I recently watched the Netflix movie Founder, which is about the birth and growth of the McDonald’s Corporation. It is necessary to keep in mind that the movie simplifies things, and it interested in creating a villain and good guys, so I won’t credit it with much in the way of historical accuracy. But the movie form does portray a dynamic all too common in the world. Brothers Dick and Mac McDonald open a speedy service restaurant focusing on a simple menu of burgers, fries, and drinks. Impressed by this concept, often-failed salesman, Ray Kroc offers to help the brothers expand the restaurant through franchising. He struggles for a while and has limited success. He becomes upset with the original brothers because they will not compromise on quality even though very small compromises could lead to much higher profits. But Kroc is locked into his contract and so he must obey.
Eventually, however, Kroc meets a
man who has a clever property ownership scheme that will allow Kroc to see much
greater profits from the franchises he is setting up without violating his
contract. His success quickly grows and
in no time he has eclipsed the original brothers by the sheer magnitude of his
wealth. He starts to openly violate the
original contract. The original owners
realize they cannot compete with the massive high-price legal team Kroc has
assembled.
And so, we see the original values
of high quality food made from authentic ingredients, good employee care, and a
certain wholesomeness to the whole operation get crushed by greed.
A look at many of the industrial
titans of our nation show the same thing.
Henry Ford was a scoundrel almost beyond compare. Thomas Edison stole patents regularly. Names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and
Vanderbilt are all synonymous with greed that crushed integrity. The fastest surest way to make a lot of money
is by exploiting people. If I make an
ironic twist on a doxology: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be
forever. That is the way of humanity.
Of course Jesus does not teach
that. Jesus taught the opposite. It is no surprise that many people who live
by Jesus’ teachings get crushed in the process.
But following Jesus is more than just being righteous in the face of a
greedy world.
The
gospel reading stretches from Matthew 6:13 to 7:13. It covers a lot of territory, but the
beginning verses bring up themes that go through to the end.
Jesus
is with his disciples and asks who do people say that he is. The answer John the Baptist, or Elijah or one
of the prophets. Then Jesus asks, “But
who do you say that I am?” Peter gives
the famous answer, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Yay
Peter for that insight! Yay Peter for
the revealer of the Father’s truth!
But
Peter doesn’t fly high for long, does he?
With
his identity known to the disciples Jesus goes on to explain the way he will be
the Son of living God. He will die. He
will not just die, but he will first suffer at the hands of the religious
leaders. This is too much for
Peter. Peter says a very logical thing,
“God forbid it, Lord!” It is as if Peter
thinks Jesus has become demon possessed and he needs to perform an
exorcism. What nonsense is this that
Jesus spouts? How can the Son of God be
killed?
Then
Jesus turns the exorcism back on Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me;” And notice the punch line. Jesus does not say you are setting your mind
on evil things or Satanic things or greedy things. Jesus plainly says, “You are setting your
mind not on divine things but human things.”
We
see the unsettling truth that the human point of view is not a neutral point of
view, but actually an evil point of view.
Perhaps we could look at the greed of the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies
and say their ways were evil. We could
then stay in our own little realm of wholesome human righteousness. But Jesus’ response takes it a step further.
The
best way that I know how to get at that is to make a contrast between
Christianity and Islam, for that is the way to get at the whole scandalous
truth of Christianity. I do not say the
“scandalous truth of Christianity” lightly.
When Jesus tells Peter he is a, “stumbling block” he uses the Greek word
“skandalon”
(skandalon), from which you can easily tell comes our English word scandal.
We
have to remember that our faith is a scandal to our intelligence, to our sense
of logic and reason.
I’ve
used the contrast between Christianity and Islam before. I do so carefully because I do not want to
portray Islam in a negative light. It is
just the most succinct way to do it.
Jesus
plays a significant role in the Qur’an.
He is considered to be a major prophet – a major revealer of the truth
of God. Islam can celebrate Jesus. However, where it diverges is that it rejects
the idea of Jesus being crucified. While
Islam accepts the idea of the death and martyrdom of faithful followers, it
cannot accept the idea of one of the prophets being killed. No, the prophets, God’s messengers, will
receive divine protection from earthly killing.
That does not mean the prophets will have an easy life. To the contrary. They will probably have a very difficult
life. But the prophets will not be
killed in the line of doing God’s work.
They will die naturally. They
will certainly not be rejected and executed by the religious leadership.
The
cross is a scandal. All of human logic
would say that God protects the faithful.
God would not let them be killed.
Yet we make the cross the central symbol of our faith. Jesus says, “If any want to become my
followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
That
is not the same as living a dignified life of righteousness. A dignified life of righteousness lets you
live with your hands clean and your public integrity in tack. A dignified life of righteousness lets you
set yourself up as an example of virtue for others to emulate. You walk with pride. You look at other needy people and, even in
your humility, you still see yourself as being above them.
The
crucifixion of Jesus saw him shamefully hanging in public surrounded by other
criminals being executed. There’s no
pride in that.
Yet
Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will find it.”
These verses must be handled carefully.
It is not about self-hate or self-denial. Self-hate and self-denial just lead to
emptiness. Just giving up things will
not make you a follower of Jesus. It
will just make you empty. It is an
orientation of life that is not focused on self at all, but it is living in the
confidence that the future is truly and fully in God’s hands. You focus there, not on yourself, not on
human objects or status or honor. It is
just a focus on God.
It
is to believe that God has acted decisively and ultimately in Jesus. People make a mistake if they think Jesus’
words are some sort of good advice on how to live. That’s pretty foolish if you think about it
is the way Jesus lived that got him killed!
Let’s
end with this final thought. Living the
way I just described is pretty hard. I’m
sure there are days when you feel strong and capable and able to overcome every
challenge. And there are days when you
feel God’s presence strongly at work in you.
(Of course you can deny yourself and take up your cross and follow
Jesus!) But there are surely also days
when it doesn’t feel like that at all.
It may be many days, months, seasons, years of life even.
Learn
from Peter’s example. One minute he is
praised for his faith. The next he is
being likened to Satan. He sees the
amazing transfiguration on the mountaintop and he denies Jesus three times over
when Jesus is arrested. Yet he is a
faith-filled disciple. So know that the
times of failure and weakness and questioning are all a part of it. That should be no surprise. It is not a smooth easy path of glory. It is a journey with ups and downs, but know
that God is indeed with us always.
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