What should we do?

^{Luke 4 reports the following interactions at the beginning of Jesus ministry:
10} “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

 ¹¹ John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

 ¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

 ¹³ “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

 ¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

   He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

This concern of Jesus for the poor and needy and for justice and integrity is recounted in the movie The Year of Living Dangerously. It is quoted by the character [the dwarf photographer Billy Kwan played in an Academy Award winning role by Linda Hunt] who is the social and moral conscience of the other characters. He is the eyes of justice in the movie.

He points out that "What then must we do?" was used as the title of a book by Leo Tolstoy. It should also be pointed out that there was also a very influential 1901 pamphlet, What is to be done? Burning questions for our movement by Lenin. It was inspired by an 1863 novel What is to be done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky. 


I really like the movie and recommend it. But, it does make me worry about the quality of the news we get from foreign correspondents who sit around in 4* hotels drinking and talking to each other.