When I was a little toddler, my family opened a Deck the Walls store in Battlefield Mall, which meant we ate a lot of mall meals. I loved eating Chick-Fil-A in the mall food court with my grandpa, but had NO idea about sauces until I was in my late teens…because grandpa only dipped his nuggets and fries in mayonnaise. Weird, right?!?! So many sauce years lost!

I randomly started thinking about eating at the cafeteria in the mall, too, a few days ago. Cafeterias were great! You could pick anything you wanted! I always went fish, because I had some crazy obsession with their tasty cod. Then some smattering of sides. Probably broccoli and cheese, because while we ate broccoli at home, it didn’t always have cheese. Then probably mashed potatoes or mac & cheese. But they also had these super yummy cornbread things that they had baked in a tiny corn shaped cast iron skillet. Ohhh, wow! Always got one of those! That Picadilly Cafeteria in Springfield, MO was something to behold at the ripe age of 3-4 whose culinary tastes were her grandma’s pancakes, ice cream and cakes.

Picking and choosing is something innate for humanity. God has intrinsically given us choice. I used my ability to choose no beans while living in a country that eats beans and rice, literally every day I was there. I choose where I drive, when I wake up, who I meet intentionally and on and on and on with the choices.

I cannot help but think about those who like to pick and choose the aspects of Jesus they are okay with and how they want to emulate him. Take a breathe, pro-lifers, probably going berserk right now, but I refuse to hear your pro-life argument UNLESS it also includes an end to the death penalty, housing for everyone, healthcare accessible AND affordable for literally everyone (especially Black people and Black mothers with abhorrent maternal death rates), compassion for those fleeing a country we have ZERO context for what they are running from, and just for good measure, we will throw some religious self-righteousness on the pile.

Come at me with questions and I will ask them in return. Come at me with a conversation and we will have one. Come at me with humility and we will talk.

Come at me while spewing hate and speaking bad against anyone, please go meet Jesus at the door, because he has some words for you and probably a head slap or two.

Please remember Jesus was a political rebel. He flipped tables in a church to make a point. He healed on a Sabbath. (insert mock shocked face here) Jesus pointed to Kingdom, not to Cesar. Jesus pointed to Kingdom, not Herod, who was trying to kill him.

Jesus pointed to hope, compassion, joy and love. If you don’t find that in your conversations and your heart, you have gotten off the rails, friend, and Jesus would like to have a conversation with you.

Let me also make myself clear. I do not claim a political party. I claim Kingdom, and what I mean by that is I will do whatever I can with all  my actions and words to love my neighbors and be more and more and more and more like Jesus.

The only way to do that is to actually study the Gospels we have been given for the stories of Jesus. In the book of Luke alone let’s look at what is recorded about Jesus’ character and actions:

• He spoke out the ‘beattitudes.’ If you have not read them, probably check them out. If you want to study them, I have a great resource for you. [Luke 6:20-23]
• He instructed his followers to love their enemies. Love as in ‘agape’ love, which is the Greek word for ‘love’ in the New Testament that refers to a pure, sacrificial love that is demonstrated through action. Jesus’ love for you? That is the love Jesus says to show your enemies. This love does not discriminate, rank or place different levels of how we love our enemies. [Luke 6:27]
• He hung out with women and they supported his ministry. This alone turned the world upside down around Jesus. Culture was patriarchal, and women had no status or voice without marriage or sons. [Luke 8:1-6]
• He fed those that were hungry. [Luke 9:10-17]
• He consistently invited others to follow him.   
• He told radical stories about not only having compassion for your neighbor who does not look like you, but caring for them beyond the initial emergent crisis. [Luke 10:25-37]
• He reclined at tables with people. [Luke 7:36, Luke 11:37, Luke 14:15, Luke 22:14 & Luke 24:30]
• He called out religious hypocrisy. [Luke 11:37-54]
• He healed people on the Sabbath, which was a culturally middle finger to the religious leaders. [Luke 14:1-6]
• He tells a story about a huge banquet where everyone seems to be busy, so the host invites everyone off of the streets, no matter their rank, color, what they were wearing or how they smelled. Jesus’ bottom line? Stop excluding people. [Luke 14:7-24]
• He will actively look and wait for who find themselves off the rails, and then welcome them back with wide open arms and a massive party. [Luke 15]
• He welcomed children to his circle and shared the Kingdom belongs to them. [Luke 18:15-17]
• He flipped the money tables in the church and disrupted the entire economy there. [Bonus Matthew 21:12-13 passage]
• He also went to places deemed unclean and full of the wrong kind of people, then talked to a woman…who was promiscuous…and instead of condemning her, he gave her life and revealed himself as Messiah. [Bonus John 4 passage.]

Jesus was perfection, and in the places where we see righteous anger, we need to actually see it for righteous anger and work against those things in this world. Fighting for the Kingdom to be known is to fight to right the wrongs in our world.

We also need to look at what Jesus did not say, because he said a lot, so why would something we make a big deal out of in our culture be something he would stay silent about then? Do not pervert some Leviticus garble to me, we are talking about the words and actions of Jesus here.

Jesus is not a cafeteria, or those cool sushi conveyor belts, where we can pick and choose what we want. You do not get to pick and choose the parts of Jesus you like and the parts of Jesus you want to be about. It is more of an all or nothing community.

Honestly, I’m thankful Jesus isn’t a plate of baked cod alongside some broccoli with cheese, because I need him to be more than anything we could ever dream up or imagine.

I need Jesus to be raw, whole, and fully resurrected just like all the prophets professed.