What Would Jesus Do?

Saturday evening, I was sitting with friends from my hometown, just visiting, when one of them received an alert on her phone that the verdict was in on the George Zimmerman case. What’s nice about lifelong friends is that you might not agree on religion or politics, but you know one another well enough to accept diff erences without them threatening your friendship. We all sat quietly for a moment, and then, almost in unison, we all said, “How sad.” And those two words expressed it all - the complexity of our legal system combined with economic and racial stratification, state legislation and the propensity to solve problems with fi rearms.

There are too many lenses through which to view our national situation articulated through a specific legal case in Florida. Some look at the lawsuit through the lens of racial profiling by George Zimmerman and others like him. Others look at it through the lens of fi rearms legislation and our national laws that allow citizens to carry firearms for their own personal protection.

Others see Florida’s specifi c protective legislation - and how a person only has to think that he is threatened to justify killing another - as the root of how Trayvon Martin lost his life. Others see a punk teenager who shouldn’t have been in a neighborhood where he wasn’t wanted - and who possibly instigated the violence. The list goes on and on. But in truth, when you add it all up, how sad.

I couldn’t help but wonder what Jesus would have said if the legal experts or church leaders of his day had approached him with a “Who is it that has sinned?” question as they were so prone to do. “Who is it that has sinned, George Zimmerman or Trayvon Martin?” I think that many of us today reason much like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, anticipating Jesus to blast the social system that created such a situation.

Racism and racial profi ling aren’t just personal sins, they are communal sins we teach our children and are inherent in our desire to protect our “stuff ” from those who aren’t like us, those who we fear. It’s hard to imagine Jesus condoning violence and protecting one’s self with a weapon that can kill another child of God.

Jesus’ life was the epitome of nonviolence - as lived out through those who patterned themselves on his example, such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.

And yet, when confronted with questions of who was right and who was wrong, Jesus had a habit of catching everyone off guard with his answer.

So I’m confi dent Jesus wouldn’t answer our question today in a way that justified any one side in a situation.

Ordinarily Jesus pointed to how God could use any situation to change our perspective and turn us around. When asked, “Whosinned, the man or his parents?” Jesus responded that God intended to use this situation to show Jesus’ power and God’s glory.

That is not to say that the issues of today are not permeated with sin, but perhaps blaming someone or some system isn’t what Jesus would lead us to do to move closer to God’s will in the world. Perhaps the better question is, “What is God showing us in this situation?” Or, “What would God have us learn and change?” It is much easier to blame and lash out against the wrong we see. It is even easier to create a temporary solution that gives us a false sense of security. It is much harder to see what God might be doing and what God would have us do - not out of anger or trying to fix a single situation, but how God’s ways are truly transformational.

It’s much like the two women who came to King Solomon with a baby, each claiming to be the child’s mother. His solution of cutting the baby in half was so radical that the women’s response to his pronouncement solved the problem - it was easy to see who the mother was. I imagine that God’s response to the problems of our day would have an equally unanticipated solution, so radical that we could easily sort our right from wrong and what we should do from that which is opposed to God’s will.

I aftrm our system of government, our economic system and our legal system are the best in the world and the most fair for the most citizens. And I am thankful to live in our nation that, I believe, provides the most opportunity for all citizens.

But at the same time, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I must recognize there are inherent contradictions between one’s faith and any system of government. And when push comes to shove, following Jesus Christ and God’s ways are infi nitely supreme.

It was good to spend Saturday evening with my lifelong friends - to express our thoughts, to agree and disagree, to come up with solutions that will never be tried and to look at the injustices expressed in the sad situation in Florida through our individual perspectives. As sad as we think the situation is, I can only imagine how sad God is. May we be open to God’s pain and God’s solutions in our world, so that we may move closer to God’s peace.

May God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

THE REV. LESLIE BELDEN IS A MINISTER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.).