Learning from Jesus: slaving for you
What was going through the mind of the elder son in Jesus' parable, as he stood outside, listening to the festivities and digesting the news of his 'prodigal' brother's homecoming?
This return threatened to spoil everything. Set in his ways, he now faced the need to share his privileged position and, perhaps, his responsibilities and perks. And so he stayed out in the field, unwilling to face a difficult situation, a difficult relationship and the inevitability of change.
How like he was to many of us, whose lives and jobs have followed a comfortable pattern. And along with that comfort may have come complacency and a loss of vision. But when a challenge comes - perhaps a restructuring of our workplaces, the need to adapt to change and shared responsibility - how do we cope?
The young man's response to his father's plea was an explosion of bitter resentment directed towards his father. 'All these years I've been slaving for you', he cried, 'and never disobeyed your orders.' He was the heir of the family business, yet he saw himself as a slave. He seems to have had no sense of shared ownership; no commitment to a shared vision; no delight in a job well done; no sense of the intrinsic value of his work. And he was motivated by narrow self-interest: 'You never gave me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends'.
His attitudes to work profoundly challenge ours. Do we see our work - however mundane it may seem - as an opportunity and a challenge? Are we prepared not only to accept change but to use it creatively? Or, like the elder son, do we regard our work as drudgery, and resent change and those who represent it?
It also challenges our motives. How often we hear: What's in it for me? My rights? My career? My salary? My bonuses? And what about a peerage?
Have we succumbed to the spirit of the age? Or can we embrace with generosity of spirit all the changes that life brings, out of love for our heavenly father, who reminds us that 'all I have is yours'?
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