“God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.  There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears in not made perfect in love.”
- I John 4:16-18

“It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life.  For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy.  Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life and the soul.  It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable.  In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.
At this point of the spiritual life humility meets the highest exaltation of greatness.  It is here that everyone who humbles himself is exalted because, living no longer for himself or on the human level, the spirit is delivered of all the limitations and vicissitudes of creaturehood and contingency, and swims in the attributes of God, Whose power, magnificence, greatness and eternity, through love, through humility, become our own.
If we were incapable of humility we would be incapable of joy, because humility alone can destroy the self-centeredness that makes joy impossible.
For a humble man is not afraid of failure.  In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even of himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God, before Whom no other power has any meaning and for Whom there is no such thing as an obstacle.
Humility is the surest sign of strength.”
- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Encounter 16: The Sermon on the Plain Part II – Love for Enemies

²⁷ “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you. ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ’sinners’ lend to ’sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
- Luke 6:27-36

Some Observations:

• Jesus began his sermon by contrasting the poor to the rich, the hungry to the well fed, those that weep to those that laugh and the hated with the revered; he turns everything upside down by teaching that the former are the ones that are blessed, while the latter are warned.  The poor, hungry, mourning and hated are more likely to experience God’s kingdom than the latter, who are in danger of being absorbed in their wealth, pleasures, “happiness” and status-seeking.
• Jesus’ radically different message is extended as he continues teaching in today’s encounter. We are to love our enemies, bless those who curse us and pray for those that abuse us.  Not only that, we are to turn the other cheek to be struck again, give someone our pants (or whatever a tunic is equivalent to at Nordstrom) after they steal our jacket and pretty much give anyone whatever they demand of us without expecting it to be returned.
• God’s love and mercy for us creates the template for our love and mercy towards those around us. This flows from Jesus’ teaching on the two commands that sum up “all the law and the prophets”: To love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
• In this teaching, he expands “neighbor” to include those that persecute us, hate us, cheat us or demand things from us that are rightfully ours.
• Our response is not to be guided by the logic of retaliation, but in “do[ing] unto others as you would have them do to you.”
• What Jesus proposes here contrasts starkly not only to human nature, but with accepted cultural conditioning, e.g., categorizing our relationship into friends and enemies and treating both accordingly.
• This is manifest in direct relationships we have, as well as in business, politics and, sadly at times, the divided church.
• Countercultural is too weak a word to describe Jesus’ teaching.
• As an aside, my wife and I saw a documentary on a guy who ran the Islamic youth movement in Palestine (and whose father is one of the top Hamas leaders), where he discussed how he read the Bible and came upon this specific teaching of Jesus.  He ultimately became a believer as he realized Jesus’ teaching is the only solution for all struggle, war and oppression in the world today and that no other religion provided such an answer.
• We look around today: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, North Korea, the Left Bank – hells on earth of hatred, death, oppression, fear, torture, threats, brutality, no peace.
• Try to imagine a world where Jesus’ teaching was adopted by all.  That is the kingdom of God – the kingdom of love and peace – Jesus teaches us about, come in its full manifestation.
• This kingdom is indeed fully coming, but, in the meantime, Jesus works through us to till the soil, to provide a foretaste to the world of what this coming kingdom will be like.
• In following his example of lavishing unmerited grace on those around us, we participate in bringing people into his kingdom and experiencing healing in our own lives.
• But this is such a difficult teaching and Jesus goes on to hammer the point harder.  We can rationalize that we are loving to those in our inner circle; Jesus says that is a given.  The call is much higher and harder here – we are to love those where our natural inclination is to hate or, at best, ignore or write-off.
• How hard to do this, but imagine the inner peace – the salvation now – that we would experience without our minds and hearts corrupted and consumed at times by feelings of hate, revenge, getting our way, “winning”, etc.  This is the perfect love that drives out fear John refers to above.
• “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”
• Mercy is a key foundation of the kingdom Jesus describes and he teaches on this theme repeatedly.
• The Thomas Merton extract develops the linkage to humility and is a key to living out this difficult teaching.  If we can begin to develop even the smallest understanding of our utter brokenness and unworthiness of God’s love and sacrifice – and then consider his indescribable mercy towards us – we should be utterly humbled to our knees.
• The truly humble become so possessed by God’s love and so overwhelmed by joy of his remarkable grace towards them that that their lives become permeated with similar love and grace, seeping out to all they encounter.
• We become less pre-occupied with personal justice, because we understand the implications of getting what we really deserve – it ain’t pretty.  We become less obsessed with our own rights when we perceive a person is screwing us; such situations begin to serve as a reminder of how much we have offended God, yet he embraces us fully in his forgiveness and love.  We become full of gratitude, which engenders love for those around.
• Convict us, Lord, of how our hearts need to change in specific relationships we have and may your Spirit be at work within us, giving us strength to love, bless and pray for those that offend or hurt us.  Continue to shape us into instruments of your love and may you be glorified as our lives more and more reflect this.

Wisdom

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.  Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?  Who may stand in his holy place?  He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.  He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior.  Who is he, this King of glory?  The Lord Almighty – he is the King of glory.”
- Psalm 24:1-5, 10

A Prayer

“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God.  Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me.  Show me you ways, O Lord, teach me you paths; guide me in truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.  Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from old.  Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord.”
- Psalm 25:1, 4-7

“The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position.  But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.  For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed.  In the same way, the rich man will fade even while he goes about his business. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him?”
- James 1:9-11; 2:5

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“The Biblical aesthetic of beauty incorporates the ugly.  The heart of reality is not a sentimental romance, a garden party, a Hollywood beauty. The heart of reality is a suffering romance, a bloody Calvary beauty.  True beauty is paradoxical.

We see the unseen.  We subdue by submitting.  We win by losing.  We are made grand by making ourselves little.  We come in first by becoming last.  We are honored by being humble.  We fill up with God by emptying ourselves.  We become wise by being fools.  We possess all things by having nothing.  We wax strong by being weak.  We find life by losing ourselves in others.  We live by dying.”
- Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful

Encounter 15: The Sermon on the Plain Part I – Blessings and Woes

Luke 6:17-26

¹⁷ He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, ¹⁸ who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, ¹⁹and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
²⁰ Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
²² Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
²³ “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

²⁴ “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
²⁵ Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶ Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

Some Observations

• We are about to get into Jesus’ most extended teaching on what kingdom life looks like. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is similarly, but not identically, described.  The passage in Luke is called the Sermon on the Plain, since it describes that Jesus “went down with them and stood on a level place.”  We’ll break the different topics into separate encounters so that we can explore each set of ideas more deeply.
• Note that “a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon . . . had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases.”  Word has spread that Jesus’ teaching and healing action go hand-in-glove.
• Prior to teaching, Jesus ministers to those that have come for healing: “Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.”
• In this instance, it appears that Jesus healed all that came in need of such.
• The introduction refers to a “large crowd of disciples.”  Apparently, many have taken Jesus up on his offer to “follow me.”
• Jesus contrasts four basic points at the start of his sermon to basically turn common wisdom and human predispositions (the flesh) upside down.
• First, he contrasts the poor, which shall inherit the kingdom of God, with the rich, who have already received their comfort.
• Second, he contrasts those that hunger, who will be satisfied, with those who are well-fed, who will go hungry.
• Third, he contrasts those that weep now, who will laugh, with those that laugh now, who will weep.
• Finally, he contrasts those who are hated, insulted and excluded, who will receive a great reward in heaven, with those that receive the acclaim of man now.
• Are the things Jesus warns of not the very things we build our lives around?  To accumulate wealth/power, to experience pleasure, to be “happy” and to enjoy status and be well thought of by others?
• Go to the bookstore and look at the topics covered on the best-seller tables . .
• Jesus pretty much captures the main snares in my own life – the things that have kept me from God and feeling times of anxiety fall under these categories.
• The pervasiveness of emotional pain and the persistent stress among people in the developed world is an indicator of what a life focused on chasing these things yields.  We rush from one thing to the next, never resting, never satisfied.
• Similarly, the plague of and broken marriages and other relationships is likely accelerated by the pride and self-centeredness such “success” can engender.  As we grasp for what we think we must have and deserve, reference points of humility and gratitude from what God has already blessed us with are lost.
• I don’t think Jesus is advocating that we actively seek out poverty, hunger, sorrow or being hated.  Our life call is to follow him and become more and more like him – this becomes our preoccupation, rather than seeking wealth or poverty, hunger or satiation, sorrow or happiness, man’s rejection or approval.
• However, to be his disciple, we must be willing to accept the former conditions if required in the course of following him; remember that a disciple is seeking above all else to become like the teacher.  Jesus was the “man of sorrows” with “no place to lay his head,” ultimately rejected, beaten, spat upon and hung on a cross.  Sound good?
• Praise God that Jesus has already walked this road on our behalf.
• If we make success, pleasure, status and approval pre-requisites to what we feel we need to live a joyful life, we are likely to never experience it.
• To build on this, those of us who have been given some degree of success, resources, access to pleasure, status, etc. are in danger of building our lives around these things . . . which makes the life of full-bore discipleship – and the peace and purpose that accompanies such a life – almost impossible.
• Turning this around, those who are poor, hungry and despised are more likely to feel their need of God and be more inclined to truly “follow” Jesus.  They are desperate.  They have less to let go of and “leave behind.”
• In this way, they are “blessed” to be far more likely to experience what Jesus calls “life to the full” – deep and intimate dependence on him versus being caught up in materialism, insecurity, self-obsession and pleasure-chasing.
• Regardless of where we think each of us are on the spectrum of wealth, success, access to pleasure, etc., we are undeniably rich, well-fed and live “happier” lives than 95%+ of the world’s population . . . for some of us, more than 99.9%.
• Hence, we are in danger of the “woe” of living lives that are, at best, semi-dependent on God and thus experience bouts of emptiness, frustration, anxiety and depression.
• The temptation is to spend our lives chasing all the things Jesus warns against, end up feeling empty, tired and overwhelmed and then say, “I don’t really feel God right now.”  Jesus reveals the reason why right here.
• By God’s grace, may he allow us to more fully follow him despite these distractions and the temptation to let them control us.
• May we become “poor in spirit,” fully aware at all times of our utter brokenness and need for Jesus.   Let us rejoice in his extravagant grace and healing love.
• May we graciously share the food from our well-provisioned tables with those in need; let us live with open hands, recognizing that the highest use of any resource we have been entrusted with is to bless others.
• May we have gratitude and experience enjoyment of all the good things God has given us, but not be a slave to pleasure, ever reaching for more intense and exotic experiences.
• May we be less concerned with what others think of us and more focused on finding out what pleases God and living lives that pursue his pleasure.
• God’s kingdom turns the ideals and pervasive messaging of contemporary culture upside down.

Wisdom

“Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn it out of seven pillars.  She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.  She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city.  ‘Let all who are simple come in here!’ she says to those who lack judgment.  Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.  Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.”
- Proverbs 9:1-6

A Prayer

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness or his name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
- Psalm 23:1-6

Solomon West works in the private equity industry.

InsideWork is following Solomon West in his progress through nearly 100 encounters with Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.

Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a ‘fool’ so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.

— Paul, I Corinthians 3:18, 19

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The Gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that he lived, died and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make us brand new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with the peace, joy, boldness and extravagant, furious love. This, my friends, is what it really means to be a Christian. Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wondrous things that God dreamed of and achieved for us in Jesus Christ.
— Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

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Encounter 5: Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit

Luke 4:31-37

³¹Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people. ³²They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority.

³³In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, ³⁴“Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵“Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

³⁶All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What is this teaching? With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!” ³⁷And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.

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Some Observations

• Immediately after escaping the violent crowd in Nazareth, Jesus goes to a nearby town (Capernaum) to teach the people on the Sabbath.
• Jesus has embarked on his stated mission of redemptive healing and liberation.
• In Capernaum, as in Nazareth, the people are “amazed” at his teaching.
• Jesus’ authority is one source of their amazement—he continues to be led by the Spirit and his accumulated wisdom from years of learning and study is evident; Jesus must have spoken with great confidence and insight to project such authority.
• God intends for us to mature into his instruments who, while humble to the core, can speak and act with such confidence and authority in his name, consistent in word and deed with the redemptive theme of his ministry. On a scale of one to ten, how would I compare my standing today in humility, confidence and authority with my standing 36 months ago in those character traits?
• This is impossible without the Spirit at work in us and the wisdom that comes from Scripture and teaching; our preparation to be used in such a role is having spent time as his disciple/apprentice.
• Additionally, the content of Jesus’ message must have been very distinctive to provoke such amazement. This is likely a combination of a new message (God’s kingdom at hand) and more profound insight into existing teaching.
• The man possessed by a demon comes to Jesus and taunts him; in the same breath, he professes to know Jesus’ deity (“I know who you are—the Holy One of God!). Am I as clear about the identity of Jesus as Luke recalls this demon-possessed man being?
• Jesus responds unflinchingly and succinctly—he simply commands the demon to shut up and come out of the possessed man.
• The demon immediately obeys, signifying Jesus’ power and attesting to his identity.
• Note that the formerly-possessed man, though thrown to the ground, is not injured, but healed—Jesus has “set the prisoner free, released the oppressed . . .”
• Isaiah’s vision and prophecy (in Isaiah 61) is tangibly realized in Jesus. This will be the case over and over again in Luke.
• The passage again says that the people were amazed as they see that Jesus’ actions reconcile with his teaching: “What is this teaching . . . he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!”
• Words without action—as with faith without deeds—are often hollow. To what extent are my words about God’s kingdom supported by my humble service to that kingdom? How would my coworkers and other stakeholders answer that about me?
• Jesus’ ministry unifies profoundly wise words with both miraculous and quite common acts of love, compassion and healing.
• As the excerpt from Brennan Manning expresses, Jesus intends to make us brand new creations . . . a community of disciples and “professional lovers.” Where do see evidence of that new creation breaking out in my life?
• As we become more and more like Christ, we are shaped into Spirit-filled instruments that are to continue Jesus’ redemptive mission of healing and freedom amidst the brokenness and bondage around us. Nothing less. Am I ready to sign (or renew) that contract?

Wisdom

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold.  She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her.  Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.  Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace.  She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed.

— Proverbs 3:13-18

A Prayer

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  You have set your glory above the heavens.  When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.  O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

— Psalm 8:1, 3-9

Solomon West works in the private equity industry.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
—  Jesus, John 8:12

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Jesus brings us reliable information about who we are, why we are here, and what the humanly appropriate motives are for doing whatever we do. First, he informs us that we are by nature unceasingly spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. We will never stop existing and there is nothing we can do about it.

While we have already fallen from God’s intentions for us, he can restore us into the flow of God’s life if we will only count on him for everything. That is, we must trust him, and really to trust him is to take his cause, his “yoke” (Matthew 11:29). Then he will teach us how to make good choices with the aim of glorifying God by doing good to human beings. Under his instruction, this will prove to be the most exhilarating kind of life imaginable, with a scope and richness of personal creativity that never stops increasing.

— Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

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Encounter 4: Jesus Threatened after Reading from the Scroll

Luke 4:20-30

²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ “

²⁴“I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. ²⁵I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. ²⁷And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. ³⁰But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

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Some Observations

• This encounter is a continuation of Jesus’ proclamation of his mission as he read the words of Isaiah 61.
• What plays out is unexpected. When was the first time I recall being surprised by something Jesus said or did?
• Following Jesus’ reading from the scroll, Luke says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.”
• Jesus does not bask in these words of praise, but responds by saying, “I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.”
• He then says that Elijah was not sent to widows in Israel during a three and a half year drought, but to a widow in Sidon and that Elisha did not heal those with leprosy in Israel, but rather a Syrian.
• The implication is clear: Jesus’ redeeming mission will include outsiders (non-Israelites and those on the fringes), while some insiders—fellow observant Jews like those he is presently with in the synagogue—will reject him. Why would Jesus choose a time like this to pick a fight?
• In light of what Jesus has just said, his claim of deity after reading from the scroll (“Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”) may seem even more threatening.
• Likewise, Isaiah’s words, just recited by Jesus, that criminals (prisoners), the sick and poor (possibly viewed as cursed by the religiously-observant) would be released, healed and honored may now be striking the religious elite as a bit too revolutionary for comfort. What would I do if Jesus disrupted my assumptions about who is in and who is out of the kingdom of God?
• Jesus’ words turn those in the synagogue against him to the degree that they wanted to “throw him down the cliff,” which apparently was a first step before stoning in that time.
• These reactions foreshadow some of the things that offend some people today about the gospel Jesus brings: the idea that only Jesus is the way to the Father; that God’s full grace is available to the least worthy and worst of sinners and not only those who feel their impeccable religious credentials should give them an inside track.
• Jesus declares his beautiful mission (healing, liberation, freedom), but people don’t like the implications of HOW he will bring this, who it will include or what it might mean concerning how our lives, priorities and assumptions will need to change.
• We like Jesus on our own terms and according to our own mold; we will see in Luke that it is impossible to contain him this way.
• One important observation is that Jesus’ teaching creates both “amazement” and furious anger—this is almost always the case in the encounters we will look at in Luke. When have I been genuinely amazed by Jesus? Have I ever been furious?
• We will see that amazement and acceptance typically occur in those that seem least worthy of Jesus’ attention, e.g., the tax collectors, prostitutes, drunkards, adulterers, etc.—why is Jesus even taking the time to speak with us . . . wait, did he just invite us to be part of God’s kingdom???
• Over and over again, we will see that those who are most humble are most likely to receive Christ.
• Furious anger is most typical among the Pharisees and other religious leaders who are threatened by Jesus and his teaching of inclusive grace for all who have faith in him.
• Over and over again, we will see that those who are most proud are least likely to receive Christ.
• A summary of how Christ’s grace is received: those who think they deserve it least get it most; those that think they deserve it most get it least.
• “But he walked right through the crowd and went on.” This is probably a miraculous escape, but also is instructive in that Jesus does not argue, make counterpoints, defend himself, etc.
• Jesus has made his points and simply moves on. The people can make their own decision to accept his words or not; his ego does not require him to hang around to clarify or persuade them to come around to his ideas so he can claim a personal victory in “winning the debate.” How comfortable am I with not ‘closing the deal’ when I talk with people about God?
• Jesus would likely not be rebooked to spar on O’Reilly or Olbermann . . . but he loves them both.

Wisdom

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.
— Proverbs 3:3, 4

A Prayer

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.  My soul is in anguish.  How long, O Lord, how long? Turn, O Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.
— Psalm 6:2, 3, 4

Solomon West works in the private equity industry.

I haven’t often expressed my thoughts about this but one day I found myself emailing a friend who moved to the East Coast from Colorado Springs: “Boy, be glad you moved from there!”

“I AM glad I don’t live there,” he replied, “but I’m curious about why you think I should be.”

I wrote:

There are a lot of reason’s . . . really best discussed over a glass of wine. A lot of it was summed up in the May 2005 issue of Harpers magazine, in an article called Soldiers of Christ. There, among other things, you’ll find a spiritual leader defining Christian faith saying, “They’re pro-free markets, they’re pro-private property,” he said. “That’s what evangelical stands for.” I’m enthusasitic about the transformative potential of capital working from biblical worldview but I certainly do not define biblical spirituality in those terms. Look it up: The gospel Jesus preached was good news about the Kingdom of God . . . both present and to come . . . which means I am on this planet with a passport from the Kingdom of God . . . and a temporary worker visa for this kingdom.

Beyond the issues I think are patently spiritual, I wrote about what I take to be the resulting aesthetic and cultural residue.

The town has come to have a dis-organized look and feel . . . full of “clutter” . . . dirty . . . and unappealing to the senses. The “blandness” to everything leads me to speculate that there must not be much in the way of intellectual discussion, creative pursuits or unique thought.

I stopped, and typed, “Enough . . . before God strikes me down for my judging. I am just glad that I am ‘out of there.’”

This is still a strange thing to me—to be so disaffected with a place I once enjoyed quite a bit. More than a few of us who lived or still live in Colorado Springs have heard longtime residents bemoaning the arrival of all those Christians. Some complaints center on perceptions about how much the nonprofits take from the city and how little they return. Others criticize low wages and flaky management in businesses that refer to themselves as Christian. Still others are tinged with emotional injury. One of my colleagues listened while a downtown businessperson vented about how he’d lived in Colorado Springs since 1963 and how he was of late tempted to simply pull up roots and move away because the town had become so “mean-spirited.” My friend heard the man out until, running of steam, he concluded, “But I decided not to move, because that would mean the bastards had won.”

What an awful thing to say. What an awful feeling to have about neighbors who claim to know something about God. Not wrong; just awful.

There’s a remarkable letter from the prophet Jeremiah to the survivors of the exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Here it is in part:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD. — Jeremiah 29:4-10

Build.

Settle.

Plant.

Eat.

Marry.

Increase.

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.

Had the exiles carried out those commands, I have trouble imagining the natives of Babylon complaining about what judgmental, unpleasant, stingy neighbors they were.

When that business owner declared that he had decided not to abandon Colorado Springs—to keep the bastards from winning—my colleague nodded sympathetically and replied, “I just have to keep reminding myself that Jesus wasn’t a Christian.” That took the edge off the conversation and led to an interesting exchange about what it means to need mercy so much that being judgmental is simply out of the question.

I’ve already admitted how capable I am of judging people, so you can see I don’t manage to live up to my own standard every day . . . just one of the many reasons I need mercy and one reason why on my best days I encourage people to believe that God finds us where we are—not where we’re supposed to be—and loves us in that condition (and loves us far too much to leave us there . . . but that’s another chapter in the story).

If we interviewed the businesspeople and regulatory agencies and generally sampled the individuals in your business ecology, what do you think they would say about your company, its leaders, employees and business practices (and what makes you believe that)? If we showed them the directives in Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon and then asked if they believe that you seek the peace and prosperity of the city, what do you imagine them saying?

In June, The Pew Research Center reported that only a third of Americans think the national economy is in good shape.

• Gas prices and the federal budget deficit are broadly perceived as significant problems for the U.S.
• Perceptions about local job availability are highly negative, despite recent improvements in the national employment picture — about half of those with annual incomes above $75,000 say jobs are scarce where they live.
• The availability of jobs and the instability of the stock market are the leading drivers of pessimism about the state of the economy.
• The percentage of Americans who rate their own financial situations positively declined from 51% to 44% in the first four months of 2005.
• One-in-four, including many middle-income earners, say they owe more in personal debt than they can afford.

At the time—before we knew a fraction of what we know now about how bad things could and would get, I wrote: “All this inevitably drives us to ask: Where can we look for security?”

Then as now, the manner in which Jesus answers that question is at once both sobering and full of hope:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
— Matthew 6:22-34

• The eye is the lamp of the body. What do you see when you look at the world? Would you say your worldview is more dominated by what’s right in front of you or more illuminated by the long view of biblical wisdom? Whatever your answer, what can you do in the next 28 days to refine your vision? If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light.

• No one can serve two masters. What would people who know you best in business say about the master you serve? How do you know that? What do you make of the saying, “Whatever you can’t get enough of…that’s your god.”?

• Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? What keeps you up at night? Is it passion or panic? How easy do you find it to believe Jesus when he says, Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

• But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. What stories do your calendar, to-do list, email, correspondence, reading list and balance sheet tell about what you seek? What patterns do these documents reveal about your engagement with God’s kingdom and righteousness?

• Write yourself a letter about all this—or make it a prayer if you like.
• Share your reflections with someone who stands with you and for you in these matters. If you have no such person in your life, get that into your 28-day plan.
• If you want to dig deeper, check out Seeking the Kingdom in the Scriptural Roots of Commerce series.

We do not consider ourselves to be a “Christian Business.”  Business is business . . . it is the worldview of the founders and leaders of a business that is exemplified to the employees, suppliers, neighbors, customers and shareholders (We are a stock held “Chapter C” Delaware Corporation). The founders and leaders are “Christians,” the company is not.

Our business is based on an constantly-expanding and deepening biblical worldview. Our leaders are focused on our personal and shared relationship with Jesus Christ — no question about that — along with our competencies in business and leadership. We have people working for us who have not made any personal decision related to Christ . . . they work for us because they like the idea of doing business based on the tenets of a biblical worldview . . . they work for us because they need to work or want to work and because, most days, the way we do business makes our company a decent place to work.

If you look at our typical “customers” you will find them to be mostly urban, techno-literate and not feeling aligned with the prevailing evangelical, fundamental, “Christian Right,” mainline and liberal expressions of faith. They find themselves, from time to time, telling friends and colleagues, “I’m not that kind of Christian.” Consequently some people assume they must not be any kind of Christian at all. Others wonder, “If you’re not that kind of Christian, what kind of Christian are you?”

I am beginning to be concerned about Christian Businesses showing up in Christian Business Directories. People in our tribe don’t use the word Christian as a marketing term…

You can trust us; we’re a Christian company . . .
Buy from us, we’re a Christian business . . .

One reason for this is purely practical: “Christian” doesn’t signify honesty and trustworthiness in the general marketplace today; it signifies partisanship. Most people don’t trust a business with an axe to grind unless it is a sharpening service.

A second reason is philosophical: people in our tribe want to forge meaningful connections with others who haven’t yet imagined there is a place for them in the kingdom of God. How else does that kingdom expand?

Yet another reason is that we don’t treat faith like a secret handshake . . . and dealing with people who do leaves a bad taste in our mouths.

One of our colleagues in the financial services industry recently had the unnerving experience of being labeled by a stranger as a “Christian Fund Manager.” There is no such animal.

That doesn’t mean our colleague isn’t fully identified with Christ. But his faith is not a professional competence. He performs at a very high level and conducts himself with deep humility as a follower of Jesus who is accountable for managing other people’s resources. That’s not a matter to be trivialized with a breezy modifier: “He’s a Christian fund manager; you should call him.”

I recently received a luncheon invitation that included the quote:

“The business marketplace may well be the primary
mission field of the twenty-first century.”

Why does the marketplace have to be a mission field? Simple answer: the marketplace seems like a mission field because it is a foreign place to Christian partisans.

How about the marketplace just being the primary place where you “walk the talk”? How about the marketplace just being the most normal context you can imagine for refining and living out a biblical worldview that permeates every aspect of your life? Why does anyone have to have the label: “missionary” . . . . what’s wrong with just following Jesus?

People in our tribe are seeking a biblical worldview that’s consistent with Christ’s teachings and the great sweep of the biblical narrative . . . not cultural characterizations about what that means from a modern religious point of view. They recognize in Jesus a voice that sounded like a heretic to the religious partisans of his day. In a very brief span of time Jesus came to be regarded as an insider by day laborers, craftsmen and businesspeople — and as an outsider by the partisan religious establishment.

Maybe we don’t have to choose, but if we do, it’s pretty clear our tribe would rather be heretics, at home in the marketplace, than partisans at home in the temple grounds.