Purity Patrol

Don't worry it's not "the talk" talk that I'm talking about here. Wow, did that confuse you? Because it kinda confused me.

I am, however, gonna talk about the pharisees. Also known as the Purity Patrol. You have to excuse me on this one. Every time I see "Purity Patrol" I think about how my pastor referred to it on Sunday. He said it in an all serious low voice. It was pretty funny. It's probably one reason this idea has stuck with me.

So the pharisees and teachers of the law had certain standards right? I mean for people who were pure. I don't know all the standards, but I think I remember a few. If you're a gentile, you're not pure. If you are wealthy, you are pure. If you are poor, you are not pure. If you ate with the impure, you are not pure. Well, Jesus is in trouble there I think.

One of the quotes used in the sermon was by a guy named Dan Boone (not the hunter, farmer, whatever that guy in stories was).

"Purity for the Pharisees quite easily became separation from the unclean. But in the Gospel stories we read...Jesus seemed to identify the love of God as penetrating those barriers."

Yesterday I got to thinking about something. Two of my friends were in an argument about something I'm not gonna talk about. But it did have to do with loving others and accepting others.

Does it sound like the pharisees were very loving or accepting people? I don't think they were. They didn't know what to think when they met Jesus that's for sure.

I think, we as Christians can act a lot like the pharisees. We put labels on people to tell whether they are pure or not.

What judgment do we have? Sure we can judge, but are we supposed to judge? I thought only God was supposed to judge.

We, as Christians, can be so stereotypical. That's just so wrong. We aren't supposed to judge people. We're supposed to love and accept them for who they are.

Accept one another...just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. Romans 15:7

If you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. James 2:9

So many times, I feel like my friends are picking favorites. They want to save this person, but not that person. They want to invite this person and not that person. Stop picking favorites. I don't really understand why it's so hard to accept everyone. Christ accepted all of us. We're following Christ, so we need to be like him. I mean I have troubles with this too, but it's just frustrating.

Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:11-12

It's a no wonder a lot of people don't want to become Christians. They see us act one way and think that's all Christians do. They could see us hating people or making judgments. No wonder they don't want to follow Jesus.

God is nothing like us. We, humans, are imperfect. We make mistakes and can be so incredibly stupid sometimes. I wish people knew this.

Ok this might not make a whole lot of sense, but it's fitting in my mind. You know the game Red Rover? Two teams stand in a line across the lawn with hands linked. Red rover, red rover, send Chelsea right over. I'm running and running across the lawn. My goal is to break through the chain of people to freedom. But sometimes we don't break through and are pushed back. Well technically then we join the team we were trying to get through actually. But for now, I say we get pushed back.

Oh you're not good enough to get through. You're not allowed to be on God's team. So stereotypical. So mean. If I wasn't a Christian and saw Christians pushing people back from learning about Christ, I don't think I would want to be involved in this thing called Christianity.

The Red Rover game is like sometimes Christians are like the rough exterior of God. We judge (which we're not supposed to do) and we push people back. But people need to keep on pushing on through because we're nothing like God. God is perfect. We're followers of Christ in training. We're not perfect.

Don't feel bad if you judge and don't love or accept people as much as you should. I know how you feel. I'm the same way. Frankly, I think we need to just get over ourselves though.

Is it possible sometimes our hands are too clean to be followers of Jesus?

This was one of the questions in the sermon on Sunday. I think sometimes we think we're perfect and way too clean to mess with the dirty stuff. But I also think Jesus wants us to get on our hands and knees in the mud. We need to go light our world wherever we go.

Don't be part of the Purity Patrol (I so wish you could hear that being said).