Sinners and Saints

I got to know a couple of very different people not all that long ago.  If you were to use the classic Christian definitions of the words, one was by all accounts a sinner and the other was a saint.

I'll be honest - I liked the sinner a lot more.

The sinner shared an unbelievable story with us late one night over drinks (it's so like sinners to be up late at night drinking).  He told his story with courage, humility, and all kinds of grace, both for himself and for others.  His willingness to share opened the door for me to then share some of the pain and hurt I have wrestled with over the last couple of years.  While we never openly said it, I think everyone around the table that night sensed Jesus sitting there with us.

The saint, on the other hand, never bothered to learn more about me beyond my first and last name but was very quick to point out the ways I fell short and how he could have done things much better than I was doing them.  I'm not completely ungrateful for my brief interaction with him, though, because he did teach me this important truth:

Self-righteousness sucks.

It doesn't attract people to God, it repels them.

It doesn't endear people to you, it alienates them.

It doesn't help heal what's hurting, it makes the wound worse.

I'll be honest again - until about two years ago, I was about as saintly as they come.  I cringe now to think about the judgment and the self-righteousness I wore like my favorite shirt and the damage I undoubtedly did to so many people.  I am so sorry.  Please forgive me if I ever treated you like you were scum and I was not.

But then my friend died, I lost my job, I wrecked my car, I got sick, and I lost my way.

There's something about brokenness and heartache and pain that transforms saints into sinners.

I want to live the rest of my life like a sinner (I hope all the saints out there read that and freak out.)

What I mean is I want to live the rest of my life aware of my own unending need for grace, kindness, and second chances.  I want to live a life that welcomes people to share their hurts and fears and wounds with me, and I with them, so that together we can seek healing in God's heart.

And somehow at the end of it all, God will make me His kind of saint because He is the friend of sinners.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love,

I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day,

and if I have a faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps,

but I don't love, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr,

but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

doesn't have a swelled head,

doesn't force itself on others,

isn't always "me first,"

doesn't fly off the handle,

doesn't keep the score of the sins of others,

doesn't revel when others grovel,

takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

puts up with anything,

trusts God always,

always looks for the best,

never looks back,

but keeps going to the end.

Love never dies,

--from The Message, a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:1-8