Category: Personal

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Faith Personal

The story of the millions of dollars

Matthew 25 contains one of Jesus’ most well known stories, and it goes like this:

There was a rich man who was about to go out on a long journey.  He called 3 of his workers to him, and entrusted them with his wealth.  He gave each of them a different amount depending on what he knew they were up for – the first he gave $5,000,000, the second he gave $2,000,000, the third he gave $1,000,000.  (A “talent” in the bible was 20 years wages.  20 years * average Perth salary of $50,000 = $1,000,000). Certainly a lot of money – even for the guy who got the least.  And apparently the rich man trusted each of their abilities enough that he thought it safe to leave it with them while he went away.

The first two went out, and put the money to work.  Whether they invested it, or started a business, or just did clever trading, I don’t know.  But whatever they did, worked – they doubled the money their boss had entrusted to them.

The third guy though was scared of screwing up.  In the story he says “I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.”  It seemed like this guy felt that no matter what he did, he couldn’t live up to the (in his mind) unrealistic expectations of his boss.

Needless to say, the rich man came back, and was pretty stoked with the results of the first two – and promised them bigger and better opportunities.  The third guy however he was angry with.  He didn’t challenge the accusation that he expects a lot – but he challenged the guys response.

The third man saw the high expectations, considered them unrealistic, panicked, and went with what he considered the least risky option.  Another possibility is that he was just lazy – and this whole thing was his excuse for not doing anything.

I’ve spent a bit of time tonight pondering this expectation from God.  In the Hebrew Bible harvesting what someone else planted was a form of oppression – you were getting rich from someone else’s hard work.  Is that what this man is accusing his boss of?  Is that what God does, comes in to profit from our hard work?

Well not quite, the boss did invest.  He didn’t come asking for money when he did nothing in the first place.  He gave the guy a million dollars, and entrusted it to him – presumably so that he would work with it and increase it.  From what I can tell, wealth is something we can generate, and it doesn’t have to be generated by stealing from other people.  And the boss gave him money because he knew this guy was capable of generating wealth, to the same capacity as the other two – he could get a 100% return on investment too.

God wasn’t selfishly coming to collect what he had no right to – he gave this guy something to work with, and the man did no work.

Whether he didn’t because he was honestly scared, and the fear of failure seized him, or whether it was laziness and the fear was merely an excuse – this man was capable of generating a return, but he didn’t. He was capable of doing equally great work with what he was entrusted with, but he didn’t.  And so he was shown the door.

We know from other parables that God isn’t concerned about financial return on investment.  Rather, he wants to see us doing good work, and wants to see us working faithfully with what he’s entrusted to us.

Think about an investor.  Some are out there to make a quick buck, but some are people who already have a lot of money, and they invest not to get more, (they already have enough), but instead they invest to set other people up for success. The money they give out is to help other people get off the ground and do amazing work.  But if the person they invest in squander the money, do you think they will continue to invest?  No, they’ll pull their money out.

I think that’s what’s happening here.  God wants to set us up for success.  He’s not in this to profit from us, rather, he’s in this to see us succeed. The first two guys in the story saw what God entrusted them with, and did amazing work.  The third guy was also entrusted with a lot, but he did nothing with it.  He ignored what the boss had entrusted to him, and so in a way, rejected the vote of confidence.  The boss gave him money because he knew he was good enough, but the man rejected that, and did nothing anyway.  When the time came to show where the money had gone, the boss saw it wasn’t getting used, he withdrew the investment – and put the money somewhere where he was confident it would be put to good use.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
Luke 12:48

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Faith Personal

Divided

“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”

Matthew 12:25 NIV

The reality is the 6 Billion people on earth are so interconnected that this truth applies to us as an entire race.

We can no longer ignore the way our actions impact those in distant lands – because they’re not so distant anymore. Their future is tied to our future and if we’re divided against each other we will be ruined.

If our actions, attitudes, business plans and lifestyles achieve our gain at another person’s loss, then what we’re doing is not sustainable, healthy or honouring the humanity of those we live with. As the human community we’re divided against ourselves, and like that we cannot stand.

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Faith Personal

When you do good things and others see it

In the same address, Jesus is talking to the crowd and seems to offer two contradictory pieces of wisdom:

You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.  Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16

 

Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ in front of others, to be seen by them.  If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Matthew 6:1-2

There are plenty of people in the world who want to do good.  But often if someone asks you for a favour, or you see an opportunity to help, your response is “what’s in this for me?”  You might not ask it out loud, but your mind is scouting out potential benefits for doing this: this person now owes you a favour, while you’re doing it that girl you think is cute might see you and be impressed, doing this might be able to go on your résumé when you begin your job search later this month, your company could really use a PR boost and this donation could be just the thing…  You wouldn’t be so rude to ask it, but secretly, you’re weighing up if it’s worth your time, effort or money to help out in this situation.

Jesus says that if you’re just helping out for the reward you can imagine just around the corner, then when you get that reward, you’re paid in full.  Even though the work you’re doing is good, you’ve done it more as a business transaction than as an act of love.  I’ll help you with this… and I’ll get this (from you or someone else) in return.

A truly transformed life, the kind of “kingdom” life Jesus is encouraging people to step into, will sooner or later result in the person wanting to do good… and not just as part of a business transaction.  When a life is transformed by receiving grace, it goes on to want to give grace – you want to give to people who don’t deserve it, people who’ll never be able to pay you back.

Once this grace overtakes you and motivates you, it’s no longer about what you will get out of it.  And you’ll start doing things and helping people where “the deal” clearly isn’t worth it for you – you’re giving a lot more than you’re getting.  Perhaps you’re getting nothing, no one will even know.  Jesus is saying that God loves it when we do this.  When we give with no expectation of reward – at least not in any way we can imagine.  When we do this – God promises to reward us generously later.

Ironically enough, it’s the person that cares least about public approval (and doesn’t give for that reason at all) that God wants to show off to the world.  You see, people doing good is nothing to write home about.  People do good all the time – most business deals are essentially someone helping someone else and being rewarded in return.

It’s the people who give and give with no expectation of repayment or reward – whose lives have been transformed by grace – that God wants to show off to the world.  Their lives Jesus calls “light”, it contrasts the give/take nature of the world, and forces people to see that these people live life differently: they are no longer driven by what they get out of something, they are driven by love and by grace.

When people see this, they can’t help but glorify God in Heaven, whose undeserved love changes a life so radically that the person lives, gives and works because it’s right and because it’s good, not because of expected returns.

If most of the good you do will pay off, in recognition, in returned favours, in some round-a-bout way, then maybe you haven’t let your life be transformed enough yet.  This is me at the moment.  The cure then, is to deliberately try to do good, but in secret – not thinking about how you will be repaid for this, but focusing on the grace you’ve already received.  And as you do this (and as I do), hopefully our attitude will change and the grace we’ve received will overflow into grace we give out.

And most things will remain under the surface – no one but you and God need to know about them.  But a few will float to the top – like an iceberg, the majority of what you do will be unseen, but a small fraction pokes out above the water.  When people see these, they’ll see that it’s different.  These are not good things done for an expected return, these are good things done as an act of love – and that realisation will help them see God’s grace at work in your life, and lead them to glorify him.

 

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Faith Personal

Reflections on a changing faith (or, “make the tree healthy”)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my faith the last couple of weeks.  It’s been an important part of who I am, and has shaped so much of my life so far.  But as my life changes, it needs to change too.

My faith to this point has been wonderful, personal and relatively stable.  I have believed a few things:

  • There is a personable God who created everything, very intentionally
  • He’s the one described – and shown to us – by Jesus of Nazareth
  • For every hurting person, God can offer hope and restoration
  • God is deeply relational, and does not offer this hope and restoration as a generic service to all, but rather, as a deeply personal gift, in the hope to draw us into a loving relationship with him.
  • Out of this loving relationship, (and not out of guilt or coercion), we are drawn to want what he wants – and to see the world the way he sees it, and to join him in the work of helping other people – each with their own lives and most with their own hurts – find the same hope and restoration and loving relationship with God.

Writing this down, I know I still believe all of this.  But my conviction of it’s truth, and of it’s necessity, has dropped way down.  See up until last year I was so involved volunteering in my church (trying to help on that last dot point – helping people find God), that I would be at a church meeting three maybe even four times per week, often leading and having to stay grounded in what I believe.

This year, I’ve pulled back significantly, and next year, I’ll pull back more.

And what I’ve found so far, is that without being in the church environment constantly – my faith is quickly forgotten.  It quickly becomes a side issue, and I am no longer convinced of the truth or the relevance of it – everything else seems more pressing, more concrete, more appealing.

Here’s what I suspect:

  • Like any friendship, a relationship with God requires upkeep – you need to spend time together.
  • I am particularly bad at “making time” for my real friends, and unless they happen to be where I happen to be (work, parties, sport, church etc), we often don’t make time to catch up.  Same with God – unless I’ve got something in my pre-defined schedule where I’m expecting to meet him, I’m less likely to.
  • Even though God is everywhere, I still was dependent on church events to help me focus on him, and so the vast majority of my time spent building my relationship with God was because I was at church and that’s what you do there.
  • Now that I’ve withdrawn and may only be at church once a week (or less!) I’ve lost pretty much all the time I would spend with God.
  • With that relationship not getting nurtured, of course all the other parts of my faith are going to go stale too.  Phil Baker talks about the tree and the branches (he probably got that one off Jesus).  If the tree is healthy, so are the branches.  If the branches are unhealthy, it’s probably because of the tree.  If the other areas of my faith – volunteering, reaching out to others, serving the poor and hurting – are not feeling very alive, it’s probably because the tree on which those branches grow is struggling.  Make the tree good, and the branches will be good.

Years ago I wrote myself a personal mission statement:

  • To love YHWH, my God, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.
  • To love my family and be loved by them.
  • To help build the church.

I think the last few years have been dominated by that 3rd dot point.  And that 3rd dot point took up so much of my time, that the first two have been neglected.

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Edtech Personal Reading & Inspiration

Optimize for Happiness (Tom Preston-Werner of Github)

Optimize for Happiness (Tom Preston-Werner of Github)