Readers React: Would Jesus break bread with Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kirstjen Nielsen, or would he accost them?

To the editor: Given today’s incivility, Christians may ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” if confronted with appointees in the Trump administration. Certainly Jesus wouldn’t ask White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave a restaurant because of President Trump’s policies and her defense of them, right?

Not so fast. As a minister I know that Jesus said this to the Pharisees, who were sticklers for the letter rather than the spirit of the law: “You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil?” And remember, Jesus yelled at a fig tree for not having figs on it when figs were out of season.

So, it’s not difficult to imagine Jesus confronting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a Washington restaurant. Therefore, perhaps the right question isn’t “What would Jesus do?” but “Whom would Jesus yell at?”

Bill Freeman, Canoga Park

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To the editor: It is said that Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth sat down to dinner with the most reviled in Galilee: Matthew, tax collector, collaborator with Rome, and other publicans and “sinners.”

He did this against the counsel of his disciples, who argued that engaging with such pariahs would be seen as endorsing them and their ways. Yeshua countered: Whom better could he choose to hear his message of love?

As the story goes, after Yeshua left that evening, Matthew had an epiphany. His experience with the rabbi opened his eyes and changed his heart.

He abandoned his service to Rome, becoming one of Yeshua’s most ardent apostles, spreading the rabbi’s message to the ends of the known world — all because Yeshua reached out to those whose behaviors and philosophies were anathema to his own.

Roxanne Vettese, Oxnard

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