Risk and Rewards

Risk and rewards or "risk and return" is a common thought in the finance/investing world...I think. The last I heard of risk and rewards was in a college classroom. However, it went something like this:

The higher the risk, the higher the potential reward (or return). 

It's a calculation. We like calculations. There is something very comforting about 1+1 = 2. It's absolute. I, personally, love absolutes. I have picked a career that is very rules based, and I've decided it's because I like very clear "right" and very clear "wrong." The right and wrong in accounting changes with the understanding of regulators. A new code comes out and I follow that code. That code gets amended, and I change my understanding based on the amendment.  Everything is in order. 

Explainable. Defensible.

I'm the same way in my personal life. Yesterday, at an outing, I and some other single ladies were talking about our "types." And I said that I didn't have a type, that I was "open." I realize now (I didn't in the moment) that I was lying. There is a list of qualities that I seek. They are in order. They are explainable. Defensible. But when you fall in love everything flies out the window. When you want someone that you weren't looking for, that is out of order, inexplicable, and indefensible...you go out to dinner with him. Smile in his face. Imagine what your children look like. Why? Risk and reward. The risk is that this individual is "off list." The reward: true love (if you believe in that sort of thing). Which is what you wanted in the first place. True love was the goal, but you have another means of reaching it.

In my opinion, the sermon on the mount is very similar. This next part...is sort of crazy, but I do believe it is divinely inspired. It's twisty. It's turny. But stay with me.

The sermon on the mount is a story of risk and reward. I've spent the last million years (or so it feels like to me) talking about the risks. I call them risks, because honestly the more I look at the Beatitudes, the more it seems like it's about throwing yourself away. It's a call to a level of selflessness that is incredible uncomfortable. Just to recap: 

1.  We have to throw away all our preconceived notions of who we are, and see ourselves and our sin the way God sees it (poverty of spirit and mourning). 
2. We must humbly present our bodies as "a living sacrifice" to God's will, throwing away our will for our own lives (meekness, hunger/thirst, pure in heart) 
3. And we must bear with evil for the greater good, with our only weapon being the Word of the Gospel (merciful, peacemaking, persecution).

Risks. All of this is self-denial and self-sacrifice. To what end? Six of the rewards make some sort of sense:

• Mourn = comforted
• Meek = inherit the earth
• Hunger and thirst = satisfaction/fed
• Merciful = receive mercy
• Pure in heart = shall see God
• Peacemakers = shall be called sons of God

But the first reward and the last reward (which are the same) are a little iffy:

"For theirs is the kingdom of heaven"

Upside-down kingdom. What kind of king says "reign with me?" I mean, it would be totally cool/awesome for us to simply be loyal subjects in the Kingdom of our Lord...but that's not what God is going for. Jesus is saying: reign with me. BE LIKE ME.

Why is that a big deal?

Well...because it takes us all the way back to the beginning:

The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God - Genesis 3:4

This right here, is where the need for reconciliation began. It wasn't that Eve wanted to eat the fruit so badly, because as she told the serpent, she could eat from any tree in the garden (Genesis 3:3). It's not that she was hungry. It's not even that this was the forbidden fruit. It was the promise of: and you will be like God. What a motivator! 

What's your motivation? And what are you after in life? And how do you think you're supposed to go about getting it? I ask this because Adam and Eve were truly tricked. They had no idea that they were being offered something that was already slated to be theirs!

You don't have to steal it...

Everything that the beatitudes require of you, every thing that the Holy Spirit works in us sums of up to Jesus Christ. It is a work of reconciliation, transforming you into the image of Christ who is what? The express image of the person of God ( Hebrews 1:3). That was always the plan. Reign with me. Be like me.

God is freely allowing us to have the thing Adam and Eve thought they had to steal: to be as He is.

That's the reward. That's the ultimate goal.

How do you plan to get there?