April 22, Easter 4B (Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18)

The British have coined the term jobsworth to describe a person who won’t lift a finger to do more than the bare minimum their job requires. Ask jobsworths to exert themselves and they’ll decline, saying, “It’s more than my job’s worth.” A jobsworth frustrates colleagues and casts a cloud of lethargy over the workplace.

The worldview of the jobsworth is directly opposed to the one at the heart of 1 John. Whereas the jobsworth looks out only for oneself and stays within the narrow confines of the job description, the writer of 1 John calls on community members constantly to look beyond themselves and even be ready to “lay down [their] lives for each other” (3:16).

As annoying and unattractive as the jobsworth can be, the attitude raises some fundamental questions: What is a job worth? What makes it worth investing time and energy in this project or that one? To what should we be ready to give our lives? And aren’t there demands on our soul or integrity to which we rightly say, “That’s more than the job’s worth”?