Da Boss

The Good News for the Day, August 25, 2022

Thursday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time (428

The Gospel

Jesus says to his followers: “Wake up and stay awake! You never know the day nor hour when your boss will show up.

Are You Awake Listening

You can be sure of this: if some head of a household would have found out the hour of the night when a burglar was going to come, he would stay awake and not let the house be broken into.

You, too, must stay alert—at some instant when you’re not expecting it—This Human Child will come.

The Awake Employee

Who is that loyal, competent employee, the one a boss puts in charge of the entire company? The one who will distribute to employees their wages at the proper time? What a benefit that person gets—that employee—the one the boss finds ready on showing up!

The truth is—the boss will put that fine employee over the whole business.

The non-Awake Employee

If, though, some bad employee starts thinking: ‘’My boss has not been to work for too long—and begins to treat fellow employees badly, and to eat and drink with drinking buddies, that employee’s boss will come some unexpected day and at a surprising hour and will deliver a severe punishment. The boss will relegate that employee to some place with other phonies where you will feel regret.” (Matthew 24)

Reflections of the  Words of Jesus

God gives our world as a gift – but also as a responsibility. Jesus uses the example of the employee doing his job.

Jobs are Gifts and Responsibility

As a gift, a job offers an opportunity to “do our thing,” to create and contribute to society and the future. As a responsibility, a job has its elements of drudgery, boredom, and drawbacks.

Perhaps we could also think of giving a pet to a child as a gift and the responsibility of caring for it.  Perhaps a more vivid example is the “gift” given in popular movies to Mutants and X-men. They help others but feel the odd one out, the alien, the strange and different person. The job of living is simply the gift of our life – both a gift and the responsibility.

God, Your Parent, Spouse & BOSS

Once in a while we become aware that we can view God and see the role God plays in our life in many ways. God is fatherly and motherly. God is a spouse. God is a boss.

Often this variety of ways reminds us of our own many dimensions. Like a parent, God loves you unconditionally and forgives you readily. So much like a spouse, God has become permanently part of our lives, beside us waking and sleeping. And finally, God is also a boss who, having given you and me many gifts, expects us to accept the responsibility to use them.

Expecting the Good Employee

And there is a certain expectation expressed in the Ten Commandments, for example, that we will love one another, respect and help them.

We feel this yoke of responsibility shared with Jesus. It is the Good news, this sharing.

The Importance Here

Perhaps the truly important thing that Jesus is stressing is to be child, spouse and EMPLOYEE of God.  Not to take any of this to an extreme—as, sadly, some threads of people following Jesus do.

Because you are a child of God, you have unlimited freedom, God is so absolutely loving. It is an extreme. God is your Spouse, and so you are loved in this mutual commitment.  Or: you are an employee working away with your gifts, only lightly aware at work, family, and play that these involve responsibility. And sometimes one of these becomes lopsided and we narrow God into only one role.

Extremism is a big word these days, whether in politics or religion. Each side criticizes the other for being “extreme.” Extremism is to stretch any one of these into an ideology, an absolute that omits seeing God in so many ways.

It is the Good news of the gospel here. You and I are reminded of our responsibility to live our life using the talents and gifts given us by God – and not go to the extremes suggested in this Gospel passage of ignoring , denying or evading responsibility.