Companies that create winning cultures will commonly recite their core values constantly and consistently. But just saying the words and honoring them are two different things. In this edition of By Your Life, we’ll explore how we can benefit by honoring the words of the Lord’s Prayer at work.
Mass Readings Audio
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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 28, 2019
Welcome to the seventieth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life. If you haven’t already, please sign up for notifications on your favorite podcast app or on the right side of this page so I can let you know when each new episode is posted. If you know of someone who can benefit from By Your Life, I’d appreciate it if you’d forward to a family member, co-worker or a friend.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time. A common theme between our first reading from the Book of Genesis and Luke’s Gospel is “persistence.” In the first reading, Abraham, in an almost annoying manner, keeps asking God if he would spare the wicked city of Sodom for the sake of the righteous who may be there. And God patiently keeps answering him. Then, in the Gospel, in his teaching about prayer, Jesus uses the analogy of the man who asks his neighbor for bread, saying “if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.” (Lk 11:8)
In a world that has become accustomed to instant gratification, persistence is becoming more and more rare. We’ve come to expect that things are supposed to work right the first time, every time. When they don’t, we give up. Persistence, however, calls for us to continue in spite of difficulty or opposition. Thomas Edison said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time ~ Thomas A. Edison #persistence #leadership #leadershiplessonsThe prerequisite for persistence, however, is faith. You have to believe. You have to, in some small way, trust that the answer is out there. You have to have confidence that persistence will pay off. Otherwise, you’ll just give up and walk away. That’s not persistence. Persistence is founded on an attitude like Edison’s who also said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. ~ Thomas A. Edison #persistence #leadership #leadershiplessonsMuch of the work I do is related to creating a winning culture within organizations and I’ve seen great success in companies that were persistent in their pursuit of culture change, and I’ve seen a lot of harm done when the leadership starts the process and then stops when the first obstacle rears its ugly head. One such company invested a lot of time and money in identifying their core values, defining them, developing plans for sharing them throughout the organization, and looking at their processes for supporting them. But when it came time to honor them, they caved. Just when it came time to implement their plan, they announced a huge layoff and the posters of their core values started collecting dust.
On the other hand, companies that have great cultures are known for constantly and consistently—persistently—sharing their core values. They read them at every meeting. Every meeting! People working at these companies know them by heart. They can recite them on call. They know what they mean, and they honor them. That’s the key. Just being able to recite the words isn’t the goal. Embracing, owning, believing, and honoring them is.
Which brings me back to Sunday’s Gospel. Jesus taught us to pray and 2,000 years later, this prayer is recited on every continent, in every language, every hour of every day. We pray it alone. We pray it in community. But, do we know what it means, and do we honor it? Are they just words? Or do the words have meaning, and do they guide our decisions and our behavior?
In Bishop Barron’s homily for this week’s Gospel, you can hear a beautiful explanation of the words of the Lord’s Prayer, so I won’t attempt to provide the theological view. Instead, I’d like to take a stab at how the words of the Lord’s Prayer have meaning in our work lives too.
Jesus said, “When you pray, say: Father, …” (Lk 11:2) The term “Father” has implications not only in our relationship to God, but to each other. We are all children of the same Father. I recently saw a meme that said, “You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love. Always be kind.” As difficult as it may be, it is true. That annoying person in the cube next to you, that rude customer, that unreasonable boss, and that disgruntled employee are all loved by the same Father. Always be kind.
You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love. Always be kind.”Jesus continued, “hallowed be your name.” (Lk 11:2) The name of God is holy, and in being holy, it is set apart so that it becomes first in our lives. We need to remember this priority of God. It really makes dealing with the small stuff easier. And it is all small stuff when we consider it, whatever it is, in the scheme of eternity.
We also need to remember how we speak. Our words are important. How we use the name of God in the workplace is important. Beware of the slippery slope that starts with “Oh my God!” and slides down to “God damn it.” And then, “God damn you!” or even worse. God’s name is holy. Let’s not forget that.
On a positive side, offering each other a “God bless you!” goes a long way in making our workplaces a little more pleasant. We will be realizing what we pray when we say, “Your kingdom come.” (Lk 11:2), by contributing to building the kingdom in the marketplace. Jesus repeatedly said, “The kingdom of God (or heaven) is at hand.” (Mt 3:2, Mt 4:17, Mk 1:15) It is not some far-out distant place, but a way of loving and living that we build here and now. Imagine how easy it would be to attract and retain happy, loyal employees who attract and retain happy, loyal customers if our places of work were more like the kingdom of God. Next time you pray the Our Father, think about asking God to send his kingdom to your workplace!
At this point in the prayer, we change our focus from praising God to asking him to bless us. And it is “us” not “me” for whom we are asking. “Give us each day our daily bread.” (Lk 11:3), is obviously a reference to giving us Christ in the Eucharist. But, there is also a valuable perspective that can also be taken and that is to live one day at a time, asking God to provide us only what we need for that one day. I often have people telling me they feel overwhelmed. Heck, I often can start to feel overwhelmed too. When this happens to you, stop and write down all the things that are overwhelming you and then figuring out what needs to be done about them TODAY. You will usually find that what needs to be done today is manageable and this focus is a peace-generating exercise.
Too often, we bring tomorrow’s worries into today and too often, we worry about things we have absolutely no control over. Five years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. During the time between suspicion and confirmation from the test results, I was making myself crazy. Finally, I stopped and said, “Lisa, can worrying about this today change the results or what they are going to tell you tomorrow? No? How do you feel today? Fine? Why are you ruining a perfectly good today by worrying about something they are going to tell you tomorrow?” As I thought about it in this manner, I chose to let it go. This exercise of living one day at a time was repeated many times throughout the year of cancer treatments. Sure, some of the days were pretty yucky, but everyone can handle a yucky day for only one day. Do not allow worry about tomorrow’s yuck make today’s yuck worse. This lesson was one of the greatest blessings I received through cancer. The Lord gives us each day what we need for the day, not too much, nor too little, not too soon, nor too late.
Asking the Father to “forgive us our sins” (Lk 11:4) is an important part of process improvement. You have to recognize sins to ask for forgiveness. If every time you pray the Our Father you actually considered the areas you need to improve and ask His help to overcome, you can’t help but become better. This is also true at work. Reflecting on what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future, and asking for the grace to see it through, is a powerful prayer for your professional life. Imagine a workplace where everyone one sought out to make personal improvement by recognizing their shortcomings every day.
This week, I facilitated a workshop on conflict resolution for a client. It was so good to see the participants recognize that it wasn’t only some other “them” who caused the conflict they had to deal with, rather they were also responsible in some way. They recognized that people see things differently and different isn’t necessarily bad, it is just different. Despite our natural differences, it’s our desire to be right that makes us alike. Being willing to accept the possibility that the other person may be right, the participants in my workshop learned how they contributed to the conflict and therefore how they might avoid it, or at least constructively deal with it in the future.
At the same time, they became a little more understanding of others and embraced the concept of “for we ourselves forgive.” (Lk 11:4) They grasped the fact that although someone may have hurt them by what they said or did, that didn’t mean they intended to hurt them. The hurt may have been real, but the intent was only assumed. So, forgiving and being forgiven go hand-in-hand. That is, recognizing that you need to be forgiven makes you a little more understanding of others’ transgressions. This doesn’t mean that you have to accept bad behavior as okay. On the contrary, you need to address bad behavior, but in a way that helps the person learn and become just a little better. When we address bad behavior, we need to forgive, without limit as we desire unlimited forgiveness from our Father. Wouldn’t every workplace be better if forgiveness flowed a little more freely?
The final plea in Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is “do not subject us to the final test” (Lk 11:4) but the Church has adopted, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” In explaining this, the Catechism of the Catholic Church references Jesus’ prayer in John’s Gospel: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.” (Jn 17:15) And so, we are in this world and subject to temptation, but we are also free to choose—to choose good or evil. Austrian psychologist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Every time we pray the Our Father, we seek to use the space between stimulus and response to able to consciously choose good, instead of reacting in a way we’d rather not. The Catechism says, “Such a battle and such a victory become possible only through prayer.” (CCC 2849) A hundred times a day we are tempted to just respond, react, give in. Praying to be delivered from this temptation is a prayer to choose the good that as Viktor Frankl said, “leads to our growth and our freedom.”
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ~ Viktor FranklSo, you’ll likely be praying the Our Father a few more times this week, but will you rush through it as a memorized pattern of words? Or, will you consciously think about how you need help being kind to others who share the same Father? Will you ask for help to use His Name to bless rather than curse? Will you ask for help to recognize ways to build his kingdom among those with whom you work? Will you ask Him to help you focus on what needs to be done “this day” and give you what you need to accomplish His will, nothing more, nothing less? Will you humbly reflect on areas where you need forgiveness and how you can improve? Will you ask for help forgiving those whom you find difficult to forgive? And will you pray for the ability to choose good at every decision-point throughout the day?
Let’s pray with persistence, pray with conscious thought, pray with meaning, believing that “the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (Lk 11:13) Together, let’s pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
May God bless you abundantly this week so that every time you pray these words, you also consider how to honor them in all that you do, so that you may glorify the Lord by your life.
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