Jesus Accepts Everyone?

Confused Catholics who hold on to the illusion that the Church will some day embrace contraception, sexual immorality, the homosexual lifestyle or any other sin often point to the fact that Jesus associated with sinners and embraced everyone. This does not mean that Jesus condoned their actions. This is like saying that a doctor accepts cancer and thinks tumors are good to have, because he hangs out on the oncology floor with cancer patients all the time.

Jesus engaged with sinners specifically to call them to repentance. In Matthew 9:10 when Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors, the Pharisees reproached Him. Jesus told them bluntly that this was necessary to help them turn to God just as it would be necessary for a sick person to receive the care of a Doctor. Jesus wasn't taking part in or accepting their sinful lifestyle, but helping them to turn away from it.

In John 8: 1-11, when Jesus told the Jews not to stone the adulterous woman, He wasn't condoning adultery. He mercifully told her that He would forgive her, but that she was to "sin no more". 

Saint Paul chastises us in 1 Corinthians 15: 33-34 "Do not be deceived. Bad Company ruins good morals. Come to a sober and righteous mind, and sin no more; for some people have no knowledge of God. I say this to our shame." That is, we are not to consort with sinners, accepting or partaking in their lifestyle. 

This does not mean that we are to stop helping our neighbor regardless of their sins, while calling them to repentance. The Corporal Works of Mercy command us to minister to the sick, imprisoned, homeless, ect. while The Spiritual Works of Mercy call us to help them turn away from their sins. Jesus instituted the sacrament of reconciliation for the exact purpose of receiving sinners back into communion with Him.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums it up nicely in section 1443: "During his public life Jesus not only forgave sins, but also made plain the effect of this forgiveness: he reintegrated forgiven sinners into the community of the People of God from which sin had alienated or even excluded them. A remarkable sign of this is the fact that Jesus receives sinners at his table, a gesture that expresses in an astonishing way both God's forgiveness and the return to the bosom of the People of God."

Jesus accepts everyone. Everyone who turns back to Him.

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