We need to talk about our flair, er, faith: Sunday reflection

This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 17:5–10:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”

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A few years back, my pal Cranky discovered that I had never seen the 1999 film Office Space, and was aghast. How could I have missed that film, he wondered, and insisted that I watch it immediately. As a longtime toiler in both customer service and retail jobs — and the corporate world of the 1980s and 1990s especially — I found it hilarious.

One scene in particular, however, has resonance to today’s Gospel reading. Joanna, played by Jennifer Aniston, works as a server at a TGIF-knockoff restaurant called “Chotchkie’s,” which requires each worker to wear 15 piece of “flair” — mainly silly buttons — at a minimum. Joanna has her 15 pieces of flair, but her condescending boss Stan pulls her aside and says, “We need to talk about your flair,” and warns that she’s not showing enough enthusiasm for her job.

“Fifteen is the minimum, okay?” Stan says, and then hails Brian, who’s practically covered in flair. In an explanation that practically anyone who ever worked in retail could recognize, Stan then says to a bemused Joanna, “Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to wear more and we encourage that, okay?” Stan then ups the ante by pressing, “You do want to express yourself, don’t you?”

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Joanna remains confused about the expectation. The rule is clear: fifteen pieces of flair, and as an employee, Joanna wants a rule on which she can rely. This is a commercial relationship, after all, not a calling. If Chotchkie’s actually wants more flair on her outfit, they should set their expectations clearly and explicitly, rather than expect Joanna to treat this commercial relationship as a religion.

Today’s Gospel reading reverses that, though, and challenges us to answer this question: Do we treat our faith as a commercial relationship? Do we hew to the letter of the law without fully embracing it in our hearts?

The apostles demand to Jesus to “increase our faith” sets off this parable, and that relates to Jesus’ point as well. Praying to Christ for strengthened faith is a very good practice, but faith is a choice we make after receiving God’s grace. Jesus gives us this teaching to make that point — to tell us that we have to choose between going all in and simply going through the motions. In a weird way, that’s what Stan’s trying to sell Joanna in this Office Space scene, too — a choice to treat her mundane job as some sort of religious calling, which Joanna rightly rejects (and rather humorously later in the film).

Jesus’ parable even uses the same motif — a server who looks to do the bare minimum. If the man in this parable had visited a restaurant, he might have left a good tip for someone who fulfilled the tasks that Jesus discusses here. But for servants who wish to become adopted children of the Lord, simply doing the bare minimum of the Law and the rules is not enough. That is rote mechanics, almost a habit rather than a choice, and at its heart a commercial proposition.

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If I tithe enough, I will go to heaven, we tell ourselves. If I go to Mass every week, that’s enough. If I teach a catechesis class, I get extra credit! I will gain entry into heaven in the same way I get my paycheck.

All of the above tasks are good things, of course, and we should be doing them as we are able. But it is not sufficient, because those are not the measures of salvation. Jesus gave the apostles and us the true measure of salvation, which is: Love the Lord with all your mind, body, heart, and soul, and love your neighbors as yourselves. Love is not a commercial transaction; as Paul wrote in Corinthians, it does not keep a ledger. We are not called just to practice Christianity, but to fully embrace it.

To put it in Office Space terms: Chotchkie’s is a job. Christianity has to be who we are, our very state of being, at all times. Otherwise, all we’re doing is just the bare minimum, just wearing the fifteen pieces of flair, because that’s all “we were obliged to do.”

What happens when we fully embrace and integrate Christianity? Paul writes to Timothy in his second epistle that the Holy Spirit passed through his hands to his disciple to give Timothy that fire of faith in his heart. That fire will see Timothy through all of the dangers of the world, and set him on the path of salvation, Paul tells us in our second reading:

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I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.

If we truly embrace the Holy Spirit within us and allow it to transform us, we will indeed become children of God and inheritors of the Trinitarian life. When we do that, we have no need to count our pieces of flair or keep ledgers on our actions as though we get paid on that basis. The world is full of tchotchkes, after all, but the true treasure comes to us through the Lord.

Addendum: Here’s the Office Space scene with Jennifer Aniston as Joanna and writer/director Mike Judge as Stan, if you haven’t seen it before. No need to count your pieces of flair before playing it.

 

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.  

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