"What a way to make a living!"
-- Dolly Parton in the song, 'Nine to Five'.

THERE IS USUALLY a link between the first reading and the Gospel, a link of similarity or complementarity. In today's Mass, however, it is one of striking contrast between an Old Testament figure and Jesus.


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Job's weariness

Job, that legendary model of long-suffering patience, is speaking of the tiresomeness of life. "Is not a man's life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his time no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages... Lying in bed I wonder, 'When will it be day?' Risen I think, 'How slowly the evening comes!'"

Though written well over 2,000 years ago, these sentiments could come from a letter to a local agony column today. It has depression and weariness written all over it.



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Lives without meaning or direction

Has it ever struck you how really meaningless so many of our lives seem to be? We drag ourselves out of bed in the morning. We gobble down a rushed, ready-to-make breakfast at home or grab a bun hurriedly at a bakery down the street and try to have it finished as we ride (or stand) in a crowded bus.

The day is often spent doing work in which there is no real enjoyment or satisfaction. "I just do it for the money." And then we re-join the rush-hour madness on the way home. There we gobble down a supper and slump in front of the TV too exhausted to do anything else...

Tomorrow the whole circus begins all over again and so it goes on month in and year out. "No better than hired drudgery... and no thought but the wages."



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Months of delusion

Where is it all going? Why do we live like this? What for? To make a living? Is this living? Is it for my family? So that they can grow up and do the same thing for their families and so on ad infinitum? "Months of delusion," groans Job. How right!

I don't believe God meant our lives to be like that. We live perpetually preparing for a future which never comes. We think that some day when we have 'made our living' we will be able to put up our feet and really enjoy the fruits of our labours. Have you seen the thousands of weary faces around you who are still waiting to see that day? People so obsessed with the future that the present passes them by. Yet it is in the present and only in the present that the real enjoyment of life is to be found.



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Jesus at work

Now let us turn to today's Gospel reading. What a different picture! Here is Jesus at work - but it is so full of meaning. He is using his energies to bring healing and wholeness into the lives of people. The difference comes from a totally different approach: Jesus is there to serve, to give, to share. He is not thinking, 'How much am I going to get for doing this?' or 'When will it be 5.30 so that I can get down to the pub for a fag and a beer?'

Jesus is not just 'making a living' for himself. He is not out for power, influence, success, wealth... He is the Man for Others.



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Working for others

All of us are part of the huge and complex web of society. Most of us are doing a job which, in one way or another, makes a contribution to the functioning and welfare of that society. It could help us a lot if we could see our work much more in that light and not simply as an unpleasant and boring way of cornering for ourselves some of society's material wealth, 'making a living'.

Where would we be without our bus drivers, cabbies, refuse collectors, civil servants, bank clerks, teachers, bakers, butchers and candlestick makers? What would life be like without our film, radio, TV, theatre entertainers and all their invisible backup staffs?



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Ask not what society can do for you…

Let me consider less what I can squeeze for myself out of my society and consider how much I am putting into it. To be, like Jesus, finding myself in sharing what I have and am with others. A person for others. That is life-giving, that gives work meaning and value. And it can give meaning and value to mine.

And if the work you are doing cannot be seen in any way to be making any contribution (or is even positively harmful), perhaps you should think of changing your work.



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Jesus' wealth

Of course, you may say, it is all right for Jesus. He is the Son of God etc. He's got it made. Actually we have everything that he had and perhaps more. In our modern urban society, we have within our reach facilities that were totally unknown to Jesus. Yet Jesus was rich, not because he had money or drove round Galilee in a Mercedes or communicated with a mobile but because he was an enriching person. And because he was so enriching, he was enriched in return - even materially, provided with food and a roof over his head. Each one of us can be like that, too.



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Wholeness is in serving

It is this lesson which comes through so strongly in today's Gospel as the key to a life that is worth living. In the opening incident we see Peter's mother-in-law confined to bed with fever. Jesus is called in to heal her. He does so - and then? Does she spend the rest of the day in bed or just watching the latest episode in a soap opera on TV? No, she gets up at once to serve. To be healed, to be whole, is to join once more in the shared work of building up the community through service. And, in the Gospel, service is love in action.

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The example of Paul

Paul also shares with us today his experience. He said he does not boast about being a preacher of the Gospel. It was a task given him to do. Nor is he in it for the money. "Do you know what my reward is?" he asks the Christians of Corinth. "It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer the Good News (the Gospel) free and not insist on the rights which the Gospel gives me." He continues: "Though I am not a slave of anyone, I have made myself the slave of all so as to win as many as I could... I made myself all things to all in order to save some any cost." That is the echo of Jesus' own words, "I have come not to serve but be served."



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Where is happiness?

For some people in our world, success means being waited on hand and foot, having people run to your beck and call at the snap of a finger. Others are struggling in the rat race, hoping to get to the top some day.

They don't realise that, as Fr Tony de Mello used to say, we have all we need for our happiness right here in our hands now. Happiness and fulfilment can never be anywhere but in the present.

If our only thought is for our wages or how our investments are doing or how rich and successful our children are going to be, then we are bound to be disappointed, frustrated and dissatisfied.



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The myth of indispensability

Yet, service has its limits. Jesus is no workaholic, exuding indispensability. At the end of the day, he retires up into the hills. There he will converse with his Father, recharge his batteries, bringing healing and wholeness to himself. He cannot give to others what he does not have himself.

He goes there, not to escape from the pressures of life, but to be refreshed for further service. The point is that he does go away even though many are still looking for him. He is not a compulsive helper.



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To be where the need is

When he is found by his disciples, he does not accept their suggestion that he go back to where he was so successful. The Gospel seems to hint that the disciples are basking in the reflected glory of Jesus' popularity and disappointed that Jesus went off just when things seemed to be going so well. Jesus has no interest in being the centre of attraction, of being popular, of being 'successful'. He simply wants to be where the real needs of people are.

He has given what he can give in one place and he will now move on to other places to serve them in the same way. If any of those he helped have learnt his lesson, they will carry on where he left off.



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A life of meaning

This is a life of meaning. A life where there is time for prayer, reflection and coming closer to God; where there is time for sharing with others in word and action; where there is time for building and healing and reconciling.

There is absolutely no one who cannot learn to live like this. But which lifestyle is more like mine: Job's or Jesus'? Am I more like Job? Where life is dull, boring, routine, going nowhere... ? Or would I like it to be more like that of Jesus? To be full of meaning, full of clear direction, where I find real satisfaction and fulfilment and happiness in being part of a community that concentrates on making life good for all - here and now.