David Robert Lambert

What Would Jesus Do?

Last Sunday’s New Testament reading (08/12/2018) was from Ephesians 4. According to the Revised Common Lectionary, the reading was Ephesians 4:25-5:2, Rules for the New Life. At the church I attended and served as Lay Reader, I first read Ephesians 4:17-24, The Old Life and the New.

“. . . surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. . . . be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us . . .”

This passage reminded me of WWJD. “What would Jesus do?” became popular, particularly in the United States but elsewhere as well, in the 1990s and as a personal motto for adherents of Christianity who used the phrase as a reminder of their belief in a moral imperative to act in a manner that would demonstrate the love of Jesus through the actions of the adherents.

Note the word ACTIONS in the above description. I have thought of this often over the last few decades and have come to the conclusion that thinking about WWJD in a particular situation is not good enough. I began to think there should be an extension of this, something more proactive vs. just thinking about WWJD.

I now think of this saying as DWJWD, do what Jesus would do.

The original Roman year had 10 named months Martius “March”, Aprilis “April”, Maius “May”, Junius “June”, Quintilis “July”, Sextilis “August”, September “September”, October “October”, November “November”, December “December”, and probably two unnamed months in the dead of winter when not much happened in agriculture.  Augustus Caesar clarified and completed the calendar reform of Julius Caesar. In the process, he also renamed this month after himself.

Augustine (Aurelius Augustinus) was born in the year 354 AD and became one of the greatest theologians of Western Christianity.  Augustine prospered in Rome, and was eventually appointed chief professor of rhetoric for the city of Milan, at that time the capital city of the Empire in the West.  In Milan, Augustine met the bishop, Ambrose, and found him to have reasonableness of mind and belief, a keenness of thought, and an integrity of character far in excess of what he had found elsewhere.  For the first time, Augustine saw Christianity as a religion fit for a philosopher.

By contemplating spiritual realities, directing one’s attention first to one’s own mind and then moving up the ladder rung by one to the contemplation of God, one acquires true wisdom, true self-fulfillment, true spirituality, and union with God, or the One. Augustine undertook this approach, and believed that he had in fact had an experience of the presence of God, but found that this only made him more aware of the gulf between what he was and what he realized that he ought to be.

Meanwhile, he continued to hear Bishop Ambrose. And finally, partly because Ambrose had answers for his questions, partly because he admired Ambrose personally, and chiefly (or so he believed) because God touched his heart, he was converted to Christianity in 386 and was baptized by Ambrose at Easter of 387.

After his conversion, Augustine went back to his native Africa where he was ordained a priest in 391 and consecrated bishop of Hippo in 396. It was not his intention to become a priest. He was visiting the town of Hippo, was in church hearing a sermon, and the bishop, without warning, said, “This Church is in need of more priests, and I believe that the ordination of Augustine would be to the glory of God.” Willing hands dragged Augustine forward, and the bishop together with his council of priests laid hands on Augustine and ordained him to the priesthood. (The experience may have colored Augustine’s perception of such questions as, “Does a man come to God because he has chosen to do so, or because God has chosen him, and drawn him to Himself?”) A few years later, when the Bishop of Hippo died, Augustine was chosen to succeed him.

Augustine was a diligent shepherd of his flock, but he also found time to write extensively.  His surviving works (and it is assumed that the majority did not survive) include 113 books and treatises, over 200 letters, and over 500 sermons. His work greatly influenced Luther and Calvin, to the point where for a while Roman Catholic speakers and writers were wary of quoting him lest they be suspected of Protestant tendencies

Here is a question for you to ponder: “Does a man come to God because he has chosen to do so, or because God has chosen him, and drawn him to Himself?”