Pastoral Ponderings– Never Have I Ever…
A DRINKING game for a church note? How can that be!?! Easy for me—“Never have I ever played a drinking game.” Being the son of an alcoholic, I think there might be wiser ways to invest my time! But might we be able to try to redeem a drinking game with a little twist? If we church folk are called to be like Jesus, might it be a way to better clarify “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do?”) by having fun with exploring how Jesus might play “Never have I ever…” and what we’ve never seen in Jesus before?
But we’ve got to be careful, too, in our assumptions about Jesus! Would Jesus be able to say “Never have I ever – gone to the bathroom…”? Sure! Where in the Gospels do we ever hear of Jesus “relieving himself” (that valuable, human descriptive term used elsewhere in the Bible)? Never! But does that mean it didn’t happen? If we’re not careful and just think literally, we might be led astray, when a key tenant of our faith is that Jesus was fully human. So maybe that’s NOT something Jesus could say.
There are a lot of other common things we don’t see described of Jesus in the Bible—but we can make some pretty safe assumptions based on what we DO know about Jesus. It’s also true that it’s harder to show what someone did NOT do, than what someone DID do, so the game certainly has its limitations, but we might still be able to have some fun with it.
For instance, while I—and likely most of us– can certainly say “Never have I ever faced down the ruling authorities”—Jesus couldn’t say that! What a guy! And while I’d LIKE to be able to say “Never have I ever—done something dumb…” I imagine there are a LOT of you who could wholeheartedly disagree with me on that!
What we see in the Gospels is not ALL of what Jesus did—but it is enough to prove WHO Jesus is, His character, and what we can depend on in Him. So from our teetotaling version of that drinking game—Never have I ever seen Jesus getting in the way of God’s love. Never have I ever seen Jesus obscuring or hiding His Light. Never have I ever seen Jesus making decisions based merely on a personal preference—but in fact, we see Him overtly saying “Not MY will, but Thine be done…” When we do our best to do what Jesus did, and don’t what Jesus didn’t, we’ll go a long way in getting closer to being able to say “Never have I ever—hidden Jesus’ Light”
The now almost forgotten “WWJD” fad is still a valuable tool in living our discipleship—but the flip side of the WWJD coin—”What Would Jesus DON’T”—might even be a way to transform what’s mostly thought of as a drinking game, also into a tool for discipleship!
So remember BOTH sides of WWJD in this season of shining Jesus’ Light!—Pastor Jim