Summary: Parable of the ten minas. (PowerPoint slides to accompany this talk are available on request - email: firstname.lastname@example.org)
Reading: Luke chapter 19 verses 11-27.
• Most people find Mondays depressing.
• We talk about those “Monday morning blues”.
In fact, here’s a useless or scary piece of information:
• There is a higher chance of having a heart attack on Monday;
• Than on any other day of the week.
This will cheer you up tomorrow:
• Did you know every other kind of stress-related illness,
• And condition is increased on Mondays to?
• Your blood pressure is elevated on Mondays,
• Meaning that you have a higher risk of a stroke.
• Your stomach acidity will be higher,
• Which means that you face a higher risk of having an ulcer.
• You will be glad to know, also,
• That you are twice as likely to commit suicide on a Monday as on any other day.
• That Monday-morning feeling is no myth,
• But a medical fact.
It is true to say:
• That a great many of us find the very idea of work depressing.
• We probably fall into one of four categories.
(a). There are the high-flyers.
• They will spend tomorrow under pressure,
• The are expected to perform, they are in a workaholic culture.
The man who said:
• That he had only ever met three people who were absolutely obsessed with work.
• Unfortunately they happened to be the other three men in his office!
(b). Low flyers.
• Their Monday-morning syndrome is caused by mundane, boring, undemanding jobs
• They too can display symptoms of depression and stress.
• The British government,
• When it ruled Ireland during the potato blight.
• In order to sustain the morale of the people by providing employment,
• The British ordered the construction of unnecessary roads, roads that went nowhere.
• Some people are in jobs like that;
• They are pointless and seem to be going no-where.
(c). Middle flyers.
• Those that enjoy their work and love their jobs;
• But they too have a problem.
• Their problem at work is their workmates or;
• Maybe it’s those physical working conditions that generate anxiety.
• There’s no denying that social and environmental factors;
• Make a big difference to job satisfaction.
• It is also true that no matter how good the job,
• How considerate your employer,
• How nice the people you work with,
• For a great many of us it is the very idea of work that is unpalatable.
• We do not want to do it.
• The thought of having to do it, gives us those Monday morning blues.
• Jerome K. Jerome who writes in his book Three Men in a Boat:
• ‘I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.’
Verse 13 is the key verse:
• It is Jesus’ answer to the dreaded Monday-morning feeling.
• ‘Put this money to work until I come back.’
• This, if you like, is the Bible’s work ethic.
• Notice, it is grounded not in mere moral duty, but in future hope.