What Did Jesus Do
Fr. Brian Carpenter
Originally posted on 3/28/2010

WWJD. We've all heard it. What would Jesus do. This popular phrase can be found on T-shirts, bracelets and almost anything else the Christian media can market.

In theory, this phrase is not a bad thing. Would that we all acted like our Lord and savior. However, it seems that the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?" has been disconnected from a more important question; namely "What did Jesus do?" When this disconnect happens, the question "What Would Jesus Do?" ceases to be about prompting people to imitate the Lord, a lá Thomas à Kempis, and instead prompts an emotional response that turns reason and history on its head.

The real issue, is that we cannot know for certain what Jesus "would do," but only what he did. Thus any attempt to speculate on the former must in fact be based on the latter. So often, however, this is not the case when people pose the question "What Would Jesus Do?" Instead, what happens is that this question is used with a presumed answer in mind – "Not what you're doing."

Such an abuse of this phrase is common among Christians. It is most commonly seen when Christians want to oppose Church teaching but have no intellectual basis for doing so. Rather than appealing to reason, they appeal to emotion. This is what comedian Stephen Colbert refers to as truthiness - a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. The phrase WWJD, or “I wonder what Jesus would say about this” is meant to appeal to emotion. It has become the trump card waved by many people when trying to oppose the teachings and Traditions of the Church, specifically those teachings that stand in opposition to the values of the secular world.

The logic seems to follow this course: We all agree that Jesus was not mean, so therefore He would not do anything that would hurt anyone's feelings. As such, He would not hold to the Church’s teaching on (insert your least favorite teaching here) because it may make people feel bad about making certain choices in their lives, choices that may in fact be legal. So, for example, He would not tell an active homosexual couple to refrain from receiving communion. After all, He ate with sinners. He would not tell a cohabitating couple to cease living in sin. Instead, He would embrace them, and would not withhold Himself from them. He would not suggest a married couple refrain from artificial birth control. He would be more concerned about feeding the poor. Helping those in need. That’s what Jesus would do.

These arguments have a certain emotional persuasiveness. But this is only because WWJD has been used in such a way that it is about who we would like Jesus to be, and not who Jesus has revealed Himself to be. So now, instead of looking at WWJD, let's look at WDJD (What Did Jesus Do). When we look at what Jesus did, we can see that Jesus was someone who was passionate about the truth. As Fr. Isadore Bard, a friend to WTBH, recently stated, "When someone asks you to 'think about what Jesus would do', remember that a valid option is to freak out and turn over tables." While Father’s comment is facetiously phrased, his point remains. Jesus did not enter into a ministry defined by making everyone feel good about themselves. He frequently corrected the Pharisees by using the biblical "Woe." When Jesus ate with sinners, it was not to embrace their sin, but to lead them to conversion. The Gospels do not record stories of Jesus sitting down with tax collectors, and telling them that He is happy with them and loves them just the way they are.

What Jesus did was to set precedents as to how we are to behave in the face of sin. Never did He set a precedent of acquiescence to sin. Never did He embrace sin as a good, or as simply an alternate option, an alternate form of love. Rather, He saw the dignity of the sinner, and called them to conversion, so that their dignity could be realized.

In eating with Zacchaeus, the tax-collector, Jesus did not embrace Zacchaeus' way of life. But he did treat Zacchaeus with dignity. And this prompted Zacchaeus to turn away from his sin. In forgiving the woman caught in adultery, Jesus did not condone her moral decisions. Instead He offered her forgiveness and then prompted her to go and sin no more. In talking to the woman at the well, Jesus did not condone her marriage to 5 husbands, and her relationship with a man who was not her husband.

Furthermore, Jesus established a Church. And He endowed that Church with the gift of the Holy Spirit to preserve the authentic faith and safeguard it from moral error. Thus, it is impossible to consider the question, "What Would Jesus Do?" apart from consulting the Church. The Church cannot be opposed to the will of Christ, as the Church is the Body of Christ. Christ established her as His bride and gave her authority to bind and loosen.

As we enter into this Holiest week, as we vividly commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, it seems appropriate that we reflect on what Jesus DID, and not what we think He would (or should) do. Jesus gave us an example of dying for the sake of doing God’s will. We too must die, we must let go of what we wish were the will of the Father, and instead do what is the will of the Father. In this way, we follow Jesus' example by asking that not my will, but the Father’s will be done.