When I was a teen, I found a paperback copy of In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? tucked away in our basement. Within a few pages, I knew to read it on the sly, aware that it supported a “social gospel” that was frowned upon by the fundamental theology I grew up with. I only read it once, but it stuck with me in some important ways. The story itself felt old–it was written in 1896, after all–and unrelated to the social, racial, and justice issues in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1980s–but its basic premise lodged deep: What WOULD Jesus do?

This question–the very theme of Shelden’s book–was THE wedge that created and widened the gap between my “stated” theology and my “lived” theology. With every encounter, every person, there was the question: What would Jesus do? What would Jesus say? How would Jesus act? This meant, of course, that I had to look at what Jesus DID and SAID to have an idea of what he would do in my circumstances. So to the Gospels I went.

The clearest teaching I found Jesus giving in the Gospels was “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and it was a teaching that got “fleshed out” again and again and again, through both the stories Jesus told and the stories he lived. (He also said, “Love your enemy,” because some of us REALLY need it spelled out, I guess.)

There is one story that is specifically linked to the “Love your neighbor” statement. In case you’ve never read it or it’s been awhile, here’s a recap: Some religious guy is trying to test Jesus, so he asks Jesus, “What do I have to do to have life eternal?” Jesus turns the question back to the guy–after all, this guy is an Expert in religious law–and asks him what he finds in Scripture. Expert answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “Good answer–do this and you’ll live.” Then Expert–who is clearly not Mr. Rogers–asks, “So, who is my neighbor?” Jesus then tells a story to illustrate: a guy is traveling from one city to another when he gets jumped by some robbers who beat him so bad he’s left lying on the side of the road, “half dead.” First a priest walks by, but he ignores the victim. Then another person in the religious in-crowd walks by, also ignoring the victim (this is starting to sound like “a priest walks into a bar” joke). The third person who walks by is someone that the first two people would despise (and supposedly the victim would as well–were he actually able to express an opinion). This Third person is an outcast, an outsider, someone who doesn’t belong in the majority culture, who would get the side-eye were he to actually walk into a religious establishment or move into a middle- or upper-class neighborhood.

It’s Third, though, who actually sees and helps the victim. He cleans him up, bandages his wounds, puts him on his own animal (meaning, I’m assuming, that Third himself has to walk and slow down his pace), takes him to an inn, and pays for the innkeeper to keep taking care of him.

Jesus ends the story by asking, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (Now that I’m thinking about it, this actually might be THE original “___________ walks into a bar” joke.)

I took this story to mean that not only was everyone my neighbor, I also had a responsibility to actively be a neighbor to everyone. So there was my life mantra: this neighbor, that neighbor, that one…–no matter how crazy different from me they were or I was from them, how ridiculously different our views were/are–love them. I’ve been very fortunate to encounter, through both my work and the places I’ve lived–lots of neighbors whose backgrounds and stories were so different we could have stood in for the two main characters in the story Jesus told, so lots of practice.

So I was building empathy through reading the stories of Jesus. There are quite a few of them, and they became helpful when I would encounter someone outside my framework. I could ask, “What did Jesus say?” and “What did Jesus do?” and let that guide me.

These days I feel like Jesus–the Jesus who said “Love your neighbor” and “Love your enemies”–has gotten forgotten in the rhetoric. I find myself wishing there were a whole lot more Jesus in the thinking of everyone who calls themselves a Christian. Not in the form of just slapping on a WWJD bracelet, but some actual searching out and discovery of what Jesus DID do.

This post has already gotten a little too long, so just one more bit. One of the first things Jesus DID do was this: he emigrated. He and his parents became immigrants. I don’t think they had the proper paperwork to go to Egypt, but they went anyway. I don’t think they felt they had much choice in the matter. They felt threatened and unsafe in their hometown.

The Gospels don’t include any stories from those years in Egypt. Knowing what I know about prejudice and drawing upon my years of experience as a middle- and high-school teacher, I am pretty sure that Jesus and his parents encountered a lot of people who rejected and bullied them, who told them they didn’t belong, who told them to go back where they came from. These encounters probably happened fairly often.

But I have hope that this immigrant family also had a few stories of kindness from this time in their lives. Stories of people who saw them, who loved them, who accepted them as neighbors.

Maybe Jesus had some of these stories in his mind when he told the parable of the guy who was beaten up and left on the side of the road. Maybe he had them in mind when he asked the Expert, “Which one do you think was a neighbor to him?”

The Expert answered, “The one who had mercy on him,” and Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

Whump, drop the mike. There you have it, Jesus people.

And this Jesus person (guess I can still call myself that) is going to keep asking how Jesus’ words/actions should impact my own views, attitudes, and actions toward immigrants in this country to which my own WOP (WithOut Papers) grandparents immigrated.