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Episode 4 (Speak)
The Entrepreneurial Lordship
Opening – Good Day everyone. In my last Episode 3, I spoke about building the field in social entrepreneurship and gave a live example of Ashoka organization created by a person name Bill Drayton in 1981 and the social impact he has created. Today Episode 4 titled “The Entrepreneurial Lordship”.
Every domain of industry has its own set of expertise, skilled labour and services. Each business organization is built according to its core expertise. For a bigger organization, its vision, missions and objectives, and strategies, will generally drive the expertise of the leadership to lord over the industry concerned for a bigger market share. For example International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Hewlett Packard (HP) are famous and strong organizations which offer market leading computer systems and services to enterprise sized computer-user organizations. These examples are American multinational computer and technology companies with a start-Oup history dating back to 1911 and 1939 respectively.
In a similar way, through the divine power of His entrepreneurial spirit, God initiated the unprecedented “start-up” of the world according to His prerogative will. By His supreme authority of Lordship, He will lord over all of his initiatives of the Six Days creation. Being the “First Entrepreneur” in the universe, He bears full responsibility and accountability by faith that all things shall turn to Him in good order and reverence in the council of the Trinity. As God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresence, His divine entrepreneurship controls the entire world construction and overrides the need of common good.
The Torah (“Pentateuch” in Greek) tells of the wisdom and love that drove God’s divine entrepreneurial process towards the benefits for the man and woman, created in His own image. In His holiness and pureness, He is responsible for leading all mankind to the salvation delivered by His Word. He lords over and provides all of the well-being for his created people and everything else in His creation. Throughout the ancient “His-story” found in Torah, the Living Entrepreneurial Lord is compassionate and merciful. The working out of His salvation through His Word is the core service of His business offering as an entrepreneur. In His power of Entrepreneurial Lordship, He provides, He chooses, He appoints, and He delegates what and whom He wishes. Adam and Eve were provided with the Garden of Eden to watch over. He chose Noah to lead and restart the human civilization after sending the Great Flood to destroy all of the rebellious. He chose Abraham to lead his people to the world to priesthood. He delegated Moses the task of Exodus for redemption. In His glory, His Entrepreneurial Lordship progresses unceasingly till these days.
In addition, under His Entrepreneurial Lordship, God commands the practice of gleaning in His holiness. This commandment of gleaning reflects God’s desire for people of means to create opportunities for the poor and marginalized to be productive and contribute to their own well-being. Gleaning creates a type of safety net of livelihood for those who are in need. People in His created image are taught to imitate His providence of grace. In the Old Testament times, the Hebrews were given the Law of Gleaning to observe diligently (Lev. 19:9-10, 23:22; Deut. 24:19-22). The gleaning law or system in Leviticus placed an obligation on the land owners in the agrarian society to ensure that marginalised people, especially the widows, orphans, and foreigners, had opportunity to work for a living as well in that community. It was a mandated command instituted by Yahweh, the God of Hebrew during the Exodus period of Hebrew people. God instituted this command as a social responsibility of each Hebrew people to provide for the needy, thus imitating Yahweh’s provision in the wilderness during the journey of Exodus.
Figure 3 – Field Gleaning by the Marginalised and Poor
In the book of Ruth, the margins of harvest (Ruth 2:19, 17:23) has clearly shown the obligation of the landowner Boaz to provide for the needy. Boaz clearly understood his obligation in this situation and therefore embraced it fully. After hearing about the background and plight of Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi (Ruth 2:5-6) from his farm manager, not only did Boaz allow Ruth to gather the margins of the harvest, but his compassion and mercy towards Ruth and Naomi were extra ordinary. He told his servants of the harvest field not to mistreat Ruth while she was gathering the margins of the harvest. From God’s working in the heart of Boaz, the prophecy of the coming of Christ was fulfilled. God blessed Boaz with the inheritance of genealogical linage of the heavenly divine Redeemer.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul also strongly emphasized this Law of Gleaning in 1 Cor. 9:9-10, “For it is written in the Law of Moses: ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.’ Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the ploughman ploughs and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.” Paul promoted this practice to the Corinthian church which was then facing a crisis with disunity, lack of compassion, selfishness and greed among that Christian community. He used the ox and threshing floor analogy to strike hard into the status-divide within the Corinthian church. He reminded the Corinthian church believers of the command and obligation instituted by Yahweh in the Old Testament times, questioning them if they considered themselves as true Disciples of Christ? To bring the analogy of the ox and threshing floor in a closer analogy, it is not too much for any employer to provide some snacks and coffee during the break time in the workplace. Or orchard farm workers could be given the left-over fruits or vegetables from the packed consignments for export. There is not only no wastage, but this also motivates the employees to serve the business owners much more out of appreciation.
In this modern business world, the emphasis of no wastage whatsoever is to maximize company’s profitability. As a Christian entrepreneur, how can this “Law of Gleaning” and “no wastage” be reconciled? A careful look into the ancient Hebrew culture show that there was no wastage actually. The needy would simply pick up the remainder margins of harvest left behind by the landowner’s primary harvesters. In the modern business context, the practice of and attention to recycling gives rise to employment opportunities as recyclers. The recyclers would pick up the left-over margins for example food waste and turn them into the tangible products of fuel for mechanized machines or fertiliser for agricultural cultivation. This results in an economic balance, essential in the outworking of God’s purpose in this world of entrepreneurship. Therefore, such a Law of Gleaning should not be disrupted or hijacked by the greedy.
Gleaning is classified as an expression of compassion or justice according to the Levitical law, and allowing others to glean on properties is the fruit of holiness and grace because God says, “I am the Lord your God.” (Lev.19:10) Therefore, this expression of freedom to glean highlights the distinction between charity and gleaning. In charity, people voluntarily give to others who are in need. This is a good and noble thing to do in the eyes of the public, but it is not what Leviticus is talking about. Gleaning is the process where landowner (or entrepreneur for that matter) has the obligation to provide the poor and marginalised people with access to the means of making a livelihood in the land of a communal society. The Law of Gleaning cannot be underestimated as a little economic dynamite can churn into a bigger scale of economic balance. (Luke 13:18-20, “Then Jesus asked, ‘What is the Kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches. Again, he asked, ‘What shall I compare the Kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.’”)
This holds a powerful lesson to help guide modern businesses to have solidarity with the poor and marginalised. The research of Bruce Baker together with his graduate student Rachel Battershell, in Social and Sustainable Management at Seattle Pacific University, developed six distinct characteristics:
1. Sustainability for business, profits, market and society;
2. Experiential links with the poor;
3. Enhancement of human dignity;
4. Disruption of the cycle of poverty;
5. Grace-infused economy (caritas) and
6. Revelation of transformational power (transformation mundi).
After implementation of these characteristics, the employees of the organization will naturally find meaning in their workplace. The wage earners will find their workplace conducive for development not only in their livelihoods, but also in their self-esteem. They will discover their own status as co-workers with the entrepreneurs when being so cared for and not short changed at all. Therefore, they will be more motivated to gladly serve their master and hold no grudges. They will be proud to be associated with their workplace or organization and be committed to long-term employment. With this in place, an organization will surely stay healthy, having loyal employees to achieve its vision and goals. This in turn will give an impact to the communal society, where the relationship between the organization and employees is courteous and respectful. It is a win-win situation.
In the larger perspective, the grace infusion of the gleaning practice may also provide some help in balancing the domestic economy where everyone has equal share of any production excesses. This results a real transformation of humanitarian society to sharing and caring even in the smallest things.
Ending - Thank You for listening and please stay tuned with us in my next Episode.
Discussion Questions