Reflections
THE INCARNATION AT HARVARD: CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AT BUSINESS SCHOOL
By John Ratichek
James Reston, the influential journalist who died December 6, 1996, had the ability to reduce political complexity to plain language. “What I try to do,” he said, “is write a letter to a friend who doesn’t have time to find out all the goofy things that go on in Washington.”
I will never write as well as Reston, but there certainly are some “goofy” things that go on in the world of Harvard Business School (HBS). Two weeks ago, I received a flyer for one of the many executive opportunities offered to the alumni of HBS. It began like this: “The world is generally inhospitable to introspection. We must get to the next meeting and fulfill myriad obligations. Few of us have—yet we desperately need—some space in our lives to explore our priorities and goals. To ask ourselves if our values have shifted over time. If there is something more to be found in our lives. Something beyond the quest for the pot of gold.” It then proceeded to offer a program for those who “have the courage to ask yourself potentially life-changing questions, to order and clarify your life experience, to actively choose your own future.”
I was immediately struck by the irony of the school’s concern for reflection in HBS graduates’ lives. It stands in stark contrast to the relentless pace of the school’s academic and recruiting activities. Except for the second year course entitled Self-Assessment and Career Development, there is no encouragement of reflection. No regular or even occasional space is provided to ponder meaning and purpose. For Christians, the December crescendo of exams, papers, and recruiting practically prohibits considering the grace and genius of the nativity.
My work, simply, is to break into this madness, getting not only inside the skin of these students to know their dilemmas, but under their skin as well, with just enough irritation to prompt growth. How do you break in?
I was thinking about how the birth of Jesus broke into the Palestine and the Roman empire. I recently led a study in Isaiah 55. “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” says God. “Neither are your ways my ways.” So what was his way of breaking in? The answer is both familiar and perplexing. A powerful desert preacher baptizing for repentance from sin. A startling astronomical phenomenon attended by some obscure magi. A brilliant heavenly announcement to farmers in hill country. A helpless baby, born in an animal feed trough to working class parents. His ways are clearly not my ways. The magnificent and the mundane: the link is improbable. What does it mean?
The events of the incarnation constitute a wake-up call, a brilliantly engineered disruption of the status quo, yet understated to avoid manipulation. It rings with God’s desire to get our attention along with his respect for our free choice. At HBS, this link governs the purpose of our weekly Bible study which 8-15 people attend. It is the focus of our weekly prayer meeting. It is at the heart of our second national MBA conference. Yet each of us staff and students know that we have not yet experienced the kind of breakthrough for which we yearn. Fortunately, God doesn’t resign us simply to imitating the incarnation by ourselves, but rather, continues to break in Himself. At HBS, we keep reiterating the fact that the Spirit is already at work among the people of that school. Our job is simply to follow up the openings He is creating. We need vigor, creativity, and endurance.■
John Ratichek is Regional Director for Graduate and Faculty Ministries in
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