Selling Jesus

Long before I officially became a Minister of Word and Sacrament, I understood my primary objective in life was to sell Jesus. No one ever said it this crudely, but I figured it out. And for years now I have tried. I’ve tried to live an inspirational life. I agonized of how to defend Jesus from ridicule and dismissal. I even invented a personal cursing vocabulary so not to take in vain the name of the One whose marketing team I’d joined.

Since my ordination in the Presbyterian Church in 1994, this sales position has become all consuming. Every public moment I have tried to have on my Jesus smile, carry myself with Christ-like bearing, and look at the world with my Jesus eyes. It has been exhausting.

It has also been increasing distressing as I’ve witnessed other Jesus salesmen prance about on TV. The way so many of them hash the sales pitch make my job selling Jesus that much harder. Their best-selling books suggest Jesus is little more than a cosmic bellhop if you believe this, confess that, or pray right. Royalties from these books earn them a hefty slice of the American Dream if not a place in the Kingdom of God. But for me, these same books become just one more caveat I need to make in selling the One I’ve had to take to calling “the REAL Jesus.”

Now I’m done. Not that I no longer believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Not that I don’t believe God’s great love centered in Jesus is the key to the darkness that pools in my life and the destruction ripping apart the Middle East. I believe Jesus is.

It is just that I suspect my time would be better spent loving people that pitching a Jesus who never asked for a sales force. He asked for followers not a marketing strategy. He rejoices when we care for others without condition rather than as part of a calculated formula to rack up a sale. Abundant blessing, sacrificial love, and laughter are my job, not sales. I resign.