Business 301: be sure they can deliver

This isn't about business at all.  You have already figured that out, but once we start talking about wealth and possessions we put on our version of a business suit and start thinking like a bunch of MBAs.  This story grabs us right in our wallet, as it should, but let us not stay there. We are talking about the story of the rich man who turns away from following Jesus presumably because 'he had many possessions.'  Mark 10

Perhaps it is good for us to admit how difficult this story is for us.  How crazy we find it.  How we can't possibly give up all our stuff and follow Jesus - even if we wanted to, and we are not sure that we want to.  I believe that wrestling with this story is am important part of our spiritual development.  It seems that it should lead us into some serious conversation with God, good and necessary conversation.

Yet there is this.  The rich man asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"  What must I do?  Have I done enough?  Have I forgotten something?  Have I concentrated too much on this when I should be doing that?

At some point we have asked the same question.  What must I do to satisfy God?  (for Lutherans reading this, that is the perpetual question of the Law and it drives us to confession)  We really can't help ourselves.  It's what we know; what we have been taught.  For each phase of our lives there is a checklist to be completed.  The question has been asked with every tone of voice from incredulity to earnestness; from entitlement to frustration; from humility to hubris.  What more do I have to do?

Getting it right is critical in many situations.  To perform surgery we need to prove we are qualified.  To drive a car we must pass the test.  To buy a house we need to qualify for a mortgage.

But not with God.  It's not about what you do.  It's about who God is and how much God loves those God created.  God reached out to us through Jesus; God invites us into a new life through Jesus.  God defeated death in Jesus.

Or, to quote the story  'and Jesus, looking at him, loved him.'  Knowing that this rich man would not be able to leave behind the glory of this world for the promise of another, Jesus, looking at him loved him....as he walked away, as Jesus died on the cross, as the days or months passed.  Jesus loved him, and continually invited that man.........and each one of us...........to leave behind the stuff that only leads to death.  Put it down.  Come to me.

In the end, this gracious, life-giving love will be worth more than anything to which we cling in this lifetime.  The love of God costs us nothing, it is freely given.  Yet it is the gift for which we will give everything we have and we are.

Bonhoeffer writes in Cost of Discipleship   "Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has.  It is the pearl of great price to buy for which the merchant will sell all his goods.  It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him."

Listen for the Spirit to guide you along this path towards life in the Divine.  The love of Jesus calls you. Today and tomorrow.

Love God, love your neighbor

The two great commandments: Love God, love your neighbor.  The lawyer who was questioning Jesus accurately stated the teaching of Torah, the law of the people of Israel.  Any child could have given the same answer.  The devil was in the details.  What does love of God look like?  How am I to love my neighbor?  How much?  How often?  To what degree?

And, in the end, Who counts as my neighbor?

That was what the lawyer wanted to know.  Define who my neighbor is and I will then go about 'loving' that person and thus fulfill my obligation to God.  [parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10]

Now, I am glad he was concerned about being in right relationship with God.  I don't think it is either fair or accurate to assume he was attempting to minimize the challenge of his commitment to following God nor to assign nefarious intent in his request for precision.  Not that there weren't darker intentions lurking behind all the questions:  we all have darker intentions, we all are looking for a way to ease our conscience, we all sin.  So let's not beat up on the lawyer.  He wanted to get it right.

But of course, you can't get the neighbor thing right if you don't get the 'love' part right, and love can be a slippery thing.  Love is a very deep well.  It is both cotton candy (very sweet, floating all over the place and sticking to everything) and as strong as steel.  Usually there are shared values, regard for the other's welfare, and a commitment to each other that defies outside forces.  It's about trust, respect and sacrifice.  Love is that which remains when all that is ephemeral disappears.  It is the hot core at the center of it all.

So, I think that we have a major problem before we even get to the neighbor question.  The demands of love are enormous and, truthfully, we don't act with love continually.  Sometimes the sacrifice that love demands is far greater than we are able or willing to give.  Yet, even as we cry out "I just can't!" we turn again and seek to 'love' again, giving it one more try.  Humans are inconsistent lovers.

Given the difficulty of love (whether it be God or neighbor) we move on to the difficulty of 'neighbor.'  Somehow we can convince ourselves that we 'love' God - deeply, consistently, with honesty.  This is easier because we don't run into God when we go to the market or pump our gas.  We don't have to talk to God before we have our morning coffee or at the water cooler at work (that isn't true, but that's a discussion for another day.)  Neighbors, however, are a much different subject.  We might love neighbors in the abstract, but people in the flesh are much harder to take.  With or without our morning coffee.

I understand the lawyer's desire to figure out who he is obligated to love as his neighbor.  Otherwise this whole 'love' thing could get out of hand; he needs some boundaries.  Who then is my neighbor?
It's one of those questions that if you have to ask, you don't understand what you are talking about.

And of course he doesn't understand what he is asking because we all live in a quid pro quo world and Jesus is talking about God's coming kingdom.  We live in a world where looking out for yourself, your family and then your friends is our primary focus and often more than we can handle.  We seek our advantage because, frankly, no one else will.  We separate some folks because we have about as much as we can handle here. The demands of providing are killing us now; we cannot be asked to provide for every other human being we encounter.

And he is right, of course.  We can't feed all the hungry or clothe all the teenagers or hire all the unemployed or find housing for all the homeless.  We can't do it all.  All of this 'loving' is killing us; there have to be limits.

Or maybe, it is all this 'not loving' that is killing us.  Maybe if there was a little more love in our relationships that man wouldn't have ended up in the ditch.  Perhaps he is left as good as dead because 'loving our neighbor' isn't a guiding principle for everyone.  We get another reminder of this as two - two! - apparently religious men see his plight and avoid responsibility by passing by on the other side - as far away from this 'neighbor' as they can get.

So now we are ready to hear how Jesus thinks about this, how God looks at this, and how God's heart responds to this Child of God lying in the mud by the road.

Be prepared for some sacrifice here.

Love God, love your neighbor

The two great commandments: Love God, love your neighbor.  The lawyer who was questioning Jesus accurately stated the teaching of Torah, the law of the people of Israel.  Any child could have given the same answer.  The devil was in the details.  What does love of God look like?  How am I to love my neighbor?  How much?  How often?  To what degree?

And, in the end, Who counts as my neighbor?

That was what the lawyer wanted to know.  Define who my neighbor is and I will then go about 'loving' that person and thus fulfill my obligation to God.  [parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10]

Now, I am glad he was concerned about being in right relationship with God.  I don't think it is either fair or accurate to assume he was attempting to minimize the challenge of his commitment to following God nor to assign nefarious intent in his request for precision.  Not that there weren't darker intentions lurking behind all the questions:  we all have darker intentions, we all are looking for a way to ease our conscience, we all sin.  So let's not beat up on the lawyer.  He wanted to get it right.

But of course, you can't get the neighbor thing right if you don't get the 'love' part right, and love can be a slippery thing.  Love is a very deep well.  It is both cotton candy (very sweet, floating all over the place and sticking to everything) and as strong as steel.  Usually there are shared values, regard for the other's welfare, and a commitment to each other that defies outside forces.  It's about trust, respect and sacrifice.  Love is that which remains when all that is ephemeral disappears.  It is the hot core at the center of it all.

So, I think that we have a major problem before we even get to the neighbor question.  The demands of love are enormous and, truthfully, we don't act with love continually.  Sometimes the sacrifice that love demands is far greater than we are able or willing to give.  Yet, even as we cry out "I just can't!" we turn again and seek to 'love' again, giving it one more try.  Humans are inconsistent lovers.

Given the difficulty of love (whether it be God or neighbor) we move on to the difficulty of 'neighbor.'  Somehow we can convince ourselves that we 'love' God - deeply, consistently, with honesty.  This is easier because we don't run into God when we go to the market or pump our gas.  We don't have to talk to God before we have our morning coffee or at the water cooler at work (that isn't true, but that's a discussion for another day.)  Neighbors, however, are a much different subject.  We might love neighbors in the abstract, but people in the flesh are much harder to take.  With or without our morning coffee.

I understand the lawyer's desire to figure out who he is obligated to love as his neighbor.  Otherwise this whole 'love' thing could get out of hand; he needs some boundaries.  Who then is my neighbor?
It's one of those questions that if you have to ask, you don't understand what you are talking about.

And of course he doesn't understand what he is asking because we all live in a quid pro quo world and Jesus is talking about God's coming kingdom.  We live in a world where looking out for yourself, your family and then your friends is our primary focus and often more than we can handle.  We seek our advantage because, frankly, no one else will.  We separate some folks because we have about as much as we can handle here. The demands of providing are killing us now; we cannot be asked to provide for every other human being we encounter.

And he is right, of course.  We can't feed all the hungry or clothe all the teenagers or hire all the unemployed or find housing for all the homeless.  We can't do it all.  All of this 'loving' is killing us; there have to be limits.

Or maybe, it is all this 'not loving' that is killing us.  Maybe if there was a little more love in our relationships that man wouldn't have ended up in the ditch.  Perhaps he is left as good as dead because 'loving our neighbor' isn't a guiding principle for everyone.  We get another reminder of this as two - two! - apparently religious men see his plight and avoid responsibility by passing by on the other side - as far away from this 'neighbor' as they can get.

So now we are ready to hear how Jesus thinks about this, how God looks at this, and how God's heart responds to this Child of God lying in the mud by the road.

Be prepared for some sacrifice here.

You have got to be kidding me!

Let me introduce you to the Elder Son in this famous parable about an Outrageous Father with 2 sons. (Luke 15).

He is hardworking, out in the fields keeping everything running as it should.  He is loyal, living under his father's roof and caring for the family livelihood.  He is obedient (well, we don't have any evidence of that, only his word, but let's believe him.)  He sounds like every one's dream.

Yet he has a dirty secret:  there are calluses on places other than his hands.  It appears that all that diligent, loyal, obedient hard work has developed a callus or two on his heart as well.

When his younger brother decides he needs 'his space' and 'wants to find himself' he diminishes the family's wealth, and disrespects their Father.  Then he runs off to live the wild life, leaving good old Elder Brother to take up the slack.  Somewhere in all of this, he begins to resent his brother, and just possibly, his father as well.

Boy do we understand this Elder Son.  We get why he feels put upon; why he thinks he deserves a break; why he is a little bit annoyed at his father for being such a chump in the first place. We understand his sense of entitlement. So when he hears from a slave that his Father has thrown a huge party just because that ne'er do well son had showed up at his door, well, the Elder Son had reached the end of his patience.  Or perhaps his ability to forgive.  Or perhaps his storehouse of love.

We are outraged right along with the Elder Son.  Truly he deserved better than this, a little reward perhaps.  It truly isn't very fair and that Younger Son is suspiciously close to taking advantage of the Father's mercy.  The Father should understand that the Elder is the good son, just like we are good people, working hard, trying our best, deserving of a party, deserving of your love.

Oh my, oh my.  I have been guilty of this line of thinking more than once in my life.  The Father does all he can to persuade the Elder to join the great celebration of life, but the story closes with an angry man standing in a field feeling entitled.  An angry man who has disrespected his Father, treated him as a stranger, refused to take his position in the family....and who has decided that the love being poured out on the lost one was love stolen from him.

He has decided he knows better than the Father who deserves the Father's love and invitation to the table.  Often we agree with this Angry Son; something is not right with this Father.

So if the Father in the parable is intended to give us a picture of God the father of Jesus, then what are we to do?  As much as we want to rely on God's mercy when we are in need, do we not also want to be entitled to God's mercy the rest of the time?  God's desire that all should come to his table and know him and the life that he offers is somehow perverted in our minds to mean......just us?  Somehow it isn't as open an invitation as we sometime pretend.

We are fairly certain we didn't bargain for a God with a love that is as big as all that.

Pride, bragging and the love of God

We have recently survived (although continue to feel the consequences of) the great self-esteem era when feeling good about yourself was no longer tied to hard work, moral uprightness, courage, even kindness and honor.  It didn't take very long for even our youngest children to figure out that praise given cheaply was worth nothing in the long run.  For the theologians among us, this is exactly what Bonhoeffer was talking about when he spoke of 'cheap grace.'

Perhaps this self-esteem era is the reason we trip over any number of folks who are filled with pride with no real substance.  That kind of pride turns into arrogance fairly quickly.  And I could do with fewer arrogant people in my world.

Jesus says, "Do not think too highly of yourself"   [BTW Your mother had the same advice.]  Don't fill your inner void of unworthiness with false pride, bravado and bragging. Rather, take a lower place and put your energy to honoring others.    Which is exactly what Jesus will do for you....because you are loved by the God who created you and the Savior who came to call you into life.  You are a beloved child of God.

The irony of knowing you are beloved will lift you to heights while at the same time leave you humbled to your very core.  Then you will truly understand the call to 'seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.'