My friend called me a sinner for laughing at crude jokes

My Christian friend took a shit on me for enjoying time and laughing at crude jokes with some friends, even calling me a sinner. “Lord, I want to get to know people but it’s challenging to wrestle with our differences. You hold yourself to the highest moral values, yet because you loved us so much, you brought yourself to eat and live among us. I have no greater example to follow but oftentimes, there is a disconnect between how you and I see things.”
My relationship with an old non-Christian friend is held together only by strings of the past. There are no other reasons for us to continue walking together except that we used to be great buddies. We seem to find more and more reasons to dislike each other. It’s bittersweet.

In the little story that Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector both praying in the temple (Luke 18) he simply said that God heard the tax collector and not the Pharisee and concluded, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

What the Pharisee missed is the common ground he shares with the tax collector. He chose to highlight the difference because it puts him at a seemingly higher level. If we are to obey God’s command to love our neighbour, then we train ourselves to see the common ground and be blind to the difference. At the most basic, we are all fellow travellers on the journey of life.

I’m glad that non-Christian friend has been on your mind the past week. There is no reason you cannot remain good friends and even buddies unless he insists you join him in sin; certainly not the reasons that your Christian friend holds. Jesus was called out to be a friend of tax collectors and sinners by the Pharisees and from all accounts, they were indeed very comfortable in his presence.