Love Thy Neighbor

A couple of years ago I moved to a new city and one of my roommates was a lesbian. I was so afraid that she would hate me if she knew I was a member of the church because of the scripture "you will be hated of men for my names sake" and I was afraid she would hate me because a lot of members of the church are very homophobic and I did everything in my power to prove to her I wasn't homophobic before I ever told her that I was a member of the church. 

Every day I see more and more hate coming from Christians to marginalised groups of people in the name of Christ. It's devastating to see. But the more I see, the more I think that possibly there was a misunderstanding of the scripture among some people. A lot of christians think people hate them because of Christ, but I'm starting to think that people hate christians because of the way they treat marginalised people particularly people who are LGBT+ or POC, and that they do this in the name of Christ. No-where in the scriptures does it say to hate and exclude people in fact Christ sat with those who were excluded and took care of the one before He took care of the many.

The word love is in the scriptures 736 times. In fact, to love one another, just like Christ loves us, is a commandment, not a suggestion. And there is no asterix that says only to love people who look like us or have the same beliefs as us or are straight and cis. We are commanded to love our black, immigrant, gay, trans, muslim brothers and sisters. In John 13:35, this is how Christ says we shall be known as one of His disciples, by loving one another. But, in the world we live in, the opposite is true. If someone tells me they hate gays, I know they're a Christian because that is part of the culture that is so prominent in our society. 

Christ represents love. Christ is full of love. Christ suffered through the sins of every single person that has ever and will ever be on Earth, because of His love for us. Christ sat with publicans and he sat with sinners reminding us that His love and His mission is not just for the righteous. It is not our place to condemn those who are different from us and it is not our place to condemn those who sin because even Christ did not do that. Christ loved.