Walking Like Jesus--September 11, 2020
"By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, 'I abide in him [Jesus Christ],' ought to walk just as he walked." [1 John 2:5b-6]
I know it's more complicated than a bracelet.
I know there's more to the Gospel than a simple memory device.
I know that being a disciple cannot be reduced simply to the four letters that were so popular a few decades ago in "Christian bookstores" and apparel--WWJD, as in "What would Jesus do?"
But that's not entirely the wrong question, either. Maybe it's just one that needs to be asked rightly.
Okay, let me step back for a minute. You may have lived through the fad (and I say that, not to dismiss it, but because I wish we had done more than let it sparkle and fade like a marketing campaign) where a lot of Christians wore "WWJD" shirts, bracelets, hats, and more, and put the same letters on bumper stickers, keychains, and just about everything else. For a while it was everywhere among Respectable Religious people, and at its most noble, the intention behind it was to get Christians to actually strive to be more like Jesus. That's a good thing. If I'm going through my day and I find myself getting bitter, or vengeful, or greedy, or hateful, and there can be a subtle reminder on my wrist or on the car in front of me to pause and re-think how to respond like Jesus, that's good. And while there's no measurable way to gauge what all that WWJD-wearing did to affect our attitudes and actions, I can at least see that there was good in asking the question itself.
Of course, the cost of every good idea that becomes a fad is that it was also very possible for folks to just use the very thoughtful question, "What would Jesus do?" as a means of turning faith into a consumer product... and that happened, too. Soon it became possible to wear the shirt, carry the totebag, plaster it on your car, and everything else that you almost became desensitized to the letters, and to their question. Lots of companies that were less concerned with making the world a more Christ-like place but were plenty interested in making a buck cashed in on the trend by stamping the latest inspirational slogan on the same old tchotchkes and trinkets that had nothing to do with Jesus otherwise. And that had a way of cheapening the question--and the deeper impulse in it for people who say they are Christ-followers to, you know, actually live in ways that reflected Jesus.
There are, to be sure, other ways that the seemingly simple question, "What Would Jesus Do?" can go sideways. For one, the Gospel is always more than just a program for self-improvement. The message of the Good News is not, "Be more like Jesus and if you are a convincing enough impersonator or superfan, you'll get a spot in the afterlife," but rather that grace takes us by the hand even when we are hot messes who are selfish, crooked, shady stinkers who look nothing like Jesus. So, for starters, if you're going to ask, "What would Jesus do?" as a guide to personal decision-making, you also have to ask, "What did Jesus do, already, for me, and for the world, exactly when we were most turned away from him and un-Christ-like?" There's grace for when we blow it, for when we fail at being like Jesus, and for when we ask the question and get the answer wrong. All of that is harder to fit on a bracelet, but there's grace there--when we blow it, we aren't kicked out of the Heaven Club... because it's not a club, it's the family of God and the body of Christ.
But that also raises another complication to the seemingly simple question, "What Would Jesus Do?" And that's quite simply that beyond the data points in the gospels, it is really easy for us to invent our own pictures of Jesus, convinced that our own sense of "rightness" must be in line with Jesus. Sometimes we're not half-bad at sketching out what Jesus "would do," but sometimes, we end up remaking him in our own image by editing out all the parts that we don't like. Lots of American Christians, for example, have gotten comfortable with Jesus as a muscle-bound flag-waving superhero who wants to make sure women stay home, cook, and look pretty while blessing the Dow Jones to grow ever higher profits, and who could never be accused of weakness, or being called <gasp> a "loser," or humble. We have reimagined Jesus to be more like John Wayne, when Jesus seems to have deliberately said "NO" to the macho, tough-guy act of the man who shot Liberty Valance. Like Robert Farrar Capon put it so well, we would rather have Superman as our savior than the crucified Christ we got. We don't want to see Jesus as the Gospels actually show him: a homeless (and jobless) rabbi, often dependent on independently wealthy women to provide for his and his friends' meals, who refused to salute to Rome or to Herod, and who deliberately chose the path that looked like weakness, foolishness, neediness, and, well, being called a "loser." If we're going to dare to ask the question, "What would Jesus do?" and actually mean it, we should be prepared to look at the brown-skinned homeless Jew who wouldn't allow the crowds to give him political power, and who showed up at the doors of the outcasts, and who repeatedly told people to sell all that they owned if they wanted to follow him. I'm not sure we are really prepared to ask the question from the bracelet and really mean it.
So all of that brings us back to this simple premise from the book we call First John. And in a sense, John seems to be as straightforward as the four-letter question from the Christian bookstore fad. "Anybody who claims to abide in Christ ought to live like Jesus lived," John says. That's not as catchy as the old WWJD, I guess, but they are pointing in the same direction. So what do we do with this challenge from John, and how do we avoid the pitfalls that came with the marketing fad with the bracelets from a few years back?
Well, let me suggest a couple things that might keep us honest... so that we can be more genuinely Christ-like. For one, I think we need to allow that there's often more than one way to be "like Jesus," just like there are multiple faithful answers to "What would Jesus do?" in different circumstances. Being like Jesus doesn't require us to grow beards or be from Palestine, or that we necessarily are forbidden from using technology that didn't exist in the first century. And it's worth remembering that a lot of the symbols, gestures, and practices that get used as a religious shorthand for Christianity today have no precedent at all in Jesus himself--Jesus isn't a member of your political party, he doesn't pledge allegiance to ANY flags, he never went to a church service like yours, never told anyone to "accept him as their personal savior," and never had a cross necklace or fish bumper sticker. He didn't even have a bracelet that says, "What would I do?" Remembering that may help us avoid painting ourselves into a corner of points-scoring and thinking that if you didn't get the right answer a sufficient percentage of the time, you get kicked out of the club. There will be lots of ways people in your life reflect the light of Christ for you--sometimes they'll do it intentionally, sometimes without even realizing they are doing it, and sometimes even in spite of themselves. That's a testament to the cleverness of the Holy Spirit who works through us more than our own awesomeness, but it's true nonetheless.
Second, I want to suggest that we need to keep ourselves grounded in the stories and words of Jesus himself rather than just assuming we know what Jesus would do in our gut. Lots of folks think that "God helps those who help themselves" is in the Bible and have a hard time believing, "Love your enemies" or "Sell your possessions and give it to the poor" are out of the mouth of Jesus. The way to make sure our allegiance goes to Jesus and not to a baptized version of Superman or Captain America is to keep ourselves grounded in what Jesus actually said and did.
And of course, we need to remember--and keep reminding one another--that before we do a thing to make ourselves more like Jesus, he has already loved us, claimed us, and redeemed us as a gift because of who HE is, not because of how WE behave. Grace isn't just the audition to enter the Heaven Club--grace is our lifeline no matter how deep our faith and how mature our discipleship gets.
All of that said, though, it is worth coming back to First John's non-negotiable conclusion here: calling ourselves Christians can't be separate from at least something that looks like Jesus. Maybe this is a time right now when we need to be especially clear about that. It is awfully tempting to find ways around the call to Christ-likeness. We want to add exceptions, conditions, or loopholes, like, "as long as it's good for business..." or "as long as it doesn't make you look like a loser," or "provided that we're only talking about being kind to other Christians-like-you-y'know-who-are-in-the-club-wink-wink," or that only recognize the John-Wayne shoot-first-and-never-turn-the-cheek pretender as Jesus rather than the Galilean peasant himself. Or we want to grant exceptions like, "Well, you don't have to care about acting or thinking or speaking like Jesus as long as you GET THE JOB DONE!" or "Being like Jesus is not as important as doing things to help make Christians more comfortable, more powerful, and more wealthy, so whatever will do those things must be ok, too." Or, "Character isn't as important as looking tough, projecting confidence, or being seen as a winner, so this being-like-Jesus stuff just isn't a priority." You can live your life that way, according to First John, but please don't pretend that has anything to do with Jesus.
So we are left with a challenge--to keep ourselves and one another honest about how to live in ways that genuinely reflect the way of Jesus, and to do it with grace for all of us for the ways we blow it, or get it wrong, or keep falling for fake Jesuses with capes, flags, or six-shooters. But the point of that grace is that we keep starting over again, seeking to live and walk and love in ways that are more like Jesus--not by mere copying or imitation, but by daring to believe he is alive and guiding our steps along the way, too. And if that is true, then to be made more like Jesus is to be made more fully alive.
And that is worth the effort. Let us be fully alive today. Let us seek to be like Jesus.
Lord Jesus, make of us what you will, and let our lives, our words, our actions, and our choices be a reflection of you in the world.
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