It was little Jack Horner who sat in a corner and said ‘What a good boy am I’ He had found a plum in his pie. It made his day. We are sure he was beaming. Of course he, like us, felt satisfaction at doing a good job. He probably baked a good cake when he set his mind to it. Well, he didn’t exactly do a good job this time. That was done by the baker. But which of us has never claimed the credit for an achievement by others? (Luke 17.10).
There is something down-to-earth here. (In passing we notice how Jesus was in touch with questions of employment and employees.) Somebody with no nonsense is the governor.in the parable We hear echoes of these words frequently today. People will say:‘That’s what we do.’ Men and women doing an unpleasant job will point out how beneficial it is – at the end of the day. In other words we still do well to read Ecclesiastes.
There was a time when Jack would have said something slightly different. Not ‘It’s what we do’ but ‘It’s our duty.’ However, duty or the confession of it has become outmoded. The word ‘duty’ savours of a military connection. It suggests an absence of enjoyment in a task. When Saul Kane, the poacher in Masefield’s ‘The Everlasting Mercy’ chances upon the vicar., he is reminded of the worlds of pain a woman suffers in her duties.
But to do away with duty is to diminish our humanity. We have a duty to our family, to our neighbour, to our society. Duty is what is due. Duty is a debt. It is a duty of a minority party in the House of Commons to oppose. ’Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man,’ said the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1.14). The Preacher did not know it but he was in proleptic mode, speaking of what was yet to be revealed.
There is no need to tell the world we are doing our duty. Better to let it speak for itself.
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