What Would Jesus Do?

[Nothing new under the sun here.]

Heard in church today: What would Jesus do? Apparently, this concept is at pretty old, not just cooked up in the 1990s by the neo-religious-right.

The idea is: promise that, for a year, you won't do anything at all without asking yourself: What would Jesus do?

Now, I wonder....

Jesus would give his all. His earthly possessions, his blood, his life. Every bit of it.

"Sell everything you have and give the money to the poor."

So, what's the point of asking ourselves what Jesus would do? We should sell our possessions and give the money to the poor? Move into the smallest, cheapest house and car, buy clothes at the PTA thrift shop, never take vacations (except for mission work), not spend money on unnecessary luxuries like digital cameras or cable TV or NetFlix? Stop smoking and drinking two beers a day?

Or... are we simply expected to writhe in guilt every minute of every day at our failure to have the courage and faith to take that road of poverty?

God wants the best for us. He doesn't want us sad and miserable every day. Of course, we should be aware of our sins (and that includes our lack of total commitment), but we should also be aware of his love for us in spite of our imperfections.

Man, what a tough question. I get a little pissed off at people that cast these sorts of judgemental aphorisms around. "What would Jesus do?" Implying a (yet another) holier-than-thou attitude. Leave me alone!

And, of course, there I am, sitting in church, being judgemental myself, because everybody is giving these self-centered reasons for giving money to the church (e.g., "because it makes me feel so good!" It's not about you, it's about God. You missed the point. Grump, grump, grump).

And... he does expect us to live the life of total charity. If every person on the planet were to do so, that would be... the kingdom of God.

Sigh.

So. A nothing blog entry. We should act. We should feel guilty. But not too guilty, because we are still loved. But we should still act.

And, by the way, blogging is not acting. Unfortunately.