We’ve heard a lot over the last few years about downsizing.
10 surefire signs your company is going to downsize:
10. Company Softball Team is converted to a Chess Club.
9. Dr. Kevorkian is hired as an “Outplacement Coordinator”.
8. Folks in Marketing are suddenly very friendly with the Personnel Manager.
7. The beer supplied by the Company at picnics has been replaced with Kool-Aid.
6. Weekly bake sales at Corporate Headquarters.
5. Company president now driving a Ford Escort.
4. Annual Company Holiday Bash moved from the Sheraton to the park across the street from the LAX In n Out.
3. Employees are charged for their paper clips.
2. Dental plan now consists of a Company supplied kit (string, pliers and 2 aspirin).
1. Your CEO has installed a dartboard in his office marked with all existing departments in the Company.
Downsizing is no laughing matter … millions of hard-working Americans have been laid off … I have friends in Michigan who can’t find work, because there are no jobs, and it’s been rough here in California, too.
Downsizing is no laughing matter.
Some might say: “Well, it has to be done, now and then. The economy needs this kind of periodic readjustment.”
Perhaps they’re right, but it’s no laughing matter.
Yet American families have found strange blessings in such times … learning to live more frugally does a body good … spending more time together in family activities … less entertainment and more reading … a whole lot less shopping and a lot more playtime with the children.
Downsizing is painful, but American are learning some new values!
Downsizing is how Paul the Apostle describes his journey into Christ!
Paul declares: There was a whole of stuff I loved and was proud of, but when I met Jesus Christ and “saw the light,” I began to shed a lot of stuff, and you know what? It was junk.
It weighed my soul down and made me proud in all the wrong kinds of ways.
I was proud of my ancestry and looked down my nose at others.
I was proud of my religious heritage and thought I was the only one who was right.
I was proud of my hard work and my success.
I was proud of who I was and I was on top of the heap!
Nobody could hold a candle to me.
I knew what was right, and I knew what was wrong.
And I let the world know it!
Translating this into 2010, Paul might write:
I am an American and I am powerful.
I am white and I’m proud of it.
I am Presbyterian and that’s the end of it!
My Daddy is a banker, and my Momma, a neurosurgeon.
I’m a graduate of Temple University, Phi Beta Capa, and a Rhodes Scholar.
I live in New York City and I’ve got a bank account that’ll curl your toes.
I live right and I invest right.
I’m really hard on folks who don’t measure up.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m better than most.
And most can’t hold a candle to me.
I’m top-drawer.
I say my prayers.
I’m top of the heap!
And then one day, on the Damascus Road, Jesus came to Paul and bathed him in a bright light … a light so bright, it blinded Paul and left him lying in the dust of the road.
For three long days, Paul couldn’t see a thing.
The man who claimed to see it all was as a blind as a bat.
The man who led others away in chains now had to be led about by the hand.
The man so confident and so full of himself lost it all in a blaze of light.
There is no smaller package in all the world than a man all wrapped up in himself!
Paul had no room for Christ.
And it took a crisis for Paul to see the truth.
What he valued in his former life had to be discarded in order to gain Jesus Christ!
Someone said to me recently, “You can have it all. But just not at the same time.”
Is that really true?
We can have it all, if we’re patient?
But we can’t have it all … even if it’s parceled out over time.
There isn’t enough time to have it all, and is that what life is all about anyway? Having it all.
All is big word, isn’t it?
Do we even want it all, when we think about?
A life of endless getting?
Grabbing?
Wanting?
Taking?
The one who dies with the most toys wins?
All over the Bible, the great exchange … our stuff, surrendered and handed over, in order to gain the goodness of God!
God asks Abram to leave all the usual suspects behind …
Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house.
Boom, boom, boom: country, family, zip code.
And then, says God,
Go to the land that I will show you.
I will give you many descendents.
I will bless you and make your name great.
God rebuilds Abram’s life from scratch!
A new country.
A new family.
A new zip code.
Abram couldn’t have it all.
It’s this or it’s that.
Stay where you are, and remain who you are!
Or leave where you and be transformed!
Jesus invited the fishermen to follow him.
They had to leave their father behind, they had to leave behind their boats, their nets; they had to leave behind a future in the family business.
They couldn’t have it all.
They couldn’t remain on the boats and follow Jesus at the same time.
It was one or the other.
Joshua says to the people:
Choose this day whom you will serve … the LORD your God, or the gods your ancestors served in earlier times.
It has to be this, or it has to be that.
You can’t have it all.
Choose today whom you will serve.
Jesus says:
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one or love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth [Matthew 6:24].
Paul was headed in one direction.
But the LORD gave Paul an opportunity.
A blinding light.
To knock some sense into Paul’s head and heart.
To cut a few lines and set Paul adrift.
To be lost in order to be found.
Paul realized what every follower of Jesus learns one way or the other – we can’t have it all – it has to be one way or the other … it’s self, or it’s Christ, and to try for both leads only to dysfunction and confusion.
Paul realized that he was clinging to nonsense.
The stuff he prized wasn’t worth the effort.
Don’t get me wrong.
Paul was no heathen.
He was deeply religious, profoundly moral, and unflinchingly committed … he was a good guy, and we’d want him for our neighbor – the lawn would be mowed, his kids would be well-behaved, and he’d be a model citizen.
But on the Damascus Road, Paul saw through it all … it was getting in the way, it was bogging him down, it had no life to it.
He had to give it all up, start all over again, in order to gain Christ!
In the Season of Lent, we have a chance to ask some pretty deep questions of ourselves.
Lent is a crisis of sorts.
A momentary derailment.
The death of Jesus for the sins of the world.
Our sins … large and small.
Our sins … secret and public.
Our sins … personal and national.
Our sins … dark and greedy.
Our sins … vanity and shallowness.
Our sins … religious and political.
Our sins …
When we stand before the cross of Christ, it should throw us for a loop.
Throw us into a crisis.
Drive us deep, and drive us into another world.
Drive us into the arms of God!
Lent should give us pause.
What are we holding on to?
What are the elements of our pride and puffery?
By what standards do we measure our worth?
How do we look at our future?
What is God asking us to let go of, so that we can grasp the golden ring of faith?
Lent is never easy.
But, then, what is?
Things of substance are always a challenge.
The soul is tested; the soul is tried!
God puts serious questions to us because of God’s great love.
Lent is a time to think big and look at Christ on the cross.
Lent is a time to dig deep and look at the things we value.
Lent is a time of surrender.
To let go of some things.
In order to gain Christ.
The surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ our LORD!
Amen and Amen!
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