Safety in the Status Quo?
In the Danny DeVito feature Other People's Money, his character is interested in purchasing a family held company in order to sell it off for its assets. The family resists, insisting that with no debt and decades of success behind it, the company is well-positioned for the future. DeVito's character explains that the company's customer base will shrivel up because of the coming of fiber-optic cable. Yes, boys and girls, there was a time before widespread Wi-Fi. If you want to know how to go broke, he says, take an increasing share of a decreasing market.
In this, he challenges human instinct. So does the Bible. We are inclined to cling to the seemingly immovable status quo until forced to do otherwise. That's why I find the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount so economic and impactful. Link our own forgiveness of other people to being forgiven by God? Pluck out our eye and cut off our hand before allowing our greed to mislead us? Come face-to-face with the reality that making it into the Kingdom of Heaven is not the default, the safe assumption? Both stuff, this living for another Kingdom. Maybe I'll pass, or think about it later. My customary alternative seems safer.
Until, that is, Jesus targets His close to the greatest sermon ever like a guided missile to demolish such a mentality. Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, declares Matthew 7:24, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The reverse, sadly for those of us who believe we are safe in the status quo, is also true. The rain is coming, forecasts Matthew 7:27, whether we follow Christ's seemingly radical teachings, or not. The rain is coming, and without safety in Him, the house of the usual assumptions which we find so safe, it's coming down. John Piper calls this the Myth of Safety, the idea that we hesitate before Christ's commands because, malicious or misguided, we believe the alternative to be safer.
Even once our foundation has been laid in Christ, we face similar decisions. We can read about the reality that accountability comes with work undertaken in Christ's name, as in James 3:1's sobering warning that teachers face a greater judgment. We can read this, and we can find our excuse for inaction closed in biblical verbiage. I wouldn't want to do anything wrong, we tell ourselves, so I won't do anything at all. In this sloth, we try to settle back comfortably onto life's pew, only to be poked by the previous verse which closes out James 2. No sanctifying inaction in the name of avoiding risk. Faith without works is dead.
Our old habits, our old assumptions, our old comforts, then, are not a safe house. They are, in the biblical perspective, actively under assault by an enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy any genuine pleasure we would enjoy even temporarily. Knowing any alternative satisfaction is fleeting, and that there will be accountability for any way we spend this day, why not risk greatly to be rewarded greatly?
In this, he challenges human instinct. So does the Bible. We are inclined to cling to the seemingly immovable status quo until forced to do otherwise. That's why I find the end of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount so economic and impactful. Link our own forgiveness of other people to being forgiven by God? Pluck out our eye and cut off our hand before allowing our greed to mislead us? Come face-to-face with the reality that making it into the Kingdom of Heaven is not the default, the safe assumption? Both stuff, this living for another Kingdom. Maybe I'll pass, or think about it later. My customary alternative seems safer.
Until, that is, Jesus targets His close to the greatest sermon ever like a guided missile to demolish such a mentality. Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, declares Matthew 7:24, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The reverse, sadly for those of us who believe we are safe in the status quo, is also true. The rain is coming, forecasts Matthew 7:27, whether we follow Christ's seemingly radical teachings, or not. The rain is coming, and without safety in Him, the house of the usual assumptions which we find so safe, it's coming down. John Piper calls this the Myth of Safety, the idea that we hesitate before Christ's commands because, malicious or misguided, we believe the alternative to be safer.
Even once our foundation has been laid in Christ, we face similar decisions. We can read about the reality that accountability comes with work undertaken in Christ's name, as in James 3:1's sobering warning that teachers face a greater judgment. We can read this, and we can find our excuse for inaction closed in biblical verbiage. I wouldn't want to do anything wrong, we tell ourselves, so I won't do anything at all. In this sloth, we try to settle back comfortably onto life's pew, only to be poked by the previous verse which closes out James 2. No sanctifying inaction in the name of avoiding risk. Faith without works is dead.
Our old habits, our old assumptions, our old comforts, then, are not a safe house. They are, in the biblical perspective, actively under assault by an enemy who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy any genuine pleasure we would enjoy even temporarily. Knowing any alternative satisfaction is fleeting, and that there will be accountability for any way we spend this day, why not risk greatly to be rewarded greatly?
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