Ash Cans Outside The Church?

This one came up a few years ago, back when I was still at university. In addition to taking classes in things like Greek, History, Theology and so on I, like many of my comrades, took part in a lot of volunteer ministry opportunities. One of my favourites was working on a church plant in a small town about 10 km from where the university was. Now a church plant is an interesting thing – it has several models and this particular one was the model of where a big church (attached to our university) would start a new church either in that community, for a specific group (usually serving a different language-community) or in a nearby town (this was us). It was largely a student led effort and at the time when this story took place I was #2 in the leadership of the ministry.

Now it came to pass that there was a certain individual from the community who was coming to our little church on a regular basis. She was a great lady, she believed in the things we taught and wanted to get more and more active in our church. But there was a problem, according to some, she was a smoker. Now for those of you who aren’t shocked at all by this – good for you. But you see the denomination I was brought up in teaches that smoking is an unacceptable behaviour. A meeting was called of the leadership to discuss what to do about Mrs. X’s smoking.

 Now if you’ll permit me a tangent for a moment – I hate it when we feel we need to call meetings about people’s behaviour. That should be between the individual and God.

But the meeting was called and I, against my will, went. Since I had to go I did put some thought into what I would say, and I had what I thought would be a great idea. Let’s go buy an ash can and put it in some discreet location near the church. Well that idea didn’t fly – and the rest of the meeting was spent discussing the best way to tell dear Mrs. X how she’d been in church long enough that it should make a change in her life, and the board voted and that change would be her quitting smoking.

Now don’t get me wrong, smoking is bad for you, me and everyone else. It causes all kinds of disease, it costs a small fortune and it smells bad. I think everyone should quit smoking, but I know how hard that is. Afterall I used to be a smoker, and while it’s been several years since I was a habitual smoker I still get the urge to smoke, particularly in stressful situations. I know it’s not the “right” reaction, but in a moment my body will tell me to find a smoke before I tell it that saying a prayer would probably do more to deal with the stress, and would certainly be better for me. Fortunately I am not in the habit of keeping them around and the thought process has time to over-rule the impulse. But even if I did have a smoke in a moment of weakness – would that make me less of a Christian? I don’t think so, and I don’t think it made Mrs. X less of one either.

So back to our little church plant. What possessed me to even suggest that we put an ash can near the church? Well I knew that quitting took a lot of time, often many attempts, and required a lot of love and support. I thought that this church should be the place where Mrs. X could find that love and support, and the only problem I had with her smoking was leaving butts on the ground – so we should give her somewhere to put them. She would quit in her own time, and even if she didn’t – my job was to love and support her.

And besides – it’s just not practical to make people take a walk before they have their smoke, once they start walking it’s a lot easier for them to keep walking and never come back.

As hard as it is to get people to come in to begin with – why in the world would we want to do anything that caused them to leave? But I think more important than this practical consideration is the fact that making people go away in their moment of need is not what Jesus would do. Look at how Jesus treated the weak, the poor, and the sinners. Take the example of the woman taken in adultery. Now adultery is a sin. Being a prostitute (which most people assume she was) is not a healthy life-style and with in the bounds of the law the pharisees and the teachers of the law were right to condemn her to stoning. But what did Jesus do?

“They kept on asking Jesus about the woman. Finally, he stood up and said, “If any of you have never sinned, then go ahead and throw the first stone at her!”” John 8:7

And after her accusers had left one by one Jesus said:

“I am not going to accuse you either. You may go now, but don’t sin anymore.” John 8:11

Yes – he did say don’t sin anymore, but he did it with love and understanding – not condemnation and judgement. Oh how much we church-folk have to learn from his example.

Now some say ok Preacher – you’ve made your point about the smoking thing. But we have to draw the line somewhere, and if we let the smokers smoke then what next? It’s a slippery slope when you let the sinners be. First of all I have a problem with that – I’m not letting them be! I’m showing them Jesus and letting his holy spirit do the life-changing. As for the slippery slope, I know it is – and I think it’s one we’re long over-due to start sliding. You’re 100% right, if we let the smokers smoke the next thing I’m going to say is let the drunks come in. I’d even let the homeless sleep in the pews over-night. Afterall so many of you who have warm beds sleep in them when you should be listening to the gospel – why not allow those who need it? I’ll also let the prostitutes come, I’ll let the homosexuals come, I’ll let the cynics come, and I’ll even let the tax-collectors come. But that’s because I view church as a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Why do I feel that way? Jesus said so.

“Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners.” Mark 2:17

So let’s put those ash cans out there where people can use them, then come back in to hear about Jesus some more. Let’s allow all the other sinners come too, even while they are still sinning – and let’s tell them about Jesus too. Let’s let the holy spirit do the life-changing and have enough faith in God that he will do it. Let’s stop spending our time dusting off the relics in the museum, and start helping those who really need it.

Let’s just love people the way Jesus did.