"When I found out Jesus was not a Methodist, it was a shock. And then I discovered he was not even an American.” So said Dr. Horace Williams who was a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina from 1890 to 1940. We’d probably all be surprised to know Jesus as he really was. One thing we’d be surprised about would be his friends, for Jesus always was and still is the friend of undesirables. In fact the Pharisees of Jesus’ day often criticized him for being a friend of sinners.
Today our churches are more like the Pharisees than Christ. They are sinfully exclusive. There’s a little rhyme people used to recite. It said:
We don’t smoke and we don’t chew.
And we don’t run with folks who do.
There is more truth than fiction in that. We actually do have “higher” standards than our Lord, because he “ran with folks who do,” whereas we are above all that.
The author Hugh Redwood tells of a woman in the dock district in London who came to a women’s meeting. She had been living with a Chinese man and she brought their baby with her to the meeting. She liked the experience and she came back and back again a third time. Then the vicar came to her and said, “I must ask you not to come to this meeting again. The other women say that they will stop coming if you continue to come.” She looked at him with a poignant wistfulness. “Sir,” she said, “I know I’m a sinner, but isn’t there anywhere a sinner can go?”
Jesus would answer that in a moment: “They can go to heaven. They can come to me.”
He says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus stands with his arms ever wide to welcome all who will come to him. What the Pharisees hurled at Jesus as a gibe has become his crowning glory. He is the sinner’s friend. Are you?