How much does a man need?

How much money does a man need?

 Today we learn that the BBC are due to cut back on pay for their top executives and lose some posts.

 Director General, Mark Thompson was paid £834,000 last year while Caroline Thomson, the chief operating officer, received £413,000. Other top earners include the deputy director general, Mark Byford, who received £485,000; and Jana Bennett, the head of BBC Vision, who received £515,000.

 But, I wonder, how much money does a person really need?  According to Oil Baron and philanthropist John D Rockefeller, who became the world’s richest man and yet always gave a tithe of his income to his church, when asked how much a man needs, his candid response was “Just a little more”

The Christian novelist Leo Tolstoy, writing at a time of growing lust for wealth in Russia, was very perceptive in his analysis of the seductive nature of seeking fame and fortune.  His short story How much land does a man need? tells the story of a peasant who, to make a short story even shorter, takes the opportunity to stake his claim on as much land as he can get before sundown.  As he exhausts himself staking out as much land as he can, he gets more and more weary and more and more anxious about the approaching setting sun, and, eventually, just as the sun begins to dip, he expires.  Tolstoy concludes his short story as follows:

“What shall I do,” he thought again, “I have grasped too much, and ruined the whole affair. I can’t get there before the sun sets.”

And this fear made him still more breathless. Pahom went on running, his soaking shirt and trousers stuck to him, and his mouth was parched. His breast was working like a blacksmith’s bellows, his heart was beating like a hammer, and his legs were giving way as if they did not belong to him. Pahom was seized with terror lest he should die of the strain.

Though afraid of death, he could not stop. “After having run all that way they will call me a fool if I stop now,” thought he. And he ran on and on, and drew near and heard the Bashkirs yelling and shouting to him, and their cries inflamed his heart still more. He gathered his last strength and ran on.

The sun was close to the rim, and cloaked in mist looked large, and red as blood. Now, yes now, it was about to set! The sun was quite low, but he was also quite near his aim. Pahom could already see the people on the hillock waving their arms to hurry him up. He could see the fox-fur cap on the ground, and the money on it, and the Chief sitting on the ground holding his sides. And Pahom remembered his dream.

“There is plenty of land,” thought he, “but will God let me live on it? I have lost my life, I have lost my life! I shall never reach that spot!”

Pahom looked at the sun, which had reached the earth: one side of it had already disappeared. With all his remaining strength he rushed on, bending his body forward so that his legs could hardly follow fast enough to keep him from falling. Just as he reached the hillock it suddenly grew dark. He looked up—the sun had already set. He gave a cry: “All my labor has been in vain,” thought he, and was about to stop, but he heard the Bashkirs still shouting, and remembered that though to him, from below, the sun seemed to have set, they on the hillock could still see it. He took a long breath and ran up the hillock. It was still light there. He reached the top and saw the cap. Before it sat the Chief laughing and holding his sides. Again Pahom remembered his dream, and he uttered a cry: his legs gave way beneath him, he fell forward and reached the cap with his hands.

“Ah, what a fine fellow!” exclaimed the Chief. “He has gained much land!”

Pahom’s servant came running up and tried to raise him, but he saw that blood was flowing from his mouth. Pahom was dead!

The Bashkirs clicked their tongues to show their pity.

His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.

These were very perceptive words which are just as relevant today.

 My training incumbent wisely used to respond to the question asked about the recently deceased: “how much did he leave” Answer: “everything”.

 Prov 28:11 – A rich man may be wise in his own eyes, but a poor man who has discernment sees through him.

 Jesus of course said, the well known words in Mark 8:36-37:

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?  Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

 He went on to say that people’s relationship with him is determined by whether they will turn their back on this world, shunning the lust and seduction of the glitter of wealth in order to follow him fully and wholeheartedly. 

 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels. (v38)

 As Bonheoffer said: “when Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die” – the life of the cross is a life of self-denial and Christ-focus.

 The more positive corollary of this theme is found in Jesus’ parable of the merchant who discovered a pearl of great price and sold everything in order to gain this one prize.  I wonder, will BBC executives, ever gain such riches?  But the message is not just for them, but for me too: I can so easily live by the motto: just a little more.  But I need to remember that riches in heaven are worth far more than the transient wealth of this world!

Robbie Williams and Jesus

I have just watched the ever-addictive X Factor.  Robbie Williams has sung his latest come-back single.

Having spoken this weekend at Christchurch Virginia Water Mens’ Breakfast on the subject of “The Truth about Heaven and Hell” my antenna was already up.  There is considerable popular interest in death and the after life, but rarely does the key issue of Jesus’ physical death and resurrection as a prototype for the Christian believer feature.  Tom Wright Surprised by Hope is a great counter to modern confusion.

But, I wonder, what do you make of these words from Robbie Williams’ new song?

God gave me the sunshine,
Then showed me my lifeline
I was told it was all mine,
Then I got laid on a ley line
What a day, what a day,
And your Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me

UK and entropy,
I feel like its ****in’ me
Wanna feed off the energy,
Love living like a deity
What a day, one day,
And your Jesus really died for me
I guess Jesus really tried for me

Bodies in the Bodhi tree,
Bodies making chemistry
Bodies on my family,
Bodies in the way of me
Bodies in the cemetery,
And that’s the way it’s gonna be

All we’ve ever wanted
Is to look good naked
Hope that someone can take it
God save me rejection
From my reflection,
I want perfection

Praying for the rapture,
‘Cause it’s stranger getting stranger
And everything’s contagious
It’s the modern middle ages
All day every day
And if Jesus really died for me
Then Jesus really tried for me

Jesus didn’t die for you, what do you want?
(I want perfection)
Jesus didn’t die for you, what are you on?
Oh Lord
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh
(Jesus really died for you)
(Jesus really died for you) Ohh

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Not only does Jesus feature, but a specific reference to the efficacy of his atoning death.

- Is this a huge ego trip (rather like the oft quoted John Lennon quote about The Beatles being bigger than Jesus Christ);

- Is this a cynical attempt to appeal to the powerful religiously aware consumer?

- Is Robbie Williams genuinely seeking some spiritual awareness?

- Or is he nuts?

I for one, believe Jesus really died for me, and his saving, atoning death is what gives me real hope for this life and for the next.

What do you think?

Is my greatest need the thing I least want?

My greatest need is the thing I least want

This statement is true is it not?  It explains why the good news of the offer of new life in Christ is the very thing I am so reluctant to accept.

 Let me expand:  “my heart is restless until it finds its rest in God” (to paraphrase Augustine).  God has put “eternity in my heart” (Eccl 3:11).   

 If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.   (The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis: The Pilgrim’s Regress, Christian Reflections, & God in the Dock)

 But, following in the line of Adam, I would rather determine my own destiny, live my life my way, without reference to God, as the master of my own fate.

 I am a dissatisfied soul who refuses to seek the only true solace:

• I am restless.  Jesus says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28);
• I full of guilt.  Jesus says “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt 11:29-30)
• I want life.  Jesus says “I have come that you might have life and life to the full” (John 10:10).  It is as Jesus said to the Pharisees in his day:  You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)

 If it is true for non-Christians that their greatest need is the thing which they least want, this is also true for my experience as a believer.  This is the conundrum of why I know the good but don’t do it.  I am living contradiction. 

  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good .  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom 7:21-25)

 Dick Lucas once said in a sermon: ‘The pew cannot control the pulpit.  We cannot deliver “demand led” preaching because no one demands the Gospel’.  These are profoundly pertinent words.

 Of course there is a demand-led kind of preaching, but it won’t do your soul any good The same was true in Paul’s day.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. 2 Tim 4:3.

 So, it would seem to me there are two prayers which Gospel minded people might want to pray:

1. Lord, so immerse me in your word that I think your thoughts and know your mind.  May your agenda, your message, your life-giving Gospel be what emanates from my lips, not the wants and desires of a restless entertainment oriented audience.
2. Lord, help me to want what I most need.  Change my desires so that the attractiveness of the glory of God is my greatest desire, and incite a holy appetite for you in my deepest being.

 Perhaps, with these thoughts in mind, my greatest desires will end up matching my greatest needs, and I will want what a need most.