it's the sick who need a doctor...

[if you're easily offended by Christianity, please don't read this]

so in a conversation with a friend the other day, the topic of church came up. a friend of hers seems to be afraid to come to church because she's not living "right." this pissed me off in so many ways. not that the friend didn't want to go to church, but that she felt like she had to meet some standard before coming to church. i know how she feels because i also felt that way two years ago, as if i had to fix myself before finding God. before i royally screwed up, though, i was one of those who made people feel uncomfortable. but it shouldn't be that way. doesn't matt 9:12 says, "On hearing this, Jesus said, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'"? Christ's whole ministry was with the prostitutes, the tax-collectors, the unfaithful, the broken, the outcasts and the sick. and yet, the church has become this place for the "right" or the "holy." why?

shouldn't church be like a triage? shouldn't the benches be filled with the people who just aren't sure there's a Savior but want to come to see anyway? shouldn't we be reaching out to the people that society doesn't want? moreover, what makes us able to judge who's "right" and who's "holy"? i know i have more things wrong with me than right, most times. how can we sit back and judge who "belongs" in church and who doesn't? the whole point of our faith, the whole crux of why Christ came was that we can't do it ourselves. "There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God..." (see Rom 3:10-18). we're all a mess. and church should be the last place where we feel like we have to hide that mess.