"Why not?" the bearded one answered. "If the price is right."
"I'll pay you whatever you ask," replied the clean-shaven one. "There is only one condition. I want the beard to remain on YOUR face. I will care for it. I will trim it, brush it, perfume it. The beard will be on your face, but I will own it completely."
His friend was surprised but had no objection. So the clean-shaven fellow bought the beard on his fellow merchant's face. And he kept his word about caring for the beard. At any hour of the day or night, he might walk into his friend's shop or home and start grooming his beard--on the other man's face. Sometimes he would pull at the beard roughly with an extra fine comb. At other times he would coat it with heavy and sometimes unpleasant perfumes. No matter how busy the bearded man might be, the clean-shaven one would exercize his right to care for his beard. Whenever his friend would protest he would retort calmly, "It is my beard. I will do with it as I please."
Very soon this constant grooming became more than the bearded merchant could stand. "I can't bear this any longer," he cried. "I am going to have my beard shaved off."
The clean-shaven one replied sharply, "You mean MY beard. If you do I will sue. We have a contract."
Finally the bearded merchant said, "All right. You win. I want to buy back my beard. How much will you take?"
"Oh," replied the clean-shaven one, "I have grown very fond of MY beard. It will hurt me to part with it. But I guess if you pay me four times what I bought it for, I will let it go."
The poor bearded man howled, but considering what he had been through, he agreed to pay his friend four times what he had received for the beard. Then he had his beard shaved off. He had lost his money and his beard, but he had learned a lesson--about hasty transactions and painful losses.
Jesus once said, "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, `This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand men to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?" (RSV) In other words, Jesus was saying, "Avoid hasty transactions and painful losses. Sit down and think through the consequences of your actions." Or as we would say today, "Look before you leap."
Somewhere I read about a town in Michigan that spent $50,000 on new flagpoles. Fine. Flagpoles are great. But then they ran out of money. They could not afford flags to put on their new poles. Is there anything more useless than a flagpole without a flag? Hasty transactions and painful losses. Counting the cost before building the tower.
JESUS WANTED PEOPLE TO GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO THE CONDUCT OF THEIR LIVES.
In 1974 the government of Nigeria decided to bring their country at a single leap into line with most developed Western nations. The planners calculated that to build the new roads, airfields, and military buildings which the plan required would call for some 20 million tons of cement. This was duly ordered and shipped by freighters from all over the world, to be unloaded onto the docks at Lagos, Nigeria. Twenty million tons of cement. Unfortunately, the Nigerian planners had not considered the fact that the docks at Lagos were only capable of handling two thousand tons a day. Working every day, it would have taken twenty-seven years to unload the ships that were at one point waiting at sea off Lagos. These contained a third of the world's supply of cement--much of it showing its fine quality by setting solid in the holds of the freighters. Hasty transactions--painful losses. Poor planning--disastrous results. Building a tower before counting the cost.
It happens all the time. Most of us have been guilty at sometime or another. Of course, some people never learn--even from their losses. Do you know the story of the two hunters who flew deep into remote Canada in search of elk? When they started back home, their pilot, seeing that they had bagged six elk, told them the plane could carry only four out. The hunters protested, "The plane that carried us out last year was exactly like this one. The horsepower was the same, the weather was similar, and we had six elk then." Hearing this, the pilot reluctantly agreed to try. They loaded up and took off. Unfortunately the plane did not have sufficient power to climb out of the valley with all that weight, so they crashed. As they stumbled from the wreckage, one hunter asked the other if he knew where they were. "Well, I'm not sure," replied the second hunter, "but I think we are about two miles from where we crashed last year."
Some people are hopeless. They never learn. But you and I are smarter than that. We can learn from past experiences. We can sit down, think things out and come to some logical conclusions. That is all Jesus is asking out of us. Some people think of Christianity as being primarily an emotional experience. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Christ wants us to think things through. He wants us to count the cost.
THE AMAZING THING IS HOW FEW PEOPLE WANT TO THINK ABOUT THE THINGS THAT MATTER MOST.
Surely he would not have made that terrible mistake if he had thought through the consequences. Think how many tragedies would be avoided if people simply sat down a few moments and thought through the consequences of their actions. Think how many homes would still be intact, think how many prisons would be empty, think how many lives would be spared if folks would just think!
Psychologists tell us that about 10,000 thoughts pass through the human brain each day. That makes 70,000 each week and 3.65 million thoughts a year. One or two of them ought to take!
Sir Isaac Newton was once asked how he discovered the Law of Gravity. "By thinking about it," he answered.
As one cynic said, "Use your brain. It's the little things that count." Use your brain. Instead we settle for hasty transactions and painful losses.
I believe it was Dwight L. Moody who once said that if he could get someone to think only ten minutes about the condition of his soul, he could convert him. The trouble is that most of us refuse to think about the things that really matter most.
THIS BRINGS US TO THE FINAL THING TO BE SAID: THE MOST IMPORTANT THOUGHT WE CAN HAVE CONCERNS OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
And why not? People all the time are committing themselves to matters of far less importance. I read recently that of the 70,000 members registered with the Screen Actors Guild, 80% earn less than $5,000 per year. Remember that if any of you are star-struck and ready to head for Hollywood. Only 3% earn more than $50,000 a year. Yet many of these professional actors will tell you that acting is their life. Why do they do it? Evidently it is not the money. Then why?
One of our leading professional athletes startled many of us when he said recently that he does 1,000 sit-ups a day. How could anybody be that dedicated to a game?
We hear about business people who work 60, 70, even 80 hour weeks, neglecting their health and their families in their service of the god of success. Why, then, should we be surprised that Christ would ask as much?
He asks even more. He asks for it all. That doesn't mean we live at the church. No. The call to renounce everything is not a call to everyone to become a full-time churchman. It is a call to make our entire life--our work, our play, our family relationships, everything--pleasing in God's sight. The ironic thing is that when we renounce everything for Christ's sake, we find that we are the winners. No hasty transaction--no painful loss. We find that in pleasing God, we ultimately please ourselves. Because God's way leads to life.
Many years ago a young couple had their first child, a boy. As the boy began to grow, they noticed that he had musical talent. He could play the violin. So they began to try and find the best teacher for him they could find. They were told about an old Swiss maestro who used to teach but had retired. They decided to try anyway and took their boy to him. When he heard the boy play he realized his ability and decided to teach him. The boy was just eight years old. For ten years his teacher worked with him every day. Then came time for his debut. His parents booked Carnegie Hall. The press and all the important people came. The lights dimmed and the boy came out on stage. From the very first note he held the crowd mesmerized until the end. When he finished, the people stood to their feet and filled the hall with cheers and applause. Yet the boy ran off the stage crying. The stage manager yelled, "Get back out there. They love you. They are all cheering and clapping." The boy replied, "There is one who is not." The manager ran out on stage and came back and said, "O. K., one old man is not applauding. You can't worry about what one old man thinks when the world loves you." The boy replied, "But you don't understand, That's my teacher."
The world may think of us as a success, but if sometime in our life we have not thought out that one thing in our life that matters most--whether our life is pleasing to God--our life is a hasty transaction and a painful loss.
All Christ asks is for you to use your brain. You can save yourself a lot of problems by thinking through the consequences of your behavior. Be smart. Lose your life and save it.
