Did you know that there’s a website dedicated to ‘What Would Dumbledore Do?’ It borrows from the WWJD? Christian merchandising gimmick, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ For those who subscribe to WWDD?, it’s a very serious thing.  They see Albus Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter books, as a source of teaching on social ethics.  They want people to draw on the words of the ‘the greatest wizard in history’ to guide and inspire them on such topics as health care, fair trade, happiness, and family.

Andrew Slack who represents this site is a self-declared “Harry Potter rabbi” who quotes from the books like someone else would quote passages from their own religious text.  Using the opinions of Harry’s mentor Dumbledore as a moral compass, he sees numerous parallels to social issues that others should engage with.  For instance Slack suggests Potter fans should support fair trade because Dumbledore agreed on giving rights to house elves.  And what’s trully amazing is that the organisation has raised money for aid work in Rwanda and the Dafur region of Sudan.

For me this raises the first issue of why choose Albus Dumbledore for guidance when you have real people from history eg. Jesus Christ!? Why draw wisdom from a children’s fictional world of magicians and elves, when Jesus spoke directly to humanity?  I suspect part of the answer is because Jesus will never fit into a box of a moral teacher.  Jesus doesn’t offer tit-bits of wisdom that we help us with our favourite social issues.  Jesus came and gave a critique of our heart, exposed how we’re distant from God because of our sin, and died for us to reconcile us with him.

But there’s something else I’d like us to consider.  I want us to think about the D in WWDD? and in the original WWJD?  There’s something very right about doing.  There’s something very right about taking action.  Before the current James sermon series fades into the collective memory, it’s good to be reminded that this is what we’ve been learning.  Christianity is about faith in action – Doing.  For those who are saved by Jesus, we live for Jesus in real and tangible ways.  James the brother of Jesus in fact draws from the teaching of Jesus for this.  Here’s just a few examples of how James quotes Jesus – James 2:2-4 = Luke 20:46.  James 2:8 = Matthew 22:39-40; James 3:18 = Matthew 5:9; and James 5:12 = Matthew 5:34-37.  It seems God in the letter of James very much wants us to live by the motto, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’.

Here’s a few of ‘doing’ challenges that comes straight out of James:

·         Compassion.  How can you do the sacrificial thing of getting to know some new people at church?  How can you use your money and time for the benefit of someone in your growth group?

·         Taming the Tongue.  How can you be calm with your workmate or spouse when a big part of you would like to blow up?  How can you replace behind-the back gossip, with up-front encouragement?

·         Perseverance.  What is a really tough issue that you’re going through that you need to persevere, trusting that this it’s God’s way of maturing you?

We all need to be people of action.  People of real faith in Jesus Christ, who show it in the way we relate to each other.