What Would Jesus Do?

by Robert Hamerton-Kelly

Some Christian teachers advise us to ask, “What would Jesus do?” before doing something the morality of which we are not clear about. I know that some people wear bracelets as an aid to memory with WWJD engraved on them to remind them to ask this question. I do not doubt that on the whole asking the question has a good effect, even if it only causes us to pause and think. There is a problem, however, the problem of the difference between Jesus and us and the impossibility that we could in any case act like him. What good could it do us to know what Jesus would have done in this circumstance if we cannot imitate him because of who he is and who we are? Nevertheless, there is a rich traditional spirituality called the “imitation of Christ” which seems to me to be the same thing as “What would Jesus do?” and so I wish to reflect on the theme of the imitation of Christ in the light of today’s Gospel reading.

I might just remind you of the cruel fate of lepers in Jesus’ society. They were not only afflicted physically but also ostracized socially and expelled religiously. They were regarded as ritually unclean and that meant that they and anyone who had any physical contact with them were excluded from participation in the religion of Israel. The definition of physical contact extended beyond actual hand to hand touching to dishes and eating utensils, garments and bedclothes, and even the very walls of the house. So they were expelled from their homes and made to live as homeless people on the margins of the community.

I understand that in parts of Africa people with AIDS are excluded like this and so many who have the disease conceal that fact, and thus the contagion is very hard to prevent. We, of course, have our homeless people, living under the bridge and begging in the streets. Many of them too are in that situation because of disease, mostly mental illness I believe, but whatever the cause they live like the lepers of old in the shadows of our prosperity. I don’t know about you but I must confess that I hate being accosted by beggars and salve my conscience by contributing to organizations that serve such people rather than to individuals.

Today we read of what Jesus did when such a person accosted him, and somewhere in this story is a clue to the right interpretation of the question, “What would Jesus do?” What did he do? The leper came to him and fell on his knees. He said, “If you want to, you can make me clean.” Why this diffidence, and more to the point, why does the Gospel writer record it? Is it conceivable that Jesus would not want to heal this suffering man? No, it is not conceivable to us, who take it for granted that Jesus would never refuse to do us good, and so we must surely be somewhat puzzled by the conditional nature of the leper’s request. Jesus’ answer confirms our assumption. “Moved with pity he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I will; be clean (1:41).”

The verb translated “moved with pity” is one of those whose meanings are linked metaphorically to human bodily feelings, in this case a feeling in the bowels or stomach. It recalls one of Oliver Cromwell’s (that great Congregationalist) famous statements to a stubborn member of his staff, “I beseech you sir in the bowels of Christ to consider that you might be mistaken!” I suppose Cromwell was appealing to this stubborn man to have pity on him and at least entertain the possibility that he might be wrong. So the gospel tells us here that Jesus was moved with compassion, moved by a force that came from without and moved from within. We know that the only force that moved Jesus from without and within is the force of the divine, the will and purpose of God, and so this declaration, “I will, be clean!” is a revelation of the nature and person of God. It tells us that God loves us passionately, is moved with love at the sight of our need and wants to reach out through the barriers of expulsion and quarantine to touch us, and thus to make us clean again.

You no doubt already have noted that the deed of touching the unclean man is more eloquent even that the words, “I will, be clean!” To touch a leper risked contagion. And more than that, by publicly touching the leper Jesus identifies with him irrevocably. By touching him Jesus has made himself ritually unclean, put himself outside the religion and the community of Israel. Thus Jesus tells us how much he loves us, how much more we individuals in need mean to him than the safety of inclusion in the religious or civil community. Jesus publicly takes his stand with the outcast, publicly shows how much more love means than conformity, and how much power he has to make the unclean clean and the sick whole.

The clean touches the unclean and instead of the usual result where the unclean dominates, here the clean dominates. The unclean become clean, the sick well, and not the usual vice versa. At this point I ask myself, “Is it wise to touch those afflicted with contagious disease?” and I answer “No!” I would catch the disease and there would then be two afflicted where formerly there was one. So I realize that I cannot do what Jesus did, and wonder what it might mean to ask what Jesus would do as a guide to my behavior.

As I continue this reflection I realize that I have been identifying in the story with Jesus, when of course I should identify with the leper. I am not the Jesus figure I am the leper figure, and so the question is not what would Jesus do so that I can do it too, but rather like the leper’s, “What will Jesus do? Will he dare to touch me? Does he care enough about me to do it?” That’s the real question, isn’t it? Does he really love me enough to risk it? Or even to take the trouble to attend to me? What will Jesus do?” And the answer is simply, “I will, be clean,” spoken by one powerfully moved by compassion.

There is another verb in our passage that speaks of powerful emotion on Jesus’ part. It is the verb translated “...sternly charged…” as in “And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, and said to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone…’ ” (1:43-44). In some of its usages this verb means, “snorted, snarled, growled” signifying strong negative emotion, in this case aimed at warning the man, almost threatening him. So we go from one emotional pole to the other in Jesus’ response to the leper, overwhelming compassion and thundering warning. These two emotions remind us of the two poles of the primitive sacred, which is infinitely attractive and infinitely awesome.

Let us assume now that these two forces emanated from Jesus in the encounter with the leper and that they reveal the nature of God. This is not surprising is it?  We all know that God is love, that the individual existence he gave us is simply an infinite blessing in itself, one that calls forth continual gratitude, and we also all know that God has a will that cannot be trifled with and a purpose that must not be thwarted. God heals us and warns us. God gives and demands. That is the message the leper –namely, you and I – got from that encounter with Jesus. 

Is there anything left to be gleaned from our Gospel concerning the imitation of Christ, the question, “What would Jesus do?” in the original sense with which we opened our reflection? There is, and I think it lies precisely in the sense we get that Jesus’ compassion and his severity come from outside himself and work within and through him, that sense of his being open to his Father. We claim that his behavior reveals God, and we do so because we believe that Jesus was infinitely open to the divine, was indeed of the same being as the Father. The Jesus of John’s gospel says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), and that, perhaps surprisingly, is the one characteristic of Jesus we can with good effect attempt to imitate, sheer transparency to the divine, in both His compassionate and minatory presence, God whose love takes the form of compassion and control, cherishing and warning, giving and demanding.

Let me summarize: We are the leper in this story not Jesus, therefore the question, “What would Jesus do?” must be framed by the firm knowledge that whatever Jesus would do he would do to us and for us, not as an example to be copied but as an act of divine grace. That means that in the moment of moral need we must not put ourselves in Jesus’ place and try to imagine what he would do, but rather call upon Jesus to take our place, to reach out and touch us, to take our part, and to do what he thinks is good for us. In this way we really do imitate Christ, by being open to him and his presence and He is open to His Father.

Amen.