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The Rev. Frank
Logue
A Thankless Job Debbie Cole had what could have been a profitable day at work this past week. The 53-year old grandmother works for Pinellas County Florida’s solid waste facility and this week she found $65,000. The bag of unmarked $50s and $100s apparently fell off an armored truck from the Loomis armored transport company, which made its first stop of the day at the center where Cole works. The cash was more than she makes in two years. What everyone wants to know is did she think of keeping it? She told the Tampa Tribune, “Everybody’s asking me that,” she said. “No, the thought never entered my mind to take the money, and I don't feel it would enter anybody’s mind who works here.” Cole was not allowed to collect a reward for her honesty as she is a government employee and the reward would be viewed officially like a kick back or bribe. So she did the right thing and ended up with nothing tangible to show for it, except perhaps for her 15 minutes of fame. This week’s real life episode fits perfectly with our Gospel reading, where Jesus tells those who follow him that they are to serve with no thought to reward. Jesus said, Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table?” Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink?” Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” So when you come in from doing something for God, don’t expect a reward, only more work. It’s a wonder the crowds followed Jesus at all. But what exactly is the work of God? In what way are we to serve him? First, there is no getting around the fact that the Bible knows nothing of professional clergy serving a congregation. The Bible teaches that all Christians are ministers of the Bible by virtue of their baptism. Then as ministers, each of us has a wide variety of jobs to do in the kingdom of God based on the gifts God has given us. Here at King of Peace, we benefit from the work of a variety of ministries in the church and in the community. Every event we put on, every activity we host is done by ministers, whether I am there or not. There are many thankless tasks in this regard. The sort of jobs that people are more likely to notice if they don’t get done like cleaning the toilets and mopping the floors. You know how thankless these tasks are because you have the same issue at home. Do you get thanked every time you do the dishes? Or cut the grass? Or wash the laundry? Or make your bed? Or do your homework? Probably not. But just some time pass without doing the dishes, cutting the grassing, washing the laundry, making your bed or doing your homework and you are sure to hear about it. These are thankless tasks. The same will be true of many ministries. No one may notice what you do on behalf of the community, whether the church community, or Camden County. Much of it has to be volunteer work, because no one could pay you enough to do it. But Jesus tells us that whether we are thanked or not thanked, notice or not noticed, we are to serve anyway. And more than that, he tells us the benefit we will receive whether anyone else notices what we do at all. Jesus says that carrying out these thankless jobs of ministry will increase our faith. Notice that Jesus tells this story of the servant who does what he or she is supposed to do in response to the disciples asking for more faith. First he tells them the parable of the mustard seed and how the tiniest amount of faith is enough to accomplish great things for God. Then he goes on to describe the thankless task of serving God his Father. It is in serving God that we find our faith strengthened. You may not get thanks for what you do, but you will yourself receive the benefits of the service. And as paradoxical as it seems to get something out of getting nothing, I know that when I serve others, when I reach out in love to others, it does me a lot of good. And as this is what we are to do by virtue of our baptism, let’s look briefly at those promises made. Today, Denise Hunley will be baptized. In the words we will join her in saying, we will promise to
These are the ways we are to serve those in the world around us. There are many forms that service can take and they may seem to have little if anything to do with church. But in the ways you serve others, you are serving Christ. He said elsewhere, that whatever you do for others in need, you have done for him. I think the task is even more thankless than Jesus even lets on in this passage. Look to Jesus whole life and his death on the cross and you can see just the sort of thanks that can be given for living a perfect life. I think this was well put in the Paradoxical Commandments. These so called commandments are ten sayings written by Kent Keith when he was a sophomore at Harvard for a book for high school student leaders that was published in 1968. The commandments he wrote took on a life of their own, traveling the world to be republished in a variety of settings. Finally they came to rest, printed on a sheet of paper tacked to the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta, India. Then many came to give the saintly nun credit for writing them, but they were not the work of a saint, but the hopeful statement of a college sophomore. Here is what Kent Keith said were the Paradoxical Commandments:
I think this fits perfectly with what Jesus is teaching us in our Gospel reading and what our baptism calls us to. We are not to serve others for the thanks we get. We are to serve others as serving Jesus, because that is the life God calls us to, knowing that we will benefit more than the people we help. We will benefit in increased faith and increased love. None of this is foreign to Denise who we baptize this weekend as she already ministers through work as a Cub Scout leader and Mom and has ministered among us through helping with crafts during our Kids in the Kingdom Week and she is now heading up our new knitting ministry. So today we call Denise Hunley to affirm publicly her faith in Jesus and to continue to do the work she does among us as a minister of the Gospel, knowing that it is often a thankless task. Like Debbie Cole who had to turn down reward money after finding the $65,000, it may seem at times like Denise will be getting a raw deal. But I promise that the life of service to which she is called as a baptized Christian is also infinitely more rewarding than a life lived for ones self alone. Amen.
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