Recovering Sinner

“Fellowship of the Saints” is a common bond most Christians long for. Unfortunately, congregations and Christians that strive to look and act “saintly” undermine the fellowship they desire. The deep bond of fellowship in Jesus does not come through boasting in our righteousness but confessing our sin and sharing our brokenness with one another.
 
When Jesus walked the earth he created a culture where sinners were welcome and the self–righteous were made to feel uncomfortable and threatened. When the pious fellowship questioned Jesus about eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
 
Jesus included within his circle of friendship those who were beat down by the weight of systemic and personal sin. He offered them a protected space where they could be real. They shared meals together, laughed and cried together, they watched as Jesus healed their friends and listened as he spoke words of forgiveness over them. This fellowship of the undevout was based in Jesus, not in their own righteousness. Their deep and infectious fellowship remained long after Jesus returned to heaven because of the solution Jesus brought to their spiritual malady.
 
I think the typical Christian congregation could learn much from the recovery community. The fellowship people in recovery share is best described in the second chapter of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:
 
We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding, which is indescribably wonderful . . . The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement, which binds us; but that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution.

​If our hope is to live in a Fellowship of Saints we must create a culture free from pretention. We must remove our mask and be real with one another, confessing our sin and extending grace upon grace.
 
Hear this good news according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “God wants to see you as you are, and God wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers and sisters, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that!”

If we want to create a Fellowship of Saints in our faith communities, maybe a good first step would be greeting one another to our meetings with words similar to those you hear in an A.A. meeting:
 
Hello, my name is Larry, a recovering sinner.
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