CBA not CBD

Doing the cost benefit analysis to follow Jesus

03/01/2022

Mk 10:28-31 Peter began to say to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Do you know what a “cost benefit analysis” is, or a “CBA” (not a CBD)? It is what Fr. Daniel and I witness every episode of Shark Tank. A hopeful entrepreneur stands on the famous carpet of Shark Tank, makes their pitch for their product, and tries to get one of the sharks to bite. The sharks, meanwhile, are conducting a CBA in their minds, a cost-benefit analysis. They are evaluating and weighing the pros and cons of investing in this product. Only if a shark believes the benefits outweigh the costs will he or she "bite" and make an offer to invest in the product or person. Cost-benefit analysis is the bread and butter of the business world.

But I would suggest to you a CBA is also the bread and butter of Christianity. Two famous spiritual sharks were C. S. Lewis and Blaise Pascal, and each man conducted his own CBA about investing in the Christian faith. C. S. Lewis said this in his memorable essay, “The Weight of Glory,” “For it must be true, as an old writer says, that he who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.” In other words, for Lewis when the benefit is God, it out-weights all costs, and even out-weights all other benefits.

Blaise Pascal, in the 17th century philosopher and mathematician, proposed his famous “wager” which was his own version of the CBA. He conceived of Christianity like a coin toss. We have a fifty-fifty chance about whether God exists. One side of the coin means God exists and therefore we have hope of infinite glory, while the other side of the coin means God does not exist and so we can only achieve finite (limited) happiness on earth. So, why not wager (or invest) in the fifty percent chance that God does exist and choose eternal happiness? In the end, both Lewis and Pascal were conducting a CBA, just like on Shark Tank, but their stakes were spiritual and infinitely higher.

In the gospel today we see St. Peter is not only a good fisherman, he is also a shrewd businessman, a sort of spiritual shark. He says to Jesus, “We have given-up everything and followed you.” St. Peter was doing his own CBA about being a Christian, like C. S. Lewis and Blaise Pascal. And Jesus sort of finds himself on the famous “carpet” and makes his pitch to Peter, saying: “There is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more in this present age…and eternal life in the age to come.” In other words, Peter, do the math. Conduct a little cost-benefit analysis and you will quickly see that following me has infinite benefits that cannot compare to the finite sacrifices (costs) you have to bear today. St. Peter was learning about the bread and butter of the spiritual life.

Today is Fat Tuesday and tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, so we are perfectly poised to do our own CBA o the spiritual life. How so? Well, today we will pig out on all the world has to offer: food, friends and frolic, and hopefully not go overboard, like they do in some places where the football team wears purple and gold, and people have too much CBD. And tomorrow we will calculate the cost of Christian discipleship. On Ash Wednesday we receive our ashes by going to church, we fast from food, and we abstain from meat.

Like St. Peter we may feel like asking: why give up all this and make all these sacrifices? Well, do the math, like Jesus and C. S. Lewis and Blaise Pascal. That is, be a shark about the spiritual life and you will quickly see that the benefits far, far out-weigh the costs. As we go through the forty days of Lent, indeed, as we go through the rest of our lives, remember the words of another spiritual shark, St. Paul, who write in Rm 8:18: “I consider that the suffering of this present time as nothing compared to the glory to be revealed for us.” That’s some good CBA, not CBD.

Praised be Jesus Christ!