Jesus was a doer. Jesus was never about just getting the facts right. Jesus invited fisherman to leave their businesses to follow him and go after a bigger cause, a bigger catch. He invited himself over to a successful tax collector’s home for dinner – a serious statement about grace – which had to make the disciples wonder is there was anybody Jesus would ever refuse in his presence. Earlier on the same night he was arrested he ate with the disciples – the Passover meal, perhaps – and did the unthinkable: he cleaned the disciple’s toilets. Well, actually, he washed their feet, but it would be the same as if you invited Jesus over to your home and he took time out before dessert to grab a brush and a bottle of bowl cleaner to take care of your business. On another occasion, he dared to take on even death as he called for the stone to be rolled away from his good friend Lazarus’ tomb – was there any place too sacred or too defiled for Jesus? Early in his ministry, he spoke with a Samaritan woman who was scorned by her community, sentenced to isolation and shame. He showed her compassion as he engaged her in meaningful conversation. The disciples could not believe he would stoop so low as to talk to someone like her – someone south of their border, a woman, and one with a questionable past.
When the disciples witnessed Jesus doing these crazy things, it wasn’t a spectator sport. It was basic training. What they saw Jesus do was instructive – it was what they were then called to do. Jesus didn’t call the disciples to spend their days in a classroom; the world and her inhabitants was the classroom. Broken, hurting, rejected, lost people provided the laboratory for them to discover the power of love to neutralize and transform the lives of the powerless. Servanthood would be the methodology for this higher learning more than reading and studying the Law. Jesus was clear: to walk with God required doing, not just sitting and thinking and pondering.
Jesus had an identity: the disciples knew who they were following. There is a balance to be struck here. While they were following and emulating Jesus, they were working out what they thought about Jesus. I wonder if sometimes we think we need to get Jesus figured out first, before we dare to do what Jesus calls us to do. That’s not how Jesus led his original disciples, and I doubt if Jesus’ methodology has changed much since. Jesus is an on-the-job-training kind of leader. Are you stuck in the classroom?
What would Jesus be up to if he showed up at your home, or your job, or your neighborhood, or your town? If history is any indication, he would certainly draw a crowd – maybe we could book him at CrossWalk? But he wouldn’t wait for people to come to him, would he? Nope – he would be in the middle of life. He would be speaking healing and forgiveness into the lives of those who were bleeding from their pain. He would be in your family room and at your kitchen table doing what God needs done. He would be in your neighborhood mending fences and building community. He would be helping those who need help to get it. He would be challenging those who hoard resources to steward them wisely. He would call out greed, self-centeredness, lust, hatred, cronyism, and apathy. He would make it to his speaking engagements just in time after a long day of getting done what God was calling him to do.
I don’t think Jesus has changed, which leads us to an important question…
What is Jesus calling you to do? If you were Jesus, what would you be speaking and doing in your key relationships? What would you move toward in your workplace? What injustice would you champion? What leadership would you hold accountable? What hopeless person would you reach out to? WWJD isn’t simply a catchy acronym for a silicon bracelet, and it isn’t simply a mental exercise. wondering what Jesus would do is a step toward orthopraxis – doing what is right – and right in front of us.
Where do you most long for change?
What might you need to risk?
The promise of the Jesus’ teaching is that we can learn a whole new way to be human. To live without worry, fear, greed, lust, or anger. To live a life animated and empowered by love. – Mark Scandrette
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