Duty or Delight

 

Luke 17:5-10

Proper 22 / Year C

In today’s reading from Luke we hear Jesus’ closest followers make an understandable request: “Increase our faith.”  It follows right after he teaches them about the need to forgive, even if a person sins against you seven times in a single day!  That is not an easy pill to swallow, so it’s no wonder they ask for help, for faith.  His response is puzzling: “When you come home after working all day in the field and your master tells you to make dinner, do your job and don’t expect any extra credit for doing it.”  Jesus, at times, says things which are difficult to grasp.  This is right up there with the toughest of them.

Somehow the key to understanding what he says here is hidden in the connection between faith and duty; a relationship which is not at all obvious.

Duty is an interesting word.  Its roots in French are tied to the word debt... to owe.  Duty as debt conjures up negative associations with words like chore, task, obligation, and burden… think of Jury Duty.  It is something you must do, but would rather not.  Who wants to work hard all day only to be told to do more work once you return home?

But duty also can refer to a higher, moral or ethical imperative.  Our country’s founders wrote often about our duty to stand up to tyranny.  A firefighter who saves a child from a burning building will tell you she was only doing her duty.   On second Tuesdays in November, we exercise our duty as citizens by going to the polls.  Connecting faith with duty in this second sense seems to make sense. 

We have some examples of merging duty related to job with duty related to higher calling.  Titles such as “Duty Nurse” and “Duty Officer” highlight how an assigned task can contain an inherent nobility.  What would it look like if you began to understand your duties – everything from your job to your household chores to your parenting/grandparenting tasks to your volunteer work – as something rooted in dignity rather than drudgery? 

Maxim Gorky, the 19^th Century Soviet author, made this observation: “When work is a pleasure, life is joy.  When work is a duty, life is slavery.”  Is it possible to transform one’s thinking about work from duty (in the lower sense of the word) to pleasure?  And if we can do this, can it help us to understand better why Jesus links faith to duty?

David Livingstone, the 19^th Century missionary and pioneer, said this in an 1857 speech to the students at Cambridge University: 

I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office.  People talk of the sacrifices I have made… Is it a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?  It is, emphatically, no sacrifice.  I say rather, it is a privilege… I never made a sacrifice.  It was not mere duty.  I was a profound delight – beyond anything the world can give.

“It was not mere duty.  It was profound delight.”  Imagine what it would feel like to experience your duties as delight?

Delight itself is such a wonderful word; one which is terribly underused in our day-to-day communications.  The dictionary defines delight as “a high degree of gratification, pleasure, satisfaction, or joy”.  Allow your thoughts to drift as you listen to these different usages:

·    The children squealed with delight.

·    The performance was a delight.

·    I read your letter with great delight.

·    To my delight, I was proved wrong.

·    It is my delight to serve you this meal.

·    It was a delight to see him so happy and relaxed.

Isn’t delight a wonderful word!  Is there anyone here this morning who wouldn’t like to experience more delight in your life?  If you take away only one thing from this sermon, join me in a personal challenge:  use the word delight in conversation or correspondence at least one time this week, or go for the gold and aim to do it once every day.

Mike Rowe, the well-known television host of Dirty Jobs and Somebody’s Got to Do It (which highlighted “unique individuals” engaged in a passionate undertaking, be it work, a hobby, or personal quest), makes this observation: “Happiness does not come from a job.  It comes from knowing what you truly value, and [then] behaving in a way that’s consistent with your beliefs.” 

He echoes what I think Jesus says to us in today’s teaching: When what you do aligns with what you value, with what you care about most, then your faith will grow because you will understand that you as a unique creation of God are doing the unique things God has created you to do.

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”  When you understand this, you will discover how your mundane tasks, in reality, are meaningful contributions.  When you make this shift you will gain deep satisfaction from all you do.  And when you believe you are participating in something bigger than yourself, you will sense your faith is growing.