So Who Went Home Justified?

I attended church last Sunday. That in itself is not momentous, but it was different since my wife and I had two of our grandchildren with us. Their mother, our other daughter, and the other two grandchildren were buried somewhere on River Road in Bethel mucking mud out of people's flood ravaged basements and first floors. The service was too long for the two grandchildren's limited attention span (even with coloring books, goldfish crackers, and juice), especially choppy, and pretty much unremarkable except for one statement I heard at some point during some congregational sharing about the flood. A Christian congregant stated that a lot of people had turned out to help respond to the flood and that their volunteer service was really great. She then expanded it to say that many of the volunteers were not even Christians. Imagine that! I wondered if that were really a pre-condition of sacrificial service and volunteerism? Are non-Christians incapable of good, of heartfelt concern, of real service (i.e. are all their works just fithy rags in the sight of God)? Now I know the woman that said this, and she is right up there as far as being a legitimate and genuine follower of Jesus, but somewhere along the line she has picked up this us/them terminology that pokes its head up every now and then.

And then I wondered why I had insisted on going to church this morning with so much going on. And then I started thinking about Jesus' parable of the man on the Jericho road who fell victim to robbers, and the priest and Levite who passed him by leaving him for dead, and the Samaritan who was the only one moved with compassion. And I remembered the other story of the Pharisee and tax collector praying in the temple and I got to wondering who was going down to their home today justified in the sight of God....all of us Christians who were faithfully attending church and doing those things that Christians tend to do on a Sunday morning, or my daughters (who are Christians) who worshipped God today by shoveling mud for their neighbors alongside countless non-Christians who were not necessarily offering service in the name of God, but doing it out of genuine concern, compassion, and grace for those less fortunate? Who gave the greater testimony to the love of God in a time of despair and loss? I did go down to my home after church was over but the service gave me pause to consider what is it that God really wants to see when we propose to gather in His name.