What Would Jesus Really Do?

"I Heart Nature" by Lydia Selk

When looking at how Christians ought to behave there is no greater example than the Man they follow. To demonstrate this point, I’ll talk about a few different groups of people who are often marginalized:

1. The ‘Punks’, the ‘Goths’, and others scattered subcultures on the edge of mainstream society: Whether it’s the guy getting high in the alleyway, or the tattooed beauty throwing down dance moves in the club ─ where do they fit in relation to us Christians? How do we get close enough to them to share God’s heart with them? We Christians can’t say, “Come to us, all who are thirsty,” and just wait for them to show up at church on a Sunday morning… especially since if they showed up looking like they do on Friday night, we’d just throw them out, anyway.

2. The couples choosing to live together without marrying: They don’t have relationships that follow the traditional ‘Good Christian Standard’, and they are painfully aware of it. Talking about their lifestyle means talking about how very much they’ve fallen short of what is the expected Christian norm. They might miss the faith of their youth, or just know there is something missing from their lives, but trying to build a relationship with the church is uncomfortable for them, because they feel they are being judged and found lacking. One could argue that this judgment is part of how God “convicts” them and shows them their need for Him… but do you suppose God really wants to convict people before they ever even try to worship Him?

3. Gay people. Need I say more?

Jesus ministered to people in three major ways: He went to where they were, eating in their homes, He went to places where they had easy access to Him, preaching on hillsides, at the docks, or in the marketplace, and He performed miracles for the desperately needy.

At the time, all of these ways of ministering were revolutionary, because a good priest would not eat at a tax collectors home, nor most certainly not in the company of drunkards and other sinners, as Jesus did, as they believed doing so would render them ‘unclean’. A good priest spoke from a place of authority, such as the temple, or at the city gates. Going out into public arenas that were the province of farmers and tradesman would have been an act of lowering one’s esteemed self, yet these were the arenas where Jesus gained all of His followers. People flocked to Him, and were welcomed by Him. The Bible illustrates that women and children were also welcomed into Jesus’ world, never more clearly than in Luke 18:15-17 in which Jesus says, “Let the children come to me… The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”

The dichotomy of Jesus’s way of preaching, versus the way the religious leaders preached, sees no greater example than this. But then, there are also His miracles. People such as the man who was born blind and people saw this blindness as God’s judgment upon him, and so they avoided him. (Matthew 9:27-31) Or the woman who was ill, yet because she was bleeding, was not permitted by religious law to leave her home or to touch a man. Yet she had faith that Jesus would welcome her to Him, if she touched His cloak. (Luke 8:40-49)

Jesus created three unique arenas where the people could belonged to Him, or He belong to them, as one can also see it, so shouldn’t we modern Christians do the same? Are we brave enough to dine at the home of a gay couple? To pass out water at the door of the blue-haired girl’s favorite bar or club? To give diapers to the teenage mother, or groceries to the couple living “in sin”?

Are we brave enough to take the words of our “What Would Jesus Do?” bumper sticker and really reflect on what our Father is truly doing?