When the Rev. Liz Zivanov was interviewing for a job leading the St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Makiki, she brought along a small plastic figure of Jesus she had recently received as a gift.

“I put it right out on the edge of the pulpit and said, ‘This is Jesus the Action Figure,’” she said, recalling the 2001 sermon she gave to church leaders. “They laughed, and I said, ‘OK, now we can go ahead.’ Because if they didn’t have a sense of humor I didn’t want to waste their time and mine.”

She got the position as rector of the 117-year-old, 350-member parish, and, as one might expect, gives thanks to Jesus the Action Figure for his help.

“He got me this job,” she said.

Zivanov has been collecting Jesus figures and Jesus-related items ever since. She now has about 60 pieces, including rag doll Jesus, black Jesus, bobblehead Jesus, Gumby Jesus, soccer Jesus, basketball Jesus and figures of other biblical and religious figures such as Moses, Samson and Martin Luther. She keeps them in her office, calling the collection “the Faces of Jesus,” or simply “the Jesi,” using, appropriately enough, the Latin formula for plurals.

Her collection is eclectic and nonjudgmental, accepting of all, even those that dwell in the shadow of bad taste. She has one called Submissive Jesus that hurls smart-aleck responses to prayers, and another from the raunchy animated TV show “South Park.” It’s broken, so she doesn’t know what it says, but she suspects it’s something irreverent.

Whether such figures were created to mock Jesus doesn’t bother Zivanov.

“Not everyone knows Jesus the way a lot of us do,” she said. “I think what it does is it causes a lot of us to think more about why someone is doing that, why Jesus comes across that way. I do think it mocks, I do think it puts Jesus in an unfortunate light, but it causes us to talk about, for example, why is that called Submissive Jesus? Why would somebody do that? When was Jesus submissive? … Why black Jesus? Why is that important?”

Such questions are in keeping with the tenets of the Episcopalian Church, she said, which has its roots in the mid-16th century Church of England. “Questioning is really, really important to us. Doubt is OK because it causes us to question things and work things out.”

ZIVANOV finds Jesus figures at festivals and fairs, and goes looking for them online on eBay and other websites. Others have come to her as gifts. She believes Jesus himself would have no issues with her collection.

“I’m convinced Jesus had a sense of humor, so I think he would appreciate this,” she said.

The most valuable item in her collection is a talking Jesus she picked up at a Makiki summer fair for $10 that is valued at about $140. It tells the story of Mark 12:31: “Love others as much as you love yourself.”

“It just so happens the gospel story he tells was the gospel reading for the next day. After the associate read the gospel, I put him on the pulpit and I pressed whatever button turned him on, and I just put the microphone in front of him and he told the story again.”

One of her most prized items is a pair of granny-style sunglasses with faint images of Jesus on the lenses. John Lennon, who controversially remarked that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, might have weathered that storm better had he worn them.

“You look at the world through the lenses of Jesus,” Zivanov said. “It’s a metaphor that I use in sermons, and so now I have the actual lenses.”

She also keeps a ready supply of adhesive bandages with a Jesus image on them, which comes in handy when you have a preschool on the parish grounds. “So if somebody gets hurt, they can come over here and get a Jesus Band-Aid, because Jesus heals,” she said.

Save for her rubber ducky Jesus, it doesn’t look like any of Zivanov’s “Jesi” can walk on water. However, she’s found they can break the ice when parishioners come to her office seeking counsel. “They take a look (at her collection) and they start to smile. And then we talk a little about this and they begin to laugh and then everything’s OK after that. So it does really, really good stuff.”

Ministering is the third career for Zivanov, 66. She worked for many years at the State University of New York, then at General Electric before deciding to attend seminary at Bexley Hall in Rochester, N.Y. After several temporary positions in New York parishes “taking care of whatever issues they had and getting them healthy for a new rector,” St. Clement is her first “settled” parish.

“I’ve been very, very happy out here,” she said. “I call it a rector’s dream.”

Possessed is an occasional series featuring Hawaii residents and their unique or fascinating collections. Tell us about your collection by emailing features@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4892.