Is.43:16-21
Ps.126
Phil. 3:4b-14
John 12:1-8
Lent 5C-RCL
HE 2B/Ser.10:00
(1st HC kids)
SPIRITUAL ENTREPRENEURS
Credits: Pulpit Resource for 3/16/86; Interp.Bible and Phil. 3
Previous: Chelsea 1986
Is 43:19 "Behold I am doing a new thing"
Let me begin with a story about a banker who was trying to help a customer get started in business for himself. The banker had noticed that his customer had the skills necessary to run his own business successfully. But the thought of starting a business from scratch frightened the man, the customer. He actually shook in his shoes when he thought about the tedious chores of developing company letter-heads and hiring accountants, and setting up brand new financial relationships. During his business career thus far he had successfully done all these things for his superiors, but he had never started them from scratch.
On several occasions the banker presented the fellow with various products that might be developed into a business with a little bit of capital, a little bit of energy, and a little bit of luck. But the man turned them all down. He did not have the enterprising, venturesome spirit; it wasn't born into his soul. As he said to the banker, "I guess I am just a hired hand, and my job is keeping someone else's farm in shape." That man preferred to be safe in life and take no risks.
Now in parallel with this situation we have the Christian faith, which is in some ways parallel to what the banker was encouraging his customer to do. The Christian religion is an enterprising faith. The same courage, the same trust, the same risk-taking, the same energy that the capitalistic enterpriser has, is characteristic of the Christian. That is why Christianity is more closely allied with capitalism than with communism. And some of the parables of Jesus were formed along the enterprising line of taking risks - like the one about investing one's talents and not hiding them - investing them so that they will increase and bring a return.
Jesus was a spiritual enterpriser and coaxed His disciples to be likewise, to take some risks in faith and not to play it safe like the scribes and Pharisees, who had a hired-hand mentality. Jesus was saying, in effect, "If sailing on a big and placid lake is your style, follow the Pharisees; but if white-water canoeing is to your liking, follow Me." Or as the prophet said in the first reading, "Behold I am doing a new thing." That happened in Christ.
One who did follow Him was the apostle Paul. Paul had been a hired hand spiritually; he had been a Pharisee with a play-it-safe mentality. But one day on the road to Damascus he was awakened to the enterprising spirit. And his new thinking is expressed in this week's Epistle reading. Like a person who leaves security behind and sinks everything into a new enterprise, Paul says, "Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." The risk of loss and the chance of gain - the two ingredients of enterprise, are put together by Paul in his spiritual pilgrimage. No instant success was to come to Paul. "Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect," he writes, "but I press on, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil.3:13-14).
Paul was a white-water canoeist in the stream of life. He made things happen. As an English bishop put it, "Everywhere the apostle Paul went, there was a riot. Everywhere I go, they serve tea."
The power of people like Paul, and like Jesus, is rather like getting married. It is a power more of emotion than logic. People probably would never get married if logical reasoning were the criterion. Most people marry on the basis of plain old emotion. Despite your previous training, your selection of a mate was not a scientific calculation. And starting a new business isn't all that different from starting a new marriage; it's just a different sort of riskiness. But let a little emotion enter in to the picture. There will be plenty of time for cold logic later, when the romance has grown into a marriage, or the idea has grown into a business.
In like manner, the fuel of faith is emotion, not reasoning. Jesus wasn't too logical in going to Jerusalem and getting Himself crucified, but emotionally He knew what He had to do. Paul certainly wasn't too logical in all his run-ins with the authorities, either. A little political logic could have saved him a lot of trouble. But would we then know him today? Of course not: his life and his Epistles would be rather tepid without the fire of this spiritual enterpriser. As a member of the Jewish Council, and as a Pharisee, Paul had power, position and privilege. Logic would say, "Hold on to it," but Paul saw all that as so much rubbish compared with the greater goal, - "the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."
Some enterprisers succeed in spite of themselves in business - or in spite of their lack of hard business judgment. So also it goes for unsophisticated spiritual adventurers. Their theology may be rough; their doctrine may be spotty; their church history may be a bit thin, but they have faith and courage in their souls, and boldly go forward in life to spiritual success. And that success comes from the same small specks in life that get other people down: the illness, the let-down, the lost friendship, the disappointment of one sort or another - anyone of these can be that blessing in disguise which unlocks something for us. The irritant of sand within the oyster in the beginning of the shining pearl.
Paul is testifying to the mysterious reserves of life, and inviting you and me to venture out and discover those reserves that lie beyond the suffering and tragedy of human existence. Those reserves are never fully revealed except in those who have indeed suffered the loss of all things. We envy those who attain a comfortable life in this world, but our final admiration is kept for those suffering and crucified lives that show the unconquerable spirit that is never manifested in an easy life.
That realm of experience is scarcely glimpsed by conventional Christians who live in the tame areas of respectability. But Paul tells us that it is there to be shared by all who would take the risk in this spiritual enterprise: "Not that I have already attained...but I press on for the prize, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil.3:12,14).
Here, in those few sentences, is one of the best expressions in all literature of the one way to be right is a world where nothing can ever be completely right. Here is the final word of the greatest Christian who ever lived (besides Jesus Christ Himself). That final word of Paul was spoken in the face of death, concerning the only inexhaustible satisfaction amidst all that is transitory and imperfect. "Not that I have already attained, but I press on ..."
Will you, will. I, take this risk?