They say that the only constant is change. Yet, change is one of the most difficult things each of us faces in our lives. In this edition of By Your Life, we’ll talk about changing the way we change.

Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/2019/19_05_19.mp3

Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 19, 2019

Happy Easter Season and welcome to the sixtieth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I want to thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please sign up for notifications on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, wherever you listen, or on the right side of the page so I can let you know when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend, if you think they would benefit from 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 Easter. What stood out to me in the readings was the theme of new things. I like new things. I just had a birthday and was blessed with many new things, including a Cuisinart toaster/convection/conventional/air-fryer oven. There are many new features in this appliance that are really neat if I could only figure out how to use them without burning things. It doesn’t work like my old toaster oven and that is a little frustrating, but it is also why I was excited to get it the first place. I liked the possibilities the new oven offered.

The thing is, I have to change if I want to take advantage of the new oven. I have to adjust my approach if I’m going to benefit from options it offers. I have to learn how to use it if I’m ever going to experience the advantages of the new features.

I share this because most of us want the new and improved, we just don’t like the process of change we have to go through to get there.  Think about losing weight. We want the new and improved, slimmer and healthier person we become, we just don’t like the process of diet and exercise that it takes to get there. Or, what about when you get a new phone. My father-in-law just got his first smartphone and not only is it a pain for him to just figure out how to set it up so he can do what he did with his old phone, like make a call, there is an abundance of features and benefits that are waiting for him, but he has to learn what they are and how to use them if he’s ever going to take advantage of them.

The same is true at work. Anyone who has ever gone through a major software implementation—or even a minor upgrade for that matter—knows how difficult the process of change is. Or, what about moving offices, implementing a reorganization, or changing the company’s culture.

I work with organizations that want to create winning cultures. Some succeed, others don’t. The difference between the two is whether they persevere through the challenges of change. And, the reason some are able to persevere, and others don’t, is because they have a vision of the new and improved and they know it is worth pursuing.

If you search Amazon.com there are over 90,000 results for books about change. There are certifications for Change Management Certified Professionals. You can get a master’s degree in organizational change. If change were easy, this field of study wouldn’t exist, let alone be as expansive as it is.

Paul and Barnabas are great examples to us for implementing change, for there is nothing of greater importance than the Good News which they preached but it came with a requirement for change—to repent and believe in the Gospel. Knowing this, the first reading tells us “They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, ‘It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God’.” (Acts 14:22) Paul and Barnabas acknowledge that anything worth having is worth suffering for. So, they strengthened the disciples. They encouraged them. They appreciate them for hanging in there. And, they remind them of the vision, the purpose that is worth the fight. The end game is to enter the kingdom of God.

You have to keep your eyes on the “why” if you are going to persevere through the pain because obstacles are real. They exist. They will rear their ugly heads and trip you up along the way. You should plan for them because you can’t escape from them. As Paul said, they are a “necessary” part of our growth.

As I was preparing this week’s episode, I wondered who gets credit for the quote “Anything worth having is worth fighting for!” and according to Google, it is a romance novelist named Susan Elizabeth Phillips. But you’ll also find a similar quote from Theodore Roosevelt who said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

Then, there is J. R. R. Tolkien who wrote, “There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”; or G. K. Chesterton who said, “You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it.”; or Grover Cleveland who declared, “A cause worth fighting for is worth fighting for to the end.”; and General Norman Schwarzkopf who said, “Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.” I’m sure you’ve even heard similar wisdom from your grandmother too.

But I also found a blog where the author turned the quote around and said, “Whatever you don’t value, you won’t fight to keep.” And therein lies the core of the matter; what do you value? What is worth fighting for? What is worth all the suffering? For what are you willing to pay the price?

Those of us who work for a living can be tempted to draw a line that separates our work lives from our faith lives. Modern culture almost demands it of us. But do you value being accepted by modern culture more than you value living the Gospel? As I pose that question, it sounds as if they are mutually exclusive propositions when in fact, they are not. Again, we can look to Paul and Barnabas as examples. “They called the church together and reported what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.” (Acts 14:27) We all live and work among modern day “Gentiles.” God is calling us to open the door to them by our lives.

This separation of work and faith is expanded when we hold a view that separates heaven and earth. I often hear people say, and I have said myself, “When I get to heaven…” as if heaven is something that has dimensions of space and time. But John, in the second reading from the Book of Revelation tells us this is not the case. He wrote, “Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Rev 21:1) and continued, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God.” (Rev 21:3)

In his homily for this Sunday’s readings, Bishop Barron continued his explanation of the Book of Revelation. He said, “Christianity is not a Platonic system. We do not hold to the supreme value of escaping from the world of matter and physicality in order to get to a higher world.” Instead, God’s realm comes down to us, the Bride, who through Christ are able to be united with Him, here, now!

But for most of us, the heaven we hope for is not what we experience in our places of work! This idea that we are not going to escape from this reality to something more wonderful than we can possibly imagine, is depressing! But it is not depressing, as Bishop Barron continued to explain, because “God made everything and saw it was good, very good. God has no intention of giving up on his creation. Whatever destruction is involved, from Noah’s flood to the Book of Revelation, is meant for cleansing and renewal.”

So again, as St. Paul wrote, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22) Destroying the old way is necessary for our cleansing and renewal. Change is hard, but if we don’t change, we don’t improve. If we don’t repent, we are still hanging on to the old and will never see the new.

One of my clients, who was working diligently to change his company’s culture, told me about an employee who argued that their company core values were meaningless because he witnessed a lot of behavior that violated them. So, he decided that he wasn’t going to attend one of their departmental core values meetings. Although this employee’s criticisms were valid, what he didn’t realize was that he was just as guilty by his own behavior. By not being part of the solution, he was part of the problem. He was holding on to the old, instead of creating the new.

This example is quite common, and I see it wherever I’m working to help clients cultivate change. The attitude is “We want to see the change, but we’re going to wait until everyone else goes first!” Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

So, what’s the solution? Well, certainly the place to start is by looking in the mirror. And then, because we know our human limitations, look to heaven for God said, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev 21:5) We just need to be open to allowing Him to make us new.

One more new thing to consider…

In our Gospel from John, Jesus said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. (Jn 13:34) But what was so new about that? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” goes back to the Book of Leviticus. (Lev 19:18) What is new is the clarification of his example. “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn 13:34)

Before Jesus, the concept of love was limited to imperfect, human, sinful, or conditional love. Loving another as yourself is limited to our self-love. We don’t always love ourselves, nor do we consider ourselves deserving of God’s love. But, Christ made all things new. Jesus modeled agape—unconditional, complete and total giving of oneself. Even in our worst, God never stops loving us, and this is how we are to love others.

Now, let’s take that to work this week!

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to descend on us, heal us, mold us, fill us, and use us to make our places of work a little more heavenly. May God bless you abundantly this week and may you glorify the Lord by your life. Amen.

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