2 Corinthians 5

Last Sunday at the home group Bible study, we studied 2 Corinthians 5. And it's a great passage on the new creation and longing for our eternal dwelling and living the life that the love of Christ compels us toward. It's a chapter on our transformation into the representatives, coworkers, and ambassadors of Christ to the world being fully aware that we're not "at home" here.

This, of course, led to a discussion of living Christlike lives. Boiled down, it can be expressed in the trite-but-oh-so-marketable slogan "What Would Jesus Do?"

Darn good question for a Christian to ask -- except it dawned on me that so many of us can't answer that because, as Phillip Yancey points out, so often we don't know who this Jesus is.

Too many of us have an image of an upper middle class white guy who wore a suit and his best pair of sandals to synagogue (on Sunday) and quoted strictly from the King James. This Jesus doesn't drink, doesn't hang out with "the wrong crowd" and looks down his nose at common sinners. This Jesus is an idol and a sham.

Jesus went to parties. Jesus hung out with smelly fishermen -- who were not on Miss Manners' A+ etiquette list. They flunked out of charm school. Jesus probably had stinky feet and B.O. This was, you know, before deodorant. Jesus likely heard more than his share of Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew curse words -- he did hang around with "those people."

And he loved them. Hated what they did, sure, when it was a sin. But, too, we get sin and "something I don't like" all screwed up as well. If I don't like it, if I'm not comfortable with it or if it makes me flinch, it's obviously sinful. NOT. Several of the commandments, when followed, will put one into often uncomfortable and flinch-worthy situations. "Love thy neighbor" ain't that stinkin' easy -- especially if he's a smelly Samaritan.

I guess before we start acting like the Jesus we hold in our heads, we should probably figure out whether that Jesus agrees at all with the Son of God we're told to emulate, to have this mind in us "which was also in Christ Jesus." Sometimes our Jesus looks a lot like ... us. A reflecting idol.