A Return to Duty

One thing has struck me as I look around my backyard, thinking about a new year: nature cares nothing for the issues that got us so riled up in 2020. The steller’s jay screeching in the fruit trees doesn’t give a rip about who filed what lawsuits. The spruce trees waving in the wind couldn’t care less why folks are infuriated over taxes, healthcare, and immigration.

As a matter of survival, the natural world has a myopic focus. Trees care more whether they can reach enough water than about the state of the Dow Jones. Birds care more about building and protecting their nests than whether there is justice in the world, social or otherwise. The natural world doesn’t get distracted; it does its duty.

We humans, on the other hand, have forsaken our duty and succumbed to the honey trap of social media. We scroll and watch and scroll some more. Then we feel big feelings about what we’re watching and scrolling past: outrage, anxiety, insecurity. It’s easy to wonder which shoe will drop next.

Some Christians see the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad events of 2020 as signs that Jesus’ second coming is closer. The truth is, every moment, the end of the world is closer, and no one knows the day or the hour. We’ve lost our balance in our watching, though.

It’s as if we’ve forgotten our responsibilities and glued our eyeballs to our screens in anticipation of the apocalypse.

A return to duty can rescue us. Duty is not as popular a notion in the 2020s as it was in, say, the 1920s. In our age of cancel culture and extreme political correctness, duty has taken a backseat to saying and doing the popular thing. The trouble is, the popular thing has never been the Christian thing. Doing the Christian thing has less to do with posting a black square on Instagram than it does with putting the pasta on to boil for dinner. We aren’t called to be slaves to the next news cycle, nor are we called to be performative. We’re called to serve real people in the real world.

Jesus once asked, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matt. 12: 48-50 NIV). We are Jesus’ sisters if we do God’s will. We know his will by looking to the people in front of us.

Like the trees in my backyard, God has rooted us each one of us in a particular time and place. He put you where you are for a purpose, and I don’t say that to be trite. He wants specific people served, and he wants you to do it. Those particular people nearest you—your kids, your spouse, your parents, your friends, your coworkers—are what the Bible calls “neighbors.” Those particular people have particular needs, and it is up to you to work to meet those needs as best you can. Duty is not glamorous.

We could, like the world, join the screaming mobs who have fallen prey to fear and paranoia as the media bellows through their earbuds. But duty demands a different view from us as Christians; which way the world evolves or devolves is simply irrelevant to whether we have served those whom God has placed in our lives.

The world’s swirling chaos is the white noise machine playing in the nursery while we quietly change diapers, feed our babies, and rock them back to sleep.

Interestingly, we are glorified when we do our duty. One man entrusted his three servants with cash, each according to his ability. After returning from his journey, the master examined the return on investment each servant was able to produce with the money given him. The servant given five talents returned an additional five to his master. The servant entrusted with two talents doubled the master’s money as well. The master’s words sang in their ears: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25: 21 NIV).

The third servant was entrusted with one talent, according to his ability. Yet this guy, to his shame and everlasting condemnation, buried his coin in the backyard. Upon the master’s return, he brushed the dirt off and handed back the coin. This servant neglected the duty he was perfectly capable of doing. All that time, the other two servants were hustling to double the master’s money. Was this guy lazily scrolling Instagram? Was he binge-watching Game of Thrones?

It’s as if that proud black-and-blue Steller’s jay in my yard decided to perch, hour after hour, outside my window, craning its neck and tilting its head to hear the latest celebrity gossip. He slowly shriveled in weakness as he forgot to forage and, instead, read meme after meme with glassy eyes. I’ve seen this shriveling in people.

It is so tragic it’s absurd that we, the sub-creators, the pinnacles of creation, the image-bearers, sit and stare for so many hours a day. Didn’t God give us a keen eye to use for catching worms and bringing them back for our little chicks? Didn’t God give us a nimble beak so we could build and maintain a safe, loving nest for our meek families? Didn’t God endow us with wings and the strength to soar within our own domains?

We show his glory as a creator in the ways we perform our own duties using the talents he entrusted in our care. Let us not bury our talents in the backyard. Let us instead work to the best of our abilities to bring God a return on his investment in us with the hope that one day, we, too, will enter into the joy of our master.

Rhiannon Kutzer is a homeschooling mom of five and proud Navy wife. She works hard to be what Chesterton called a “Jill-of-all-trades,” chronically trying new projects for the sheer joy of exploration. She’s addicted to coffee, enjoys dark beer, and loves to be in the mountains. You can find her on Instagram @rhikutzer.

Photograph © Wes Carpani, used with permission