Today at lunch, I sat down with my lettuce wrap – strawberries, sunflower seeds, and the kind of fresh, CSA lettuce that my kids eat without dressing and then ask for seconds of – and I was going to watch another episode of Stranger Things.

If you’re familiar with the show, you’ll know why, after watching an episode yesterday, I decided I would take a break from it today. I love the 80’s vibe, but content is pretty intense. The Billy character is the spitting image, down to the red lips, wide blue eyes, long lashes, and wavy hair, of a young man I knew as a child. Watching the show is like time travel. But watching it every day feels like a bit much.

Today, I wanted something different, and for some reason, the Netflix original Queer Eye Season Two caught my eye. I never watched Season One. I didn’t watch the original version, either. I didn’t even really know what it was about.

When the show opened to the strains of “Amazing Grace,” my interest was piqued, but I was also pretty cautious. What point was the show trying to make? Where were they going with this?

I don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t watched it, but suffice it to say, my teenage son came into the room and found me sitting in front of my laptop, crying.

Here is what I was reminded of: There is a lot of pressure on the established church to accept LGBTQ folks and their lifestyle. The show helped me reminded me again that the reason The Church is being squeezed in this way is because we have done such a sucky job of showing love to others, especially the LGBTQ community.

We are also showing a profound distrust in the Holy Spirit. Let me explain.

Who did Jesus hang out with in the New Testament? The type of people that made everyone else feel uncomfortable. And the first thing he said to those folks wasn’t, “You’re a sinner.” They instinctively knew that, just from being in his presence. And if they needed to change their behavior, the Holy Spirit convicted them of that.

I was reminded of a story we read for school this year. It was about David Livingstone and, I KNOW, White Man Preaching the Gospel To The Heathen, but stick with me. Dr. Livingstone had a great respect for the people he ministered to and adventured with. His primary goal was to spread the gospel.

When he got to Africa, he found very few Africans had converted to Christianity, and the missionaries who were already there were stumped. “They won’t give up their wives!” The missionaries said. “And if they won’t stick to the One Wife Policy, they can’t be Christians!”

Let me rephrase that so you can see how stupid it is:

“And if they don’t learn to control their tempers, they can’t be Christians!”

“And unless they practice Christ’s love to their spouse all the time, they can’t be Christians!”

And if don’t stop being selfish/yelling at their kids in anger/having lustful thoughts, they can’t be Christians!”

And unless they stop [enter sinful behavior here], they can’t be Christians!”

NO, CHURCH. Just no.

The whole point of our Christian journey is a pruning process where God shows us, sometimes gently, and sometimes not, where we need to change. And that happens after we accept Christ into our hearts and invite Him to work there.

Here is the approach David Livingstone took: He just shared the gospel. When someone had accepted Christ, that person began to study the scriptures. Those three wives they took on after their first wife? Maybe they were convicted about that and had to search their hearts about the best way to make it right. Those people began to see the ways that their lives were incompatible with the Christian walk and started to figure out how to make it right.

David Livingstone didn’t tell them what they were doing wrong. He shared God’s love with them. He let God do the rest.

All the people already in the church are sinners. But somehow we think that our sin is somehow not as bad the sin of say, an LGBTQ person, or an African chief with four wives. Why is that? What makes us think that ANY sin is going to allow us anywhere near God? That is why Christ had to die for us.

No matter how much we are able to fix this side of heaven, we will all die sinners. If we go down fighting for more Christ-like behavior in our lives until the very end, I hope we will get an A for effort. But we will still need Jesus to stand in the gap for us and give us the pass to heaven.

My heart was broken today over the way The Church, My Church, has failed to love gays. Church, we have become The Pharisees. I’ve been aware of this for a long time, but was reminded of it again today in a way I could not ignore.

God is going to hold us accountable for the way we represent Him to the world.

God is Love. That is what we need to lead with.

The image above is a screen shot from the show.