Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-03-21-usccb-year-b-mass-readings
Fifth Sunday of Lent – March 21, 2021
Welcome to the one hundred and fifty-sixth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. (Year B) When my husband was young, his grandmother would take him golfing. They had their own set of rules that governed their game. One was that any putt that was within three feet of the hole was considered a “gimme” and assumed would go in. So, instead of actually trying to sink the putt, they’d just pick up the ball and move on to the next hole.
Living by the Rules
When my husband joined the golf team and tried to exercise the “gimme” rule, he was scolded with “Hey, what the heck are you doing?” He had no idea his grandmother’s version of the rules weren’t acceptable in the real game of golf with “real” golfers.
That’s how it goes with all forms of athletics. You might enjoy the game, but when you play according to your own rules, you’re not really playing to master the game, nor will you be accepted by those who do. When you play by your own rules, you’re cheating yourself out of the chance to become a better player.
This is true of any organization, club, team, or business and it is true of life. There are certain things you are expected to do and others that are unacceptable. There are rules that govern any association of athletes, musicians, hobbyists, citizens, and people in a business. And in any organization, club, team or business, there are those who accept and live by the rules and those who think they are unimportant.
I’ve seen this over and over in organizations where the core values, which should be non-negotiable, are dismissed as unimportant. That’s because the people haven’t embraced them as their own. They don’t “own their core values.”
Own Your Values
What does owning core values mean? On an individual basis, owning core values starts with clarifying what is most important to you, by searching the law that has been written upon your heart. (Jer 31:33) When seeking employment, you look for a company that values what you value. You expend the time and energy to find a good fit. You have the courage to stick to your convictions, going against conventional wisdom if necessary. You don’t compromise on your personal values when making decisions about your professional life.
Several of the CEOs highlighted in my book, The Value of Core Values, started their own companies precisely because their personal values strongly conflicted with the values of the organizations they worked for. Their individual values motivated and empowered them to found and lead companies with well-developed organizational core values.
Values at Work
One of these leaders was Roy Hellwege. Roy started his career in the leadership training program of a bank that had $3.5 billion in assets. Twenty-three years later it had assets of $117 billion, and he was president of their Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg operations. It was a great situation and he planned to stay there until retirement. But then some things happened that took Roy’s career in a different direction. Here’s how he told his story:
I was troubled by the way the bank had changed. To compete with the larger banks, we started centralizing everything. We became more bureaucratic and impersonal. So, when someone approached me about becoming president of another bank, I accepted.
That was a mistake. It soon became obvious that the values and the moral standards I had grown up with really weren’t prevalent in that bank. Management took a lot of shortcuts. Making the deal was everything; people were secondary. Ultimately the CEO and I didn’t see eye to eye, so I ended up leaving.
While I was figuring out what to do next, the CEO of another bank asked me to become its president. I said OK, and for a while that worked out well. The bank was prospering. But only eighteen months into the job, I received a phone call from the audit department informing me that the CEO who had hired me had been terminated by the board of directors for questionable behavior.
That caused me to do some soul searching. What was wrong with my decision-making process that caused me to keep going into these bad situations? About this time, I was invited to join a small group of CEOs who got together monthly to talk about business issues from a Biblical perspective. I’d always thought there should be a separation between church and the workplace, but as I participated in this group, I began to see the need to integrate my personal and professional values.
Today, Roy Hellwege is CEO of Pilot Bank in Tampa, an organization that is founded on the principles and values that he personally owns and honors.
Values Written on Our Hearts
In our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” (Jer 31:31) “It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors… for they broke my covenant.” (Jer 31:32) But this covenant, “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer 31:33)
When our values are written in our hearts, they are our guiding principles in all areas of our lives. There is no separation between our faith and the workplace, they are integrated in all aspects of our lives.
Valuing the Wrong Things
Oftentimes, we discover that those things we value, are not the things that lead to long-term success. Like the Israelites, we worship idols of this world instead of our eternal God. We exchange short-term gratification for eternal life. In our places of business, we exchange maximizing profitability for doing the right thing. When we are put in tough situations, we take the easier road instead of the moral one.
Or not. When we own our values, when they are written in our hearts, all our difficult decisions are easy. Listen to Jesus in this week’s Gospel. As he was approaching his passion, he said, “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” (Jn 12:27) When God’s law is written in your heart, like Jesus, you can’t imagine making a different choice than doing the Father’s will. The difficult choice becomes easy.
Practice, Practice, Practice
But we’re not Jesus, and so we struggle with the concept of dying to self. We struggle with hating the things of this world that will keep us from eternal life. We justify the idea that perhaps we can have both. We toy with the idea that a little pleasure, honor, power, or wealth isn’t bad. And of themselves, they aren’t necessarily bad, unless and until they become what we seek more than anything else in this life… an ultimate end.
Alternatively, if these worldly goals are used for another greater purpose of helping ourselves and others reach the ultimate end of eternal life, then we may have our priorities in the right order. But that is a daily struggle.
Whatever group you join has a set of rules to live by. As members of the human race, we have the rules given us in the New Covenant, by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like my husband and his grandmother, we may want to play the game by our own rules because it is more fun that way, but you’re only cheating yourself out of the work it takes to become better. It is a daily struggle to do that work. Just ask any athlete or musician who puts hours every day into practicing their sport or their instrument. But it is only through this daily struggle that they, and we, can achieve greatness.
Die to Self
It is a daily struggle to die to self. But dying to self is the hard work that makes us a better version of ourselves and allows us to fulfill the purpose for which we have been created, as Matthew Kelly says, to become “the best-version-of-ourselves.” Anyone who tells you differently isn’t speaking the truth. Jesus said, “Whoever serves me must follow me.” (Jn 12:26) In this life, following him means picking up our cross, and like in golf, there are no “gimmes.”
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have created us uniquely with a specific purpose that you want to use us in your plan of salvation. We know that to fulfill your purpose, we must die to our own desires. Help us to die to ourselves daily. It is not always easy to do. We need your grace through the power of the Holy Spirit to seek not our own will, but yours, by following the law that you have written upon our hearts. We give you our hearts, Father, so that like Jesus, we may also glorify your name.
May God bless you abundantly this week as you die to yourself so that you may glorify the Lord by your life.
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