What Would Jesus Do?

An Allegory by

Joanna Dorcas Webster

This is an allegory and NO disrespect is intended to the Bible, from where this is drawn. What if Jesus had met a transwoman in His travels as He walked the earth? Not everything that Jesus did was written down. As the little boy in “Angels in the Outfield” said, “It could happen!”

Walking down the street, Jesus saw a woman with a problem. Her mind and spirit were that of a woman but her body looked like a man’s. She prettied and clothed herself as best she could but no one wanted her. Her parents had finally come to their senses after many years and accepted her as their daughter. She was thankful for that but hoped for a better life.

His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned: this woman or her parents, causing her to be born with this problem?" Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light."

He said this and said to the woman with the problem, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam" The woman went and washed—and she was made whole. She was now beautiful and possessed all those attributes that she had lacked before. The special undergarments were no longer necessary because she was whole.

Soon the town was buzzing. Her relatives and those who year after year had seen her as a woman with a problem, that no one wanted, were saying, "Why, isn't this the woman we knew, who had the problem?"

Others said, "It's her all right!"

But others objected, "It's not the same woman at all. It just looks like her."

She said, "It's me, the very one."

They said, "How did you become whole?"

"A man named Jesus told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' I did what he said. When I washed, I was whole."

"So where is he?"

"I don't know."

They marched the woman to the Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the woman whole was the Sabbath. The Pharisees grilled her again on how she had come to be made whole. She said, "I washed, and now I am whole."

Some of the Pharisees said, "Obviously, this man can't be from God. He doesn't keep the Sabbath."

Others countered, "How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?" There was a split in their ranks.
They came back at the whole woman, "You're the expert. He made you whole. What do you say about him?"

She said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews didn't believe it, didn't believe the woman had a problem to begin with. So they called the parents of the woman now glowing in her femininity. They asked them, "Is this your daughter, the one you say was born with a problem? So how is it that she now is whole?"

His parents said, "We know she is our daughter, and we know she was born with a problem. But we don't know how she came to be made whole—haven't a clue about who made her whole. Why don't you ask her? She's a grown woman and can speak for herself." (Her parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place. That's why her parents said, "Ask her. She's a grown woman.")

They called the woman back a second time—the woman who had been born with a problem— and told her, "Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor."

She replied, "I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I had a problem . . . Now I am whole."

They said, "What did he do to you? How did he make you whole?"

"I've told you over and over and you haven't listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?"

With that they jumped all over her. "You might be a disciple of that man, but we're disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from."

The woman replied, "This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he made me whole! It's well known that God isn't at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will. That someone made whole a woman born with a problem has never been heard of—ever. If this man didn't come from God, he wouldn't be able to do anything."

They said, "You're nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!" Then they threw her out in the street.

Jesus heard that they had thrown her out, and went and found her. He asked her, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

The woman said, "Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him."

Jesus said, "You're looking right at him. Don't you recognize me?"

"Master, I believe," the woman said, and worshiped him.