W.W.J.D.

  

   

For the past several months, like so many of you I have had quite a bit of time on my hands due to the Covid-19 lock down.  I have spent many hours viewing news programming almost every day.  With all that is currently going on in our country and in the world, seeing the way some folks are behaving, and hearing the words that are being said to and about others, I couldn't get this idea out of my head.....

What Would Jesus Do? 

Those thoughts brought back some memories.  In the 1990's, my wife Sarah and I were very involved with the youth ministry of our parish.  At one point, we used what was an extremely popular tool at that time, the W.W.J.D. curriculum and bracelets.  The letters stood for "What Would Jesus Do" and the core teaching was to make choices and decisions in one's life based upon what Jesus taught and exemplified in His life. I must admit, that at the time, while I was aware of the movement's 1990's background, I was not aware of the history of the basic idea.  In preparing this posting, I did a little research and found out that the original idea for this movement was actually in a book published in the late 1800's by The Rev. Charles Sheldon titled "In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do" that book was based on a series of his sermons that posed moral questions or dilemmas, and ending with the question “What Would Jesus Do?”  The following Sunday, Rev. Sheldon would ask the members of his congregation for their input.   

So back to the current situation in our country.  What would Jesus do if He witnessed the uncaring actions of many people, or if He heard the hateful words of other people.  The first answer to that comes to my mind is… Jesus would weep.   

My next thought was that Jesus would remind us of what He did to the “money changers” in the Temple.  However, after giving this more thought, I really think that Jesus would tell us that we are to take non-violent means to remove today’s equivalent of the “money changers” from positions of power. We are to try to reach out and engage the supporters of the “money changers” by being filled with God’s love.  As disciples of Christ we must be an example of Christ's love in our thoughts, actions, and words. 

I have also been thinking about and praying about the fact that in the weeks to come, some of us will be making decisions about how to do "church" during the coming months.  This will not be an easy task, and no matter what plan we develop, things will be different.  I ask you to please keep your church leaders in your prayers and try to focus on “What Jesus Would Do”.