11 October 2026

Duty and Joy: Duty

Luke 17:5-10; 2 Chronicles 31:2-10 

Our first reading today comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, verses 5-10:

5The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6The Lord replied, ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you. 7Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? 8Would 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”? 9Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10So 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!” ’   

What do you think of when you hear the word “duty”? Does it bring with it positive or negative connotations? For a great many people today, the connotations of “duty” are entirely negative. “Duty” implies drudgery, unpleasant tasks that you didn’t choose for yourself but which were imposed on you by someone else, or by cultural expectations that you never agreed to. Duty suggests dull, unthinking, even unwilling, conformity, and to call someone “dutiful,” is to imply that person is a bland, submissive, unimaginative sheep. But this is a remarkable turnaround for this word, because just a couple of generations ago, within the memory of some who are here today, the connotations of the word “duty” were entirely positive. For people coming out of the twin crises of the Great Depression and World War Two, “duty” implied acts of nobility, self-sacrifice, and courage, while the term “dutiful” was a compliment, suggesting loyalty, responsibility, discipline, and trustworthiness. When I was preparing for Carol Fawcett’s funeral last month, read an excerpt of the speech that she gave as salutatorian of her high school class in 1947: she called on her classmates to dedicate themselves to living their faith, to lifelong education, and to responsibility. Today’s graduation speeches have a lot about excellence and believing in yourself and creativity, but not so much about responsibility. Duty is so last century.

To explain how this cultural change took place would a require a book, which I’m not qualified to write, but at least one part of it has to do with how we see ourselves in relation to society. That World War Two generation overcame great challenges by working together, and they tended to define themselves by the communities they were part of, while today we see ourselves as autonomous individuals seeking to discover our authentic selves that set us apart from those around us. I’m not here to say that one perspective is right and the other is wrong. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and, anyway, like it or not, this is where we are. But it’s worth pointing out that our individualistic understanding of identity is not the only one possible, and maybe there are things that we can learn from other perspectives. So let me ask one question: Now that we are autonomous individuals seeking our authentic selves, rather than just cogs in a machine, part of a faceless collective, are we happier?

Based on the statistics on depression and suicide rates and the so-called “epidemic of loneliness,” it doesn’t appear that way, and at least some people have started to suggest that we could improve our lives by rediscovering the value of duty. Have you heard of Jordan Peterson? He’s a Canadian psychologist who has become sort of a cult figure, especially with young men looking for purpose. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but a part of his message is for men to rediscover their responsibility to those around them and to develop habits of discipline and respect. Also make your bed every morning. Peterson is ambiguously religious, but within the Christian world, we have the writer John Mark Comer, who similarly challenges his readers – again, largely appealing to young men – to rediscover spiritual responsibility and discipline. His book Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus, Become like Him, Do as He Did, has become a New York Times bestseller. As the current expression goes, duty is having a moment.

As often happens, Jesus was there first. On the one hand, he treated every person as a unique individual, which supports our modern mindset, but in the teaching from Luke 17 that we just read, Jesus compares having faith to being a servant, and he stresses that the servant is expected to meet the master’s expectations first. That’s his duty. He says, “When your servant does what you have told him to do, do you throw a party? Do you get excited? No, he’s done his duty, just what was expected.” If that’s all we do, we are “worthless slaves.” We can talk about creativity and excellence and all that, but doing your duty is the baseline, the meets-minimum-qualifications level that we can then build on. Caring about duty has ramifications. Let’s read another scripture, this time from the Old Testament, from a passage describing King Hezekiah’s work to renew worship in the Jerusalem temple. We read 2 Chronicles 31, verses 2-10.

2Hezekiah appointed the divisions of the priests and of the Levites, division by division, everyone according to his service, the priests and the Levites, for burnt-offerings and offerings of well-being, to minister in the gates of the camp of the Lord and to give thanks and praise. 3The contribution of the king from his own possessions was for the burnt-offerings: the burnt-offerings of morning and evening, and the burnt-offerings for the Sabbaths, the new moons, and the appointed festivals, as it is written in the law of the Lord. 4He commanded the people who lived in Jerusalem to give the portion due to the priests and the Levites, so that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord. 5As soon as the word spread, the people of Israel gave in abundance the first fruits of grain, wine, oil, honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything. 6The people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of cattle and sheep, and the tithe of the dedicated things that had been consecrated to the Lord their God, and laid them in heaps. 7In the third month they began to pile up the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month. 8When Hezekiah and the officials came and saw the heaps, they blessed the Lord and his people Israel. 9Hezekiah questioned the priests and the Levites about the heaps. 10The chief priest Azariah, who was of the house of Zadok, answered him, ‘Since they began to bring the contributions into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat and have plenty to spare; for the Lord has blessed his people, so that we have this great supply left over.’

Our society’s shift from a mindset of duty to the group to one of individual fulfillment has affected the church in a lot of ways. One of those ways is that it has made fall stewardship sermons a whole lot more challenging. In this passage from 2 Chronicles there is a collection taken up – partly to do physical improvements and repairs on the temple, and partly to support the daily work of the priests and Levites who serve there. And how does that go? First, the king himself gives what he is commanded to give in the Law, and then the people are called on to give the portion due to the priests and the Levites, so that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord. Why did everyone give? It was in the Law of Moses. It was their duty. So, they do their duty, and as a result they not only receive all that they require but enough extra that they have to sort the overflow into, um, heaps. 

Now, I have questions about the sort-into-heaps investment strategy for surplus offerings, but apart from that, you have to say that from a results-based financial perspective, a culture of duty has a lot to recommend it. And recent history bears that out. The people who chart this sort of thing for the Church – and there are a lot of them – tell us that every generation since that World War Two generation has given a lower percentage of their income to the church than the generation before. As our culture has shifted away from duty to the group toward individual self-actualization, we have progressively given less. What that means for us pastors during stewardship season is that we can’t just remind people of their duty to support the church. That’s not enough. We have to tell people why they should give, how their money will be used, what ministries that money will support, and why they should trust the leaders of this church to use that money appropriately. Like I said, more challenging.

But this is a good thing. Let me repeat that. This is a good thing. While there are many strengths in the duty-to-the-group mindset, I don’t want to go back to a time of treating offerings as membership dues. We are not a club. We are team of ministers learning to work together to represent Christ to the world around us. I want those who give to this church to know why they are giving, whose life will be touched as a result of those gifts. I want our giving to be based not on results, but on purpose. Now I don’t have time today to describe all the ministries to the community that happen because this church exists. I’ll take more time on that next week, and we’re going to have a whole worship service next month dedicated to celebrating the ministry that this church does in the community and the volunteers who do it. I will take a moment today, though, to assure you that money given to this church has oversight. We have an audit team that meets quarterly, to make sure policies are followed, money is used as directed, and no penny is out of place. I know of no other church that is that diligent with constant oversight. 

This coming week you’ll get a letter from me asking if you will pledge toward next year, along with a pledge card. This year the letter will include some more information about our capital campaign to repair and restore our Fellowship Hall. At a certain, very basic, level, yes I think you who are a part of this community have a duty to give what you are able to support the work of the church that supports you. But while duty is a good starting place, there a better way beyond just doing what’s expected. In an older liturgy for Communion, one that some of you probably grew up with, the opening response doesn’t say, “It is right to give our thanks and praise” but rather “It is our duty and our joy, in all times and all places, to give you thanks and praise.” I like that. Beyond duty is joy. I’ll talk about that next week.