Sand or Rock?

Jesus would be a provocative business consultant or partner. He would push you to be clear about your goals and how those goals reflect reality and contribute to long-term relationships.

Jesus would coach you to find and develop your true self and help others discover their true selves. He would help you to be humble, listen, and learn from your mistakes. Jesus would teach you to empathize with others, to be clear and consistent in your objectives and communication, and – perhaps most of all – he would guide you in balancing the strengths of individuals with the needs of the community. With these conditions in place you would be much more effective in making fundamental decisions about your future direction and the direction of your enterprise.

Jesus would also coach you in attitudes and behavior needed to make daily progress in your chosen direction. He would emphasize respecting others, not being distracted by the attacks of others, and fully valuing the contributions of others and their relationship to you. Jesus would encourage you to focus on making choices that lead to sustainable outcomes, to stop worrying, and to critique yourself before criticizing others.

Jesus would ask you questions. He would expect you to ask him questions. He would coach you to see every answer as exploratory and mostly as another step to another question. Jesus would push you to remain open to an ever changing, always unfolding reality and help you deploy questions as your best tool for navigating a great adventure.

Jesus would not recognize the boundaries between your professional and personal lives. He would insist the boundary is an illusion. Jesus would push you to engage your parents, spouse, children, friends, and neighbors – even your enemies – with the same habits of truth-making and trust-building that he brings to your business life. In all things he would celebrate the relationships that bind us together. Finally, Jesus would point you toward a relationship with the ultimate source of reality. Here he would promise meaning, the final balancing of self and community, and the fulfillment of peace.

Like every experienced business consultant Jesus is a realist. He recognizes that he can only counsel, he cannot decide for you. But he would be clear that your decision will have consequences.

At the close of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus makes the choice very clear:

Everyone who pays attention to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a shrewd builder who erected a house on bedrock. Later the rain fell, and the torrents came, and the winds blew and pounded that house, yet it did not collapse, since its foundations rested on bedrock. Everyone who listens to these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like the careless builder, who erected a house on the sand. When the rain fell, and the torrents came, and the winds blew and pounded that house, it collapsed. Its collapse was colossal. (Matthew 7: 24-27)