In my English class the other day, we were reading a poem, and I’ll save you from having to read the entire thing, but this was the end of it.

"Praise to the arms which understood
little or nothing of what it meant
but welcomed her in without judgment,
accepting it all like children might,
like God."

Me, and perhaps a few others in the room, saw the poem as an accurate testament to God and His unconditional love for us. But many in the class did not see things the same way I did. They saw the word judgment and immediately associated it with the snap judgments and accusations and legalistic mentalities that they thought Christianity to encompass. And let me tell you, it broke my heart to see so many classmates feel so alienated from a God who literally just wants to love them. What kind of message are we sending to a lost world if they read something like this and miss the entire point of God’s love because they are too distracted by the people in the pews on Sunday mornings?

I am not demanding the church be perfect. Rather, I’m calling for it to stop pretending like it is. Stop asking him why he hasn’t been to bible study in two months with that tone of voice. Stop silently wondering what that one girl is doing at the service because you know from Snapchat that she was out late last night. Stop listening to the pastor in church teach about the sins of the Pharisees while you walk and live the exact same way.

I want to say also this is not me claiming to be any better at this than anyone else. We’re all sinful, and some days our sinful thoughts and actions get the better of us because that is the tragedy of our humanity. I grimace thinking of words I’ve said or even left unsaid just in these past few weeks. I’m no less guilty in this situation.

I think sometimes we forget that a Christian is not just someone who works a summer camp, who serves in every church ministry and volunteers at every event, who is in Christian organizations. Just like God didn’t come for the righteous but for the sinners, the gift of grace is not only for people who think they deserve it. What makes grace so beautiful is that it is for everyone who accepts Jesus. I know we all hear those words in songs and in our Instagram bios but we are not truly understanding the gravity of it if we are even for a second thinking that some are more deserving of grace than others. It is this self-righteousness that existed in the other son and that also exists in us that is putting us in a world where people automatically associate Christianity with condemning judgment.

Why are we acting so innocent and above others anyways? The church was never intended to be an elite and exclusive group of people all basking in each other’s perfection and achievements. The early church was actually pushing away from that very sort of power, the Pharisees and religious Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time. The early church didn’t care about making sure they wore the cool Christian clothes and went on to the right coffee shops for bible study. Jesus’ first followers were not the cool people but rather, they were the outcasts of society. The gospels tell of time after time that Jesus found the people who slipped through the cracks, the people deemed unworthy and unlovable. These people, these misfits who made up the early church, they didn’t measure and compare themselves with each other because they were too focused on the center of it all – Jesus. Imagine what kind of things today’s church, with its massive buildings and massive pockets, could do for God’s glory if we had our priorities in the same place as the ones who started this whole thing?

The point I’m trying to make is this – in our attempts to look “church-y” and do and say all of the right things, we’re actually hurting ourselves, because we’re turning people away from church and ultimately turning them away from Christ. It is time for the church to start being what it is – a living, breathing, moving, messy group of people just trying to point the world to the cross. Christians aren’t any better or more or less deserving of Christ’s love than anyone else. It’s time to stop the judgments and all of the distractions, and just love, love God and especially love people.