WWJD - ‘What would Jesus do?’ - was a motto that did the rounds among evangelical Christians in the 1990s. They wore wristbands emblazoned with these letters, using them as a guide to making every day ethical decisions.
A Christian myself, I regularly ponder what Jesus would do. There are, of course, numerous situations for which this question provides no guidance whatsoever: IVF or the use of nuclear power for example. You have to do a fair bit of serious, contextual Bible study to glean guidance for many of our contemporary ethical conundrums – something fundamentalists of any religion are not known for.
There is, however, one burning current issue to which I am convinced the answer to ‘What would Jesus do?’ is abundantly clear; the question of how we treat refugees fleeing persecution and heading to our privileged shores.
I’m not about to list the ways we can do this more effectively and compassionately without opening the floodgates to millions of people. Others far more qualified than I am have been doing that eloquently in these pages for weeks. I simply want to point out a few of the events in Jesus life that give a pretty reliable indication of what his attitude to the ‘boat people’ might be.
Jesus was consistently attentive to the poor, the powerless and the outcast. He shocked and disgusted the religious and political leaders of his day by hanging out with women, lepers, prostitutes, the mentally ill and beggars. Race was no barrier to his exercise of friendship and healing.
Jesus’ anger, the Gospels reveal, was reserved for those with power, money, and privilege who used it to exploit those who had none. The corrupt moneylenders in the temple had their tables upended by a wrathful Jesus. He called the religious heavies snakes and vipers when they were hypocritical and when they tried to exclude ordinary people from access to God.
The God of the Hebrew Scriptures was the same – consistently portrayed as being on the side of the poor. Read the book of Amos if you want to get a taste of this God.
Furthermore, Jesus was himself a refugee as a baby, fleeing from King Herod who was trying to kill him. Jesus welcomed outsiders. He was radically inclusive. His early followers shared their possessions and were urged to give to those in need.
No matter how much our Prime Minister claims to follow this Jesus, I am convinced their policies on the treatment and processing of asylum seekers could not be more different.
Palm Sunday commemorates the date Jesus peacefully rode a donkey into the midst of those plotting his murder. This year, Palm Sunday falls on April 13, when, along with many Christians and other concerned people, I will be walking in Melbourne for justice for refugees, starting at the State Library at 2pm.