There is an interesting misconception prevalent throughout the world that we should love the sinner, but hate the sin. There is no place in the scriptures that this is written. In fact, the person who said it was the Catholic saint, St. Augustine. His Letter 211 (c. 424) contains the phrase Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum, which translates roughly to "With love for mankind and hatred of sins." The phrase has become more famous as "love the sinner but hate the sin" or "hate the sin and not the sinner" (the latter appearing in Mohandas Gandhi’s 1929 autobiography).
In fact, Christ had an interesting way of handling the sinners. He ate with them, and never called them out as being sinners.
For instance, in Mark 2:15-17.
Jesus
sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with
Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.
And
when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners,
they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with
publicans and sinners?
Christ
never said, “Hey look at me over here eating with the sinners.” He didn’t put
out a sign or segregate the room saying “sinners eat here.” He never said there
was anything wrong with knowing or eating with sinners.
It was
the Pharisees who had a problem with the sinners. What Christ said was, “A
healthy person doesn’t need a doctor. Likewise, a perfect person doesn’t need a
Savior.”
Which
makes me wonder – am I a sinner or a Pharisee?
In the
story of the ten lepers we learn of the ten that were sent to cleanse
themselves and be healed, and how only one returned to show thanks. Have you
ever noticed that Christ didn’t condemn or punish or say something negative
about the other nine? They were still healed. He didn’t take the blessings back
when they failed to live up to expectations.
When
the woman found Jesus eating in the Pharisee’s house, and washed his feet with
her tears and hair, it wasn’t Christ that called her out as a sinner. It was
the Pharisee. In fact the Pharisee said, “This man, if he were a prophet, would
have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him:
for she is a sinner.”
Some
people take away from that story that Christ let the sinner woman serve him. That
part is easy for me to accept. Christ set the example over and over again of
loving the sinner.
What I
find it interesting he was eating in the home of a Pharisee. Jesus was eating with
one of his worst critics. One of the very people that would ultimately lead to
His crucifixion.
That’s
another interesting point. The Pharisees thought they knew everything and
believed themselves to be righteous people. But they were the ones who
crucified and condemned the son of God. Not the so-called sinners.
Again, I wonder, am I a sinner
or a Pharisee?
We are all sinners. The Church
is full of people who make mistakes. People will offend us daily. We will each
sin today, yesterday, and tomorrow. And so will the person sitting next to us.
It’s just a fact of life that no one is perfect. Alice in Wonderland may have
believed six impossible things before breakfast, but the truth is, I sinned six
times before breakfast. Probably. I wasn’t counting.
Knowing that someone is
imperfect is no reason to withhold our love from our fellow Saints, neighbors,
family, or friends. If Christ can eat with the Pharisees, and other sinners, we
can surely show kindness to the sinners and offenders in our lives.
In our ranks, every day, there
is someone who doesn’t come to church on Sunday, because they don’t feel loved
by someone there. Whether or not the offense was ever intentional, doesn’t mean
it wasn’t felt. Someone who believes in the gospel is afraid to come to church
because they don’t feel loved.
How sad is that?
Are you showing enough love
and forgiveness to everyone around you that every sinner can feel welcome in a
house of worship?
In October 2006, Elder Bednar
rather famously gave a General Conference talk entitled, “And Nothing Shall
Offend Them.” In it he said, “When we believe or say we have been offended, we
usually mean we feel insulted, mistreated, snubbed, or disrespected. And
certainly clumsy, embarrassing, unprincipled, and mean-spirited things do occur
in our interactions with other people that would allow us to take offense.
However, it ultimately is impossible for another person to offend you or to
offend me. Indeed, believing that another person offended us is fundamentally
false. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not
a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone or something
else.”
He went on to say, “we have
been blessed with the gift of moral agency, the capacity for independent action
and choice. Endowed with agency, you and I are agents, and we primarily are to
act and not just be acted upon. To believe that someone or something
can make us feel offended, angry, hurt, or bitter diminishes our
moral agency and transforms us into objects to be acted upon. As agents,
however, you and I have the power to act and to choose how we will respond to
an offensive or hurtful situation.”
There is a popular meme going
around the internet right now that says, “Not going to church because there are
hypocrites there is like not going to the gym because there are out of shape
people there.” The church and the world are filled with imperfect people.
Actually, that’s not true. The church isn’t full of imperfect people. There is
always room for one more.
I can’t help but think of a
line from a Billy Joel song, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners, than cry with
the saints.” And while I know that line is meant to be flippant, he
accidentally got it right. I’d rather laugh with the sinners, and let them know
they are loved, than cry with the saints over the fact that there are sinners
in this world. After all, there is no record of Jesus gathering his disciples
around him to cry for the sinners*.
Back over Easter I saw another
interesting meme on Facebook. It was regarding the Holy Week leading up to
Easter. It was a bit tongue in cheek, and yet very on point. It said, “If you
really want to live like Christ did leading up to Easter, remember he spent
that week overthrowing tables in the temple.”
Let’s go back to this concept
of how to love sinners.
Matthew 21:12
12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them
that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the
moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
13 And said unto them, It is written,
My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made
it a den of thieves.
Christ ate and communed and
walked and talked with sinners. But he did not let anyone make a mockery of the
temple, the house of the Lord and prayer.
What I take away from this is
that we all make mistakes, and the Lord will love us, and help heal us. But
there is a line that you cannot cross, and that line is making a mockery of the
word and house of the Lord.
Do you love and laugh with the
sinners? Do you “cry with the saints?” Or are you a Pharisee that points out
the sinners and sins of the world? Do you eat with the Pharisees in your life?
I’m going to make a more
concerted effort to be Christ-like by loving the sinners and eating with (and
forgiving) the Pharisees. If Jesus could eat in the home of his critics and
condemners, I can learn to be more tolerant, forgiving, and accepting as well.
*I respectfully exclude the
Garden of Gethsemane, which was a very different cry and prayer.
