The Grilled "cheesus" and why I cried

I just finished watching the new episode of "Glee" and I was so very touched.

Now, I realize that this show is, at it's core, a sweet musical about what it means to be a teen. But every once in a while they do a show that is touching and makes me think, last nights was one of these.

At the beginning Finn makes a grilled cheese sandwich that has an image of Jesus on it and he immediately thinks he should start praying to it. Ok, I realize how incredibly eye rolling and silly this sounds, and I was laughing with it as well. But then the show turned, and suddenly Kurt's dad was in a coma and the questions about faith become touching and real.
Finn's grilled "cheesus" becomes the catalyst for asking the big questions about faith and life, and we see him and some of the others groping for faith in a world that doesn't make sense and is scary.

At one point some of the Glee kids want to pray for Kurts dad. But after being told by religious people that because he's gay that means he's evil and unwanted by God, Kurt doesn't want their prayers or anything having to do with God.

This is where I began to cry.

There was a lot more to the show, and I've included a link to Hulu so that you can watch it in case you're curious; which in spite of some of the spoilers I've included here I think you should.
I cried, I think, because I'm heartbroken by how exclusive Christianity has become.
The faith that said "Come to me ALL you who are weary or brokenhearted and I will give you rest." Now says "No, we don't want you because you're ______."

Some may think the idea of the grilled "cheesus" is really not appropriate, but let's think about this for a minute. What it did was help this character grope toward answers to his faith, even as it raised more questions. Everyone's journey to faith is different, who are we to judge what their journey looks like just because it doesn't appear like we think it should. If it brings people to faith, if it helps them answer questions then what harm is it?

There were other parts of the show that really touched me. One was Jane Lynch's character, the scene where she tells the guidance counselor Emma when she lost her faith and why, and the later scene where she's talking about that with her sister. I don't want to ruin it for you, you really should see it, but the scene with her sister made me cry the hardest. There was something so honest and touching that broke my heart because the people who question, and doubt, the ones that don't look like everyone else, or think like everyone else, they are the one's that are shunned and shut out.

It absolutely kills me that this is the reality of the Church in this country. And again, don't get me wrong, I know that there are many Christ-followers who arent' like this so I'm not trying to say absolutely everyone, but it feels like it sometimes.

God's love didn't discriminate when Jesus was here, and it shouldn't now either.

At the end of the show, it didn't seem that there were any solid answers. It didn't end with a nice little bow around it, and some of the characters are still groping for faith. I appreciated that, actually, because that's the journey of faith. It never stops and that's ok, that's life.