Today’s question: BY WHAT MEASURING STICK DO YOU GAUGE YOUR WORTH AND THE WORTH OF OTHERS?
This is Day 23 of the 5-week Lenten journey with The Society of Saint John the Evangelist and their daily meditation on TIME.
See Br. Geoffrey Tristram on the video (2:49) below, or to leave comments on the Brothers' website, go here. (http://ssje.org/ssje/2015/03/11/work-5-worth)
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Question: BY WHAT MEASURING STICK DO YOU GAUGE YOUR WORTH AND THE WORTH OF OTHERS?
Transcript of Video:
The Book of Genesis tells us quite clearly that work is a gracious gift from God, something which gives meaning and purpose to human beings. And work can be a source of enormous delight. There is nothing better than that wonderful sense of satisfaction at a piece of work well done. And it’s almost like we can be like God and standing back and saying, “Yes that was very good.”
But we also know that work can also be experienced as toil, as something that’s grueling, as something that is actually dehumanizing. The Book of Genesis tries to explain what’s behind that, and the story of the Fall of man is a way of trying to express this experience of alienation, that things are not right in the world, our relationship with the world is not right, our relationship with work is not right. And so, for many people, work is experienced in this negative sense.
But I think the Scriptures tell us that the good news is that Christ came to redeem all of life, including work, and that in Christ we can re-experience something of God’s original gift in our own lives. I think for many people, whether they really know it or not, there is a kind of deep sense that how they perform is directly related to their worth; their value as human beings is dependent on how well they perform in their work. And of course, Christ came to tell us that our worth in the eyes of God has nothing to do with how well we perform. Our worth is infinite because God loves us, and Christ, in his life, death, and resurrection opens the gates to eternal life and opens our heart to receive the grace of God. And that grace tells us that you are loved. You are loved, and that has nothing to do with your portfolio and nothing to do with your resume. Praise be to God!
-Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Blessings on our journey to re-order time in our lives,
Agatha