Today's Gospel

The Entitlement of Our Age

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant where each day, we explore the genius of the gospel, the life and teachings of Jesus, looking for a word or a phrase or an idea to anchor our life in that day. Today's Gospel comes from Luke 17:7-10. "Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to Him when He's come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down at table.' Will you not rather say to Him, 'Prepare my supper and gird yourself and serve me till I eat and drink and afterward, you shall eat and drink.' Does He thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded, you say, 'We are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty.'"

Wow. What jumps out at you today? What jumps out at me is the juxtaposition of what Jesus is talking about here and the massive entitlement of our age and how we see things with different generations. We see things in the workforce. We see people who are just doing the bare minimum of their job, but then they expect to be praised for doing the bare minimum of their job. We see this sort of self-centeredness, this entitlement just in so many aspects of our society. And Jesus is saying, "No. That's not what it's about." He's saying, "Do your duty, do it quietly, do it well, do it with excellence, and don't expect anything." That's the Gospel. I don't know what all this other stuff out of society today is, but it ain't the gospel. What are you doing in your life right now that you want someone to praise you for that is actually just what you should be doing? Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.