What Wouldn't Jesus Do?

I am continually amazed... and bothered... by people who argue against loving your gay neighbor and uplifting the poor and taking care of each other but who claim to love and follow Jesus. 

Really, y'all should be ashamed. 

I am not any kind of theology student, but thanks to my parents, spent a LOT of time in a Fundamentalist church, so I know a couple of things (even though I'm a girl, which -- and this is a Fundie joke -- renders my knowledge useless) about Jesus.

I know he fought for the underdog. The poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden? They were Jesus's homies. If you said to Jesus, "I can't serve this person because she's Latina/Muslim/gay/illegal/transgendered/an addict/a Yankees fan" he would look at you sadly. Because Jesus? Did not care about those things. Jesus believed everyone is worthy. Everyone is valuable. Everyone deserves rights and fairness and love simply by virtue of being human and alive, which makes everyone -- everyone!!! -- a child of God.

I might not be a good Christian ... I've been publicly prounonced a crappy one, actually ... But I get the Jesus loves everyone (even you, Yellie, with your shitty Christian-ness) thing.

So. People being mean to other people but at the same time declaring themselves as being FOR Jesus bother me, because I feel like Jesus? Would be sad to see how much meanness is done in his name, how much cruelty is inflicted on his "behalf," and how often he is invoked as a reason to for people to be hateful to each other.

It makes me sad.

And it makes me sad when, as a society, we punish a crime by committing a crime. It makes me sad when we say, as Ron White once put it, "if you kill someone... we'll kill you back" because I don't understand the death penalty on any level, but it is especially confusing to me that it is supported by so many people who claim, sometimes feverishly, that they love and follow Jesus. Because I don't claim to always know what Jesus WOULD do, but I know that he was big on forgiveness and love and redemption, and execution sort of ... Negates ... Anyone's opportunity to turn her or his life around; if I'm remembering my lessons properly, Jesus actually died to offer that opportunity for everyone. Not just some people. Not just good people or people who agree with you or saintly Red Sox fans. ALL PEOPLE.

I don't always know what Jesus would do.

But I feel like I know what he wouldn't do.

Maybe that's the more important question to ask.