Looking Ahead to January 21, 2018

The Scripture Reading for this week is John 2:13-25

The Sermon title is WWJD?

Early Thoughts: A few years back there was a craze of bracelets bearing the 4 letters WWJD. The purpose of the bracelet was to encourage the wearer, when faced with a decision, to ask "what would Jesus do?" before acting. Given that there is a strand of Christian theology that maintains that the goal for the Christ-follower is to become more Christ-like this was a sound concept. But it had flaws (as all concepts do eventually).

One flaw was that I think it asked the wrong question.  I think the question for the Christian to ask is "what would Jesus have ME do?". WE can become Christ-like by trying to imitate Jesus. But Jesus lived in first-century Palestine and we live in 21st Century Alberta. And so we need to translate what we know about Jesus' moral an theological thought into a new context. We do not always know what Jesus would do...but we can think about how he would have us act.

The other flaw is that most people assumed that the question would always push people into being loving and kind. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with pushing people to be loving and kind but that is not all there is to being Christ-like. As a meme that sometimes floats through my Faacebook feed says, "when asked WWJD remember that pushing over tables and making a whip might be an option".

Sometimes to be faithful to Jesus means using anger in the work of Love's Kingdom. There is sometimes a desire to domesticate this side of following Christ. And yet just this morning this came
across my Facebook feed:

When we try to always answer WWJD in ways that have us being "nice", when we try to limit what it means to follow Jesus as acting (to use a strongly Presbyterian idea) "decently and in good order" we open ourselves to the criticism Dr. King shared so many years ago.

Jesus was passionate. To follow Jesus means to be passionate. Passion may lead us to act in ways that others say are not "nice" or "proper". How we do this becomes the big question.

What are the issues where we need to flip over some tables? What are the issues where anger in the service of Love's Kingdom is required rather than gentl prodding to do the "right thing"?

WWJ(have you)D?
--Gord