Young Sheldon
It seems like none of my favorite tv shows are currently in production. They are all reruns. One of our favorites used to be Young Sheldon. This was a comedy about a genius growing up in the 1980’s in Texas. He has one brother and one sister and his mom worked at the local Baptist Church during most of the shows run.
The story line, near the end of the series, had Sheldon’s brother Georgie have a child out of wedlock with his girlfriend. The disturbing part of the story line, to me, is that this caused such an uproar in the church that the pastor had to fire Mary (Sheldon’s Mom), and it caused a crisis of faith feeling rejected by her church family. As I watched this rerun this morning, I had to stop and consider whether we would be so wrong in our thinking.
To add to this, a good friend posted on Facebook, a story about some less than perfect people going to church where the members wanted something done about it - a person who smelled bad, a woman with unruly children, a homosexual couple. You can see where this is going. In all these situations, the pastor responded with “I don’t know what to say to them”
I hope… no I pray… that if that conversation ever came up at our church, the response would be swift and definitive - what are you doing to help these people?
If anyone thinks their brand of sin makes them better than someone else, I have one retort:
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” - Romans 3:21-24 ESV
“You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it. You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.” - Deuteronomy 22:1-4
It is humbling to realize that my sins aren’t better than other people’s sin. What is the saying…hate the sin but love the sinner. Christ commanded that we love God with everything and our neighbor as ourselves.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” - Matthew 22:36-40
As much as I’m thankful that we all consider ourselves family to each other and thus want to protect each other, we need to remember how our Lord told us to act. Love the sinner and hate the sin.
