“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master. It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.”
“What would Jesus do?” may sound like an over simplified question to direct our life of faith.
Yet it isn’t. It is right on. For as those who seek to follow Jesus we are to be his presence in the hear and now.
We are not to run away from doing justice when it is dangerous.
We are not to quit caring when it seems hopeless.
We are not to give up when hope seems beyond our reach.
We are to be Jesus when no one wants Jesus around.
Like the young man down south in the days of our struggles with integration who was interviewed by the Psychiatrist Robert Coles as to why he was marching for the blacks in his community. He replied: (And he was rejected by his family because of this.)
“I don’t know why I put myself on the line.
I don’t know why I said no to segregation.
I’m just another white Southerner,
and I wasn’t brought up to love integration.
But I was brought up to love Jesus Christ,
and when I saw the police of this city
use dogs on people,
I asked myself what Jesus Christ would have
thought and He would have done
- and that’s all I know about how I CAME TO BE HERE,
ON THE FIRING LINE.”
Indeed, to follow Jesus will take us to the firing line of justice, compassion, and acceptance of that which we never thought possible. For “The process of signing on with Jesus consists of relinquishing what is old and treasured and receiving what is promised in the goodness of God.”
Dr. Walter Brueggemann, OT Theologian
“All sports records will inevitable be broken,
but the day after they are, the world won’t
have changed. But every day you speak up
about injustice, the next day the world may
be just a little better for someone.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, may someone be even just a little better off because I seek to follow you.”
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