Delivered at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina on October 14, 2012.
I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.
The Measure of Success
Audio Version
Scripture:
As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to Him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow Me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
Peter began to say to Him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for My sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age - houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions - and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
Mark 10:17-31 (NRSV)
You can spend your whole life building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway
You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway
God is great, but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway
I do it anyway
From "Do It Anyway" by Martina McBride
A wealthy man who was going on a journey called three of his servants and entrusted a sum of money to each of them. To one he gave the sum of five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five talents went out at once and invested his money and gained five more. Similarly, the one with two talents gained two more. The servant who had received one talent, inspired by the boldness and ingenuity of the other two servants, also went out and sought an enterprise in which he could invest. He found a business venture that looked both stable and promising, and he invested the talent. Unfortunately, his investment proved to be a bad one, and he lost all of the money entrusted to him.
After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who received five talents brought the other five. "Master," he said, "you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more!"
His master replied. "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things, so I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness."
The man who received two talents also came. "Master," he said, "you entrusted me with two talents. See, I have gained two more!"
His master replied, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things, so I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness."
Then the man who lost the one talent came forward and fell down on his hands and knees before his master. Wishing he had instead buried the talent, he cried out, "Master, have mercy on me! I know that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. Like your other two servants, I sought a business in which to invest your talent, but I made a bad investment and lost your talent. I have failed you! Please forgive me!"
His master looked at him, knelt down, and whispered in his ear, saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant."1
The prosperity gospel is a phenomenon that emerged in American Christianity amid the revival movements of the 1950s. It increased in popularity in the 1980s when it was promoted by popular televangelists. The prosperity gospel teaches that it is God's will for Christians to be happy and financially successful. Proponents of prosperity theology stress faith, positive thinking, and generosity to Christian ministries, claiming that God will bless faithfulness in such matters with material success and happiness.2
Prosperity theologians site Bible verses such as the following from the Book of Malachi: "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and thus put Me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing."3 Another verse that has become popular in recent years is an obscure one from the First Book of Chronicles, the prayer of a man named Jabez: "Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain."4
If anyone exemplified the prosperity gospel, it would have been Job, for he was an upstanding, generous man who was also very successful materially. In fact, the Bible refers to him as "the greatest [or richest] of all the people of the east."5 There is no question that he was an upstanding human being, for we can almost hear the delight in God's voice as we read God's words, "Have you considered My servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth..."6 As statisticians and scientists often say, "Correlation does not imply causation." Job's material success was not a reflection of Job's righteousness, for, in a short period of time, Job lost everything: his property, his health, and all of his ten children.7
If prosperity theology is correct that God's will for the obedient is happiness and material success, then it only stands to reason that anyone who is unsuccessful or is suffering must not have been obedient to God. This is basically what Job's three friends believed, for they kept insisting that Job had done something to displease God.8 Job insisted that he was innocent, but his friends nearly convinced him that he had committed some sort of wrongdoing, for Job began to look back on his life, taking stock of his actions, desperately trying to figure out where he went wrong. Had he cheated someone? Had he failed to help someone in need? Had he been dishonest? Had he lusted after another man's wife?9
The good news of the prosperity gospel is a lie. Life is hardly ever that simple. The story of Job shows us that a person's morality, charity, and spirituality do not always result in the outcome a person thinks he or she deserves, and the story of Jesus and the rich man shows us that perceived blessings are not evidence that a person is truly close to God. This painful disconnect between obedience to God and material success has been felt by the faithful for thousands of years. In the seventy-third psalm, the psalmist Asaph confessed his own envy of the wicked and the arrogant. He observed so many people who had turned away from God but were rich, healthy, and happy, while he strove to live for God but still faced pain, suffering, and difficulty.
In stark contrast to the message of the prosperity gospel, the circumstances of a person's life or the outcome a person experiences do not always reflect a person's choices, moral character, or spirituality. With that in mind, the question I want to raise today is,
As followers of Jesus Christ, how should we measure success?
At the beginning of the Book of Revelation, we read a series of letters written by St. John on behalf of Christ. In one of these letters, addressed to the Church in the city of Smyrna, Christ told John to write, "I know your affliction and your poverty, even though you are rich."10 According to New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, Smyrna was a city of wealth and power, and the Christians who lived there found themselves persecuted and impoverished.11 In spite of this, Christ said they were rich. Perhaps it was faithfulness in the midst of adversity that made the Christians of Smyrna rich, for Christ continued to encourage them, saying, "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life."12
One person who remained "faithful until death" was a fisherman named Simon. When this fisherman first met Christ, Christ gave him a new calling in life, saying, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."13 So often we zero in on Simon's moments of weakness when he feared for his life and denied even knowing Christ, but Christ saw someone who was rock-steady. Christ had even renamed him Peter, a name meaning "rock."14 Three times after the betrayal, Christ asked Peter, "Do you love Me?" and three times Christ continued to call him, saying, "Feed My sheep."15
Christ went on to say to Peter,
Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.16
Christ knew that Peter would remain faithful to Him until the day he died, and He knew that Peter would breathe his last breath in Rome, upside down and nailed to a cross. Such a heinous death is not a suitable reward for a lifetime of faithfulness to God, but sometimes our faithfulness to Christ's call does not always bring us the results we want. In fact, sometimes a life of faithfulness may lead us to where we "do not wish to go." I wonder if this is why Christ said, "If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me."17
What Christ said to Peter is not news that anyone would want to hear, so Peter pointed to another disciple, presumably John, and asked what will happen to him. Christ bluntly said, "If it is My will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow Me!"18 As followers of Christ, our measure of success is our faithfulness in following Christ's call for our lives, not the outcome of following Christ's call. As Christ pointed out to Peter, it does not matter what happens to us or to other people: our purpose is to faithfully follow Christ wherever He leads us and whatever the outcome.
Rob Bell, the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, came close to burning out more than once. At one point, he asked the church's board of elders for an extended leave of absence. During this time, Rob came to realize that he had taken upon himself a burden that he was never meant to carry: he was trying to transform his parishioners - to make them more compassionate, more generous, more loving. He took a trip to Ireland, and, as he walked by the sea, he felt as though God was saying to him:
Here's the deal, Rob: you have been told a lie that you have all of this control and power. You don't. All that's left for you to do is to give yourself to your work... and enjoy it... It's My church; it's My crowd; it's My audience. You just do your part; I'll handle the rest... The outcome, the results, how you are heard... it's all my problem, Rob. Your problem is you don't know how to just give the gift, enjoy it, and know when to walk away. Let go.
Rob Bell had to learn how to simply do what God had called him to do and to leave the results in God's hands.19
Jesus told another parable about three servants, each of whom was entrusted with a share of his master's money. Two of the servants invested their shares boldly, while the third servant buried his share. When the master returned, he was pleased with the two bold servants, but he was extremely angry with the cowardly third servant.21 I believe that the master would have been happier with the third servant had he invested his share and lost all of it. I offered you a different interpretation of this story earlier, because I believe that the master was less concerned about the return on his servants' investments and more concerned about his servants' faithfulness in doing what he asked them to do.
Job sought an audience with God so that he could plead his case and learn why he had to suffer.22 Finally, God spoke to Job through a whirlwind. God did not offer Job an explanation of why he was suffering but rather a series of questions:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth...? Have you commanded the morning since your days began...? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth...? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer...? Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?23
Basically, God asked Job, "Who do you think you are?" Job and his friends did not create the universe and did not know the ins and outs of the cosmos, so it was not their place to say how the world should work. We do not have the mind of God, so there are some things that are simply beyond our understanding. We may never know why bad things sometimes happen to good people or, for that matter, why good things sometimes happen to bad people. Job was a successful servant of God, regardless of what his horrible circumstances might imply. He remained faithful to God when his wife encouraged him to "curse God and die,"24 and he refused to believe the lies his friends believed about God.25
St. Paul writes, "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."26 Though we can be confident that God works out all things for good for the faithful, we are never promised that we will always understand how God works out all things for good. Though we may never see the fruits of our labor, I believe that God is able to use our faithful actions to make ripples in the world that affect people's lives in ways we may never realize.
I believe that God has a calling for each and every one of us and that this calling takes on a different shape from person to person. Though it is our decision whether or not we follow this calling, we do not have complete control of how following this calling will turn out. All we can do is to faithfully plant the seeds that God has put in our hands; we cannot make them grow. We cannot affect how people react to us; we cannot force other people to follow their calling along with us; and we cannot make people draw closer to God. This should not stop us though, because we will not always understand exactly how God will work through us to touch people's lives. We must surrender our expectations and our desired results and leave the outcome in God's hands.27
Amen.
Notes:
1 - Based on Matthew 25:14-30 (NIV84)
2 - Wikipedia: "Prosperity Theology"
3 - Malachi 3:10 (NRSV)
4 - 1 Chronicles 4:10 (TNIV)
5 - Job 1:3 (NRSV)
6 - Job 1:8 (NRSV)
7 - Job 1-2
8 - This back-and-forth dialogue between Job and his friends makes up a majority of the Book of Job.
9 - Job 31
10 - Revelation 2:9 (NRSV)
11 - N.T. Wright. Revelation for Everyone. 2011, Westminster John Knox Press. p 17
12 - Revelation 2:10 (NRSV)
13 - Mark 1:16-18 (NRSV quoted)
14 - Matthew 16:18
15 - John 21:15-17
16 - John 21:18-19 (NRSV quoted)
17 - Mark 8:34 (NRSV)
18 - John 21:20-22 (NRSV quoted)
19 - Rob Bell. "Broken Bottles." Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast, 01/30/11
20 - Mark 4:1-20
21 - Matthew 25:14-30
22 - Job 23
23 - Selected from Job 38-41 (NRSV)
24 - Job 2:9-10
25 - Job 42:7
26 - Romans 8:28 (NRSV)
27 - The original ending to this sermon was directly addressed to Bethel United Methodist Church. If you would like to hear the original ending, listen to the audio recording.
The image of Job, his wife, and his friends was drawn by William Blake in 1793. The image of Jesus and the rich man was painted in Bejing, China in 1879. The image of the sower was painted by George Soper.
If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.
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