Jesus, The Hero to Be Imitated
Some people read the bible as a list of rules to be followed if one wants to get to Heaven. Other people read the bible as the stories of heroes they try to imitate. I postulate that neither of these ways are the correct use of scripture. The so-called heroes of the bible were horribly flawed. Think of David, a man after God's own heart who sent a husband to die in battle because he lusted over his wife, Bathsheeba. Think of Moses, a murderer of one of the Egyption slave drivers before he was called to lead the people out of Egypt. There is only one hero in the bible that I think we would do well to imitate. He is the earthly Jesus.
Jesus, though divine, was also human. We see this in the way he experienced separation from god when he was dying on the cross: "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" he says with his last remaining breaths. Clearly if he was just divine, he would never experience separation from himself. He was human too, just like us. And I put forward, that this gives us a model to imitate as fellow humans.
What are the things we can imitate in Jesus' earthly presence? Well, we can look at the way he interacted with the people he met in his ministry travels. One poignant example I can think of is his interaction with Zacchaeus. Zachaeus was a tax collector. In fact, he was a head tax collector overseeing other tax collectors and this made him weathly. He was a known collaborator with the hated Roman powers that overloarded the Jewish people. With the status of a sinner in Jewish eyes, he climbs a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus when he walked by on his travels in Jericho. In Luke 19, we see how Jesus picks him out and responds to his attempt to catch a glimpse of the Kingdom in person. "When Jesus reached the spot [Zacchaues was], he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. (Luke 19:5-6) Jesus picked him out, and being the relationally-oriented person he was, laid the foundation for a relationship with a man most Jews would consider an outsider. He was unclean and to be shunned. But Jesus goes to his house and presumably shared a meal with him which was a sacred form of relationship-building in the Middle East and in Palestine at that time. Jesus, instead of giving judgment, gives relationship and acceptance. Even to spiritual underdogs and enemies in his Jewish belief system as well as his enemies - the Jewish religious leaders. He shies away from judgment with Nicodemus. He meets with him on a roof-top at night 
And I would like to point out another aspect of Jesus's life that I believe we are meant to imitate. Jesus was zealously opposed to man's attempts to codify God and limit him in a system of man-made religion. Recall his reaction at the temple, when he made a whip out of cords and chased out the people selling birds and animals for sacrifice within the outer court of the Temple. “Get these out of here!" he screams, "How dare you turn My Father’s house into a marketplace!" Recall his stern opposition to the religious leaders of his day. In his several exchanges with them in scripture, he threw their beliefs back at them as not of God, but of man. Think of the incident with the woman accused of adultery. They were going to stone her because their religious convictions told them she was worthy of death. But Jesus, squating down to trace his finger in the sand, pronounces "he who is
without sin, cast the first stone." All walked away, beginning with the elders of the group followed by the younger ones. The woman's life was saved. Jesus turns to her and says "where are your accusers? Go and sin no more." In all of the many inquisitions of him by the religious leaders, he turned their own religious fervor back on them. And he showed they are not consistent with a true relationship with his father, God.
I put forth that as Christians and non-Christians, we are not meant to follow religion, but to follow Jesus. We are not meant to follow our pastors and "religious giants" of the past and present by idolizing them. The only person who is worthy of being idolized is Jesus. Because Jesus was god in the flesh, and God is not an idol in the ancient sense of the word - a substitute for God - because he was God. And he was man. The only man worthy of following. A man who spent his time building intimate relationships with others, especially the outsiders and underdogs - those shunned by the religious system of the time. What if we were to do this? Our homeless ministries, soup kitchens and aid for the poor are all examples of this. This is where I believe we should invest our time, acting out of love, not religion, as Jesus did.
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