that we see we are able to only truly do one thing as the Church, we cannot create special events nor can we treat everyone with complete love and respect, but we can show our desperate need for a Savior.

We do not love the way we’ve been loved, we do not practice what we preach, we do not walk the walk, but in not doing all those things we show that we need Jesus to be our righteousness. We need him to be our love; we need him to be our practice; we need him to be our walk.

The Church does not save anyone. Jesus does. He is the love that all Scarlet Letters, homosexuals and prideful Christians need.

Hopefully the Church continue to grow and mature and seek to grow in love all while realizing our sin is just as despicable as those sins that are more visible to the naked eye. Hopefully we begin to fight our sin rather than hiding it under the carpet or in the dark corners of our hearts. Hopefully Jesus becomes our only hope.