I was navigating this world as a newly converted Christian. One of the guys who sat across the table from me in study hall – there were so many of us that study halls took place in the cafeteria and the performing arts center – had learned I was “religious” and had taken to calling me, “The Preacher.” But I didn’t preach. I was silent about my faith.

One Sunday at church, I heard something that worried me. Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” It was as if he was speaking directly to me, for I was ashamed of Jesus.

The biblical writers and the early Christians they wrote about did not have that problem. They boasted about Jesus. They said things like, “We cannot help but speak about what we have seen and heard.”

I am no longer ashamed of Jesus. I am, in fact, proud of him. Some people are proud of their favorite college football team, some are proud of the presidential candidate they support, while others are proud of their accomplishments and possessions. I am proud of Jesus.

We will not be proud – or ashamed either, for that matter – of someone unless we have some kind of connection to him or her. I greatly admire Albert Einstein for his remarkable mind and his transformative work in physics, but I am not proud of Einstein. Why would I be? Other than having visited the town where he lived, I have no connection to him, no share in Einstein.

But I do have a connection to Jesus. I cannot take credit for that. He initiated it; I merely responded. But I’ve thrown in my lot with him. I am one of his people; I have a share in Jesus.

There are so many reasons to be proud of him. Long before the suffrage movement and women’s liberation, Jesus promoted the importance and worth of women. Unlike other rabbis, he taught women and included them among his disciples. It was to a woman that he first announced that he was the Messiah. After the resurrection, he first revealed himself to a woman.

Jesus stood with the poor and the marginalized. He recognized and proclaimed their value in a religious culture that despised them. He not only offered the poor his charity, which was common enough; he offered them his friendship, which was exceedingly rare. And he assured the poor that they were special to God, regardless of what the religious professionals said and did.

Jesus was remarkably brave. When a screaming demoniac rushed him, Jesus fearlessly stood to await his arrival. In the midst of a sudden and brutal storm at sea, when commercial fisherman were losing their heads and giving themselves up for dead, Jesus remained perfectly calm. When the authorities came to arrest him, he offered himself up so that his friends could escape.

Jesus was absolutely brilliant. His teachings are incomparable. No other person, no school of thought, no intellectual movement in the history of the world has impacted humanity so greatly as Jesus.

Jesus gave up everything to help people who did not even acknowledge him. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris seek power so that they can help people. Jesus gave up power so that he could help us. St. Paul says, “Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor.” Though he was just, he was willing to suffer injustice. Though he was blameless, he died for our sins.

Let other people boast about presidential candidates and football heroes, I’ll boast about Jesus. As people once said about him, “He has done everything well.” And he is everything I aspire to be.