I don't agree with this response. We haven't seen any reason not to accept these people into our homes. Obviously, we would avoid providing them with the occasion of sin and wouldn't allow them privacy (not a problem in our house!) but to have these people over for dinner, etc. Why not? Christ sat down with the tax collecters. We don't have a litmus test for purity on our door and I wonder exactly what kind of sinners would be ok?
True. But you have taken the event out of context. Jesus called to Matthew, the Tax Collector, to follow him. This following meant imitating the pattern of his life - not just walking after him.
As he sat at table in the house, behold many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.
This conversion of one tax collector gave many men, those from his own profession and other sinners, an example of repentance and pardon. No sooner was he converted than Matthew drew after him a whole crowd of sinners along the same road to salvation.
It was Matthew who invited Jesus to dine with him, not the other way around. The 'sinners' were drawn to the one who was already converted.
I would agree with you ONLY if you took the opportunity of a family gathering to discuss the sinful nature of their relationship with them and ask them to change their ways.
If you view this as being preachy or offensive, then your example of Jesus sitting down with tax collectors is irrelevant.
But that isn't what was said, was it?
The message was not "Begone, you sinners." It was "You are welcome to come over, but we refuse to recognize your trial marraige to your lover, therefore they are not welcome to join us until they move out of your house, because we refuse to pretend that you are a normal couple entitled to the respect a normal couple deserves."
It is the same message that should be given to divorced people. As individuals, it is fine to have them over. But it is wrong to pretend they are married and invite them as a couple, when they are really adulterers living in sin. All that recognizing divorcee-adulterers and people living in concubinage, and sodomites living together as legitimate relationships does is harden these people in their sin by deluding them into thinking they have done something socially acceptable, and not just acceptable, but praiseworthy and good.