If you'd like you can meander through a bit of history she and I shared with each other a couple of days after the Church Council – some of it personal, others of it scriptural; some of it temporal, much of it spiritual.
Back in the early 1980s an ex-public servant, Kara Puketapu, joined forces with the intuitive arch-strategist, Sir Graham Latimer, and floated a limited liability company called Maori International Ltd. Initially they offered a million dollars of shares to Maori only. When that was under-suscribed by 90% they re-jigged their original business plans and went for it anyway. The company’s never really hit the big time but it’s survived, thank you very much.
I was one of the original investors with $500 – a fortune back then. Anyway I’ve had a small and tidy return on that investment over the decades, but even if I’d never got a cent back I would feel OK about it because I never expected the company to last out the year let alone this long. My $500 was earnest money in the old-fashioned sense. It was about Maori solidarity and it showed I believed in the worthiness of the concept regardless of its chances of success. So to get a return on my investment and know that the principal is still intact has been a bonus.
Recent events have caused me to ponder this principle of R.O.I. which is almost universal in the world of commerce. It’s an honourable principle, but I’ve tried to imagine where mankind would be if it were applied by Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father in their dealings with us.
Here’s a scenario? I’m in a deep pit of my own making with no way out. What do I do? Shout my head off for a start, hoping someone hears me. Along comes that someone and, glory be, he has a ladder long enough to get me out. But what’s this? My might-be rescuer wants me to promise that after I climb his ladder out of the pit I will go with him to the nearest ATM, withdraw from my bank account twice the dollar value of his ladder and give the money to him. In fact he insists I show him I have an eftpos card before he will even so much as lower the ladder.
The latter part of the scenario is the R.O.I. principle in crude action. But the front part, right up to the arrival of the ladder-man on the edge of the pit, is a similitude of humanity’s dilemma between the time of The Fall and that of The Atonement.
Amongst the several consequences of The Fall, the most severe, even more than the introduction of mortality, was humanity’s eviction from the presence of God. Its severity was to be found in the irrefutable fact that we were completely without any means to get ourselves back into His presence. Adam’s and Eve’s transgression, as it were, put us in the pit.
I mention them both here, even though the scriptural record at times singles out either Eve (1 Timothy 2:14) or Adam (Romans 5:12). It was Eve who first understood they had to break God’s second commandment (Genesis 2:17) in order to fulfil His first (Genesis 1:22). And when she explained it to Adam he also understood, then took and ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
After that Adam and Eve, knowing good from evil and no longer permitted to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, were of necessity sent out of Eden by God and into the world of mortality. Here they brought forth the bodies of God’s spirit children. Here they and we all could undergo the tests of earthly life in preparation for a greater glory in eternity (2 Nephi 2:25)
Like Eve I feel to glory in God’s Plan of Happiness for us all (Moses 5:11).
Again, like Eve, I also understand the severity of the consequences for their transgression and the mercy required to redeem us from the penalty imposed by justice (Mosiah 3:19).
Like Isaiah I stand in awe and gratitude for the unconditional mercy of Jesus Christ in redeeming us from justice’s harsh requirements (Isaiah 53:4).
Like Paul I understand that Jesus Christ’s atoning death and His subsequent resurrection guarantee resurrection and immortality to all without condition (Acts 24:15).
Like Daniel I accept that not all of us will be resurrected to eternal life and that there is a distinction between immortality and eternal life, the former being granted to all without condition, the latter attained to only on conditions of faith, repentance and righteousness (Daniel 12:2).
Like the listeners on the Mount I have heard the standards of righteousness set for all who wish to inherit eternal life with Jesus the Son and God the Father (Matthew 5:48).
And like my friend I have reason to be very grateful for the principle of repentance which permits the grace of Jesus Christ to fill the inevitable deficit between my best efforts (James 2:22) and the requirements of perfection (2 Nephi 25:23).
Imagine then if, before He would redeem us, the Saviour of mankind had insisted on an R.O.I. The thought makes me shiver because it would be impossible. So what are we to do? We are to do our very best, that’s all. The rest has already been done by Him and, although we more often than not under-subscribe to His generous terms, He still makes the investment in us. All He seeks in return is our effort – an R.O.E. Amazing isn’t it?
Faced with a choice between the Lord’s R.O.E. and Maori International’s R.O.I, which would you choose? Well, like I said I'm grateful for the R.O.I. but in the eternities it won't amount to a hill of beans. So they can keep the times and spaces - big or small. As for me and my friend, we’re trying for the option where neither time nor space will have any more meaning. I often wonder if I’ll make it, but I’m going for it anyway.
“… choose you this day whom ye will serve; …. but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” [Joshua 24:15]
