Who Drives the Bus…

Ben Schoettel   -  

06.22.25

(From chapter two of “What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church”- Skye Jethani)

To inaugurate the kingdom of God and the reconciliation of all things, Jesus assembled a team of misfits and malcontents. They were not wise or affluent. They were not powerful or influential. To make matters worse, they didn’t even share the same values, background, or politics with one another. They had no earthly reason to be together.

Consider Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot. Matthew was a Jew who worked for the Romans to take money from his own countrymen. He would have been seen as a traitor and selfish opportunist. Simon, on the other hand, was a freedom fighter, willing to take up arms to fight against the Roman occupiers.

For Jesus to call bout Simon and Matthew into the same community, to be His disciples and to love one another, was absurd. No one thought a tax collector and a Zealot belonged on the same bus. And yet, after Jesus’ resurrection, we read that His disciples “with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer.” (Acts 1:14)

Unity is not something we find through common interest, a mutual ethnic identity, a shared political ideology, or even a joint mission. It only comes from abiding in the same Lord. Left to ourselves, we would never associate with people we do not like. We would define the “right people” very differently than our Lord did, and we would probably remove the very people from the bus that He most wants on board.

This, after all, is precisely what we’re seeing in the wider American culture. An increasing number of people believe the country would be better if it did not include those who hold the opposite political or cultural views. Sadly, this same viewpoint infects many churches, and Christians in those congregations need to ask themselves what bus they think they’re on.

If your church is a homogeneous group who all share the same vision of society, politics, and culture, and if you chafe at the thought that you may be worshipping alongside someone who voted for a candidate you despise, or if anger arises when you discover a leader in your church prioritizes issues differently than you do, it’s a pretty good indication that you haven’t gotten onto Jesus’ bus. Instead, you may have invited Him onto yours.”