This week's suggested sermon topic was that slogan WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) that’s been on bracelets and tee-shirts and other Christian items for several years now. I found this a rather nebulous suggestion, so decided to do what a colleague suggested, and put the question out on Facebook. A couple folks responded to the stereotype of people using this to justify their own theology, or being rather shallow in their faith. Someone suggested looking at what Jesus actually DID, and asking if we really felt called to do that. Another suggestion was to tweak the question to the title I've used here, What Would Jesus Have US Do? So I sat and thought.
What Jesus actually did...
I decided to go through the gospel of Matthew and make a list of the things Jesus actually did, as suggested. Not that I haven’t read Matthew a bunch of times, but this was the first time I made a list. Wow! Somewhere around 30 years old, he was baptized by his odd cousin John in the desert, and then went on a 40-day vision quest where he talked to the Devil and got solidified in his purpose. From that baptism, Jesus was a three-year whirlwind until his death - & resurrection. The message he solidified in the desert was, “Repent, for the realm of God is at hand.” From the moment he came back, he was focused and centered in this call. He told this good news everywhere: talking and teaching, stunning people with healings, making the blind see, making lame people walk, casting out demons, feeding thousands at a time, eating with people most others considered beneath their notice. Along the way he really ticked off the more respectable religious leaders. It’s not that they didn't hear his message – they heard it in all its subversive and overturning meaning, it’s non-traditional but vital view of God as merciful and welcoming. They heard it – and were threatened.
Now the poor and powerless embraced Jesus' message with open arms and ears – but most of the establishment resisted the message and went after the messenger. In fact, one way of looking at Jesus’ three years is that the religious establishment won – they got him executed – a very final solution. This is a phrase I've heard about what the call to ministry entails, which sums up Jesus’ ministry, too: “Comfort the afflicted……and afflict the comfortable.”
While crowds flocked to him in the regions where he went, the religious establishment recognized the challenge he presented to the way things had always been done and the control they had on the practice of faith. They asked him trick questions - and he always bested them. When they said, you are breaking tradition, he said, “YOU are using tradition to break the meaning of the Law!” He taught using multi-leveled stories (parables) that turned things upside down even more when you unpacked them. He pulled together a posse of followers and taught them more intently, so they could carry on his work and message – he pretty much knew that the word of God stirs up opposition, and threatened people who liked control better than mercy and law rather than grace. So they would be out to get him.
Jesus got three years before the fear in humankind rose against him and killed him. God’s purposes, however, were greater than this – Jesus was raised from the dead, the perfect servant of God, and became the first of the new creation of God, and opening the door for this good news to spread and spread.
Looking at what Jesus DID, do we really want to use what he did as our model? Asking 'What Would Jesus Do' and intending to copy it is rather scary.
Jesus had his own special call - and gifts
Fortunately, we don’t have to be God's Messiah, because that’s already been done. I think it took someone who was also God to resist all the temptations inherent in what he had to do. The power thing is really heady - lots of Christians like to imagine themselves heroically cleansing the Temple and calling church leaders a brood of vipers and white-washed graves. A certain kind of person thinks its fun to expose people's clay feet and bring them down...they make room for the devil in their heart because they like that kind of thing. The “I’m the great provider” pose is tempting, too – I can work wonders; look at me, I can save the world, I am the great and generous host to all you lesser mortals. That lets the devil in your heart, too. In fact, those are some of the temptations Jesus resisted in the desert before he started. The megalomania of thinking we are God and above everything and everyone else, is a place the devil can exploit. What Jesus did was supremely difficult I’m glad God didn't ask me to do what Jesus did.
So what of Jesus CAN we follow?
I looked all over Matthew for Jesus doing things we might copy if we asked, “What Would Jesus Do?” in some circumstance of our life. If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of identifying all the world as kin, God’s beloved people, we would see our inter-relatedness with all people and offer ourselves to work for the common good. Jesus called those who followed him his mother, father, sister and brother – in place of his birth family. Yes, he mainly preached to the larger kinship tribe of the Jews, but he did reach outside that to the larger kinship tribe of all people – and he saw his work as for all.
If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of humility, setting aside his godliness and identifying with the common person, we would hold possessions very lightly and go out to the world with little, like he did. Jesus became an itinerant, with no place to lay his head; he had no home or steady job or wages, no furniture or cars or other “things” to hold him back. He challenged the 'rich young ruler' on this – so you kept all the rules – did your passion for God take your whole heart? Where is your treasure laid up? What would we give for that pearl of great price?
If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of compassion and mercy, we could stand in solidarity with those considered unworthy by polite society, seeing their worth to God, and advocating for them in our government policies as well as meeting the emergency needs as they fall through the cracks. We would run to forgive those who long to return home to God, and shower them with feasting and rejoicing. We wouldn't begrudge them any welcome and healing, like that elder brother of that parable. We would be about the kinds of work Jesus did – healings of all kinds, restoring wholeness, restoration to community, selflessly working for the common good.
If we wanted to follow Jesus’ example of true obedience and perfect worship, we would submit ourselves to God’s goal for the world, setting aside self-aggrandizement, self-indulgence and self-centeredness for the life held up in the Scriptures, trusting in God’s promises, giving ourselves to God daily through spiritual practices like prayer and worship.
Beware, though, Jesus said. He told his followers that if they followed him, they’dget the same treatment he got - suffering, persecution, being reviled and called names, and that they’d never make everybody happy. JESUS obviously wasn't trying to please people or grow the largest church in town. Disciples aren't higher than their master, he said – what reception he got will be our reception, too.
Jesus’ instructions are more in general than specific, often hidden in his parables, and often not real detailed. He told us not to worry about food and clothes and stuff – just ask God for our daily bread, basic needs. He told us to go in to the world and tell about the realm of God, where the first will be last and the last will be first and all sorts of injustices in the world will be righted. He told us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and give water to the thirsty. Jesus was interested in the here and now world, and doing the works of God's realm NOW. Jesus’ salvation wasn't the personal, fuzzy, feel good religion – it was the salvation of the world through God’s will being done on earth – social righteousness, right relationships to creation and humanity. He told us to baptize in God’s name and teach what God was like – generous, forgiving, and compassionate. He said this is God’s table where all who believe are welcome – the feast of creation and the feast of God’s abundance is for us from the God who loves us so much that he died for us. HOW to carry these instructions out is left to us.
A good thing about WWJD after all -
If there’s a good thing about the WWJD question, it would be that perhaps it causes us to stop and reflect a moment before we just let go and do stuff without thinking. People sometimes talk about connecting their brain to their mouth - - Christians also want to connect their heart-felt faith in there, too. If the WWJD questions makes us stop and consider, pray even, and remember God’s love, forgiveness and compassion – that’s good. If the bracelet that reads WWJD helps us question our own intents and our own actions – that’s a good thing. If it manages to help us correct ourselves, stop ourselves from meanness; wrestle in prayer over our hurts and desires for revenge – then it’s a good thing. For a moment, I remember that I want to be a Christ follower; that I have publicly professed my deep faith and my desire to live for God. I may ask myself, “Will people be able to look at my actions and notice how much we Christians love one another? Will people be able to see the care of God through my own generosity and caring? Will they be invited into the kingdom of God through my example?”
Those aren't bad questions for measuring our daily and hourly choices.
Closing
This week – and longer, hopefully – let’s remember Jesus before we just react; let’s recall the words of God before we write someone off, be unthinking or rude in our responses, overlook the person waiting on us, let fly with words we can’t take back, try to make a quick buck from someone because “everyone dies it,” - - - and consider whose we are and whom we serve. May the presence of the Spirit in us call Jesus to mind as we walk through our daily lives. AMEN.
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