Different parts of a journey are approached differently. Different phases of a process require different actions. If you use a map to travel across the plains, you wouldn't use the same map to cross the mountains. Different terrain, different map. When it's time to harvest, a farmer would not use the planting routine to harvest the crops. You plant one way and harvest another.
When Marshall Goldsmith wrote the book, What Got You Here a Won't Get You There, he applied this same understanding to career advancement. He explained that the processes people employ for making it as a worker in the working world do not apply to positions of management. This was not Goldsmith's way to brand managers as non-workers. Rather, it was an acknowledgment that the worker and the manager have different jobs; different uses of their time, different objectives; different tools.
In short, the book's title.
The book was aimed at people who either are in, or aspire to, management. It lays out a map, if you will, of milestones such persons must achieve. It explains that some of the old must give way to the new; that if not, the person will not succeed on this new journey.
The Hebrews selection in this week's Lectionary scripture addresses a similar situation faced by those who desire a relationship with God. The Hebrew writer succinctly sums up much of what Jesus tried to communicate to Israel's leaders; the Priests, scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law.
“The old plan was only a hint of the good things in the new plan. Since that old “law plan” wasn’t complete in itself, it couldn’t complete those who followed it. No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution. If they had, the worshipers would have gone merrily on their way, no longer dragged down by their sins. But instead of removing awareness of sin, when those animal sacrifices were repeated over and over they actually heightened awareness and guilt. The plain fact is that bull and goat blood can’t get rid of sin.
"That is what is meant by this prophecy, put in the mouth of Christ: You don’t want sacrifices and offerings year after year; you’ve prepared a body for me for a sacrifice. It’s not fragrance and smoke from the altar that whet your appetite. So I said, “I’m here to do it your way, O God, the way it’s described in your Book.” When he said, “You don’t want sacrifices and offerings,” he was referring to practices according to the old plan. When he added, “I’m here to do it your way,” he set aside the first in order to enact the new plan— God’s way—by which we are made fit for God by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus.”
(Hebrews 10:1-10 MSG. http://bible.com/97/heb.10.1-10.msg)
The old way, the way they clung to, was no longer viable. They would have to change if they wanted to be one of God's people. What had brought them to that point— the Law —could not get them any further. Jesus came in the fullness of time to fulfill the Law. It was done.
It's as if Jesus was telling them: what got you here won't get you there.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/
Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 20, 2015)
Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
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