Mass Readings Audio
https://bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/2021-01-17-usccb-daily-mass-readings
Second Sunday of Ordinary Time – January 17, 2021
Welcome to the one hundred and forty-seventh 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.
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 Second Sunday of Ordinary Time. (Year B) You probably remember hearing the folktale called “The Emperor’s New Clothes” about a vain emperor who gets exposed before his subjects. The story, adapted from a Spanish tale and written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, is about an emperor who lavishly spends the people’s money on clothing at the expense of the affairs of the state. Then one day, two swindlers, posing as weavers, arrive at the capital city and offer to make the emperor magnificent clothes that are invisible to anyone who is stupid or incompetent. The emperor hires them, and they set up looms and go to work. As state officials and the emperor himself check on the weavers’ progress, they find nothing but empty looms, but they pretend otherwise for fear of being thought a fool. Finally, the weavers report that the emperor’s suit is finished. They pretend to dress him and shower him with compliments of how splendid he looks in his new clothes. The emperor sets off in a procession throughout the city and all the townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to be called stupid or incompetent. Finally, a child blurts out that the emperor is not wearing anything, and the people realize that everyone has been fooled. The emperor, however, continues walking through the town more proudly than ever.
I bring up this children’s story because it conveys a couple of important lessons for us that we can also take from our readings this Sunday. Specifically, the importance of knowing who you are listening to and who you are following.
Listening to Bad Advice, Following the Wrong Crowd
It is far too easy to be persuaded by those who are only using you for their own benefit. It is also so easy to follow the crowd, going along with something you know isn’t right, but out of fear decide that you’re not going to be the one to speak up.
This reminds me of the story of Walter Pavlo, Jr. I heard Walt speak at a conference and I also interviewed him when I was in the process of writing my book, The Value of Core Values. The short version of Walt’s story (which you can read in his book, Stolen Without A Gun: Confessions from inside history’s biggest accounting fraud–the collapse of MCI Worldcom), is that he was a decent guy, a former altar boy, with a lovely wife, two kids, and a promising career, but he got caught up in a culture of greed that took him down. Walt watched everyone around him getting rich and decided he should have a share in the wealth. He ended up pleading guilty to obstruction of justice, money laundering, and wire fraud and served 24 months in federal prison.
When you read his story, you have to wonder, how does this happen? How could a decent guy end up doing such things? The short answer is that he listened to and followed the wrong people.
At MCI Worldcom, salespeople got rich opening accounts with mobsters and criminals who weren’t paying their bills, but the company turned a blind eye, happily recording record revenue growth while at the same time hiding the mounting receivables from investors and potential acquirers. The goal for the executives was to cash in their stock before it came to light and all would be well.
In the midst of this culture of greed, Walt was approached by his future partners in crime who had devised a scheme to blackmail the criminals by threatening to shut down their accounts if they refused to pay a discounted rate for their outstanding debt. If they paid, their accounts at MCI Worldcom would stay open which allowed the thugs to remain in business. Walt and his partners then kept the payments for themselves.
Walt agreed to participate as the inside man who altered the books. He justified his actions by rationalizing that MCI Worldcom was never going to get paid by the criminals anyway, so they weren’t losing anything. And what’s so bad about squeezing a few dollars from the crooks? After all, they were criminals, and it was just a cost of doing illegal business.
When I met with Walt, he told me that his first boss, Ralph McCumber had been a mentor whom he looked up to for guidance early in his career. But when Ralph took another job, Walt lost his ethical bearings. He no longer had a positive role model to follow and fell into the “everyone’s doing it, so why not” trap. He listened to the wrong people and followed them right into a federal penitentiary.
Near the end of his book, as he is being driven off to prison, Walt told his younger brother, “In the movies, you can tell the bad guys because they wear the black hats. In our dreams, they are witches or demons. But you know what? In real life, the bad guys are people like me.”
Who Do You Listen to?
Who do you listen to? Do you, like the emperor, surround yourself with people who only tell you the things you want to hear? In the workplace, strong leaders want to know the truth and surround themselves with advisors who will present them with the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then they follow their advice.
Strong leaders want to know the truth and surround themselves with advisors who will present them with the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then they follow their advice.Without accountability, day-to-day pressures can easily override our allegiance to doing the right thing. Internal accountability is vitally important, but it’s only half of the equation. Just as companies use internal and external auditors to preserve financial integrity, leaders need internal and external accountability to safeguard their commitment to their core values and doing the right thing. Boards, auditors, peers, and other types of accountability partners can provide detached objectivity that will help you stay true to your values.
Seek Accountability
The C12 Group offers this type of accountability for owners, CEOs, and presidents of businesses who want to live according to Biblical principles. The goal of this organization is to help leaders achieve excellence in their business and personal lives. Participants meet regularly in small groups for mutual edification, encouragement, and accountability.
Scott Hitchcock is the Area Chairman of The C12 Group in Tampa Bay. When I interviewed him for The Value of Core Values, he shared how external accountability works in his forums:
As we discuss things from time to time, members of the group will realize they need to make changes in the way they do things, and the other members of the group will encourage them. Sometimes, some people who need to make changes in their behaviors balk when things get hard. They get caught up in the allure and temptations of the world, and they’re not willing to make the necessary spiritual transformation. So other members of the group will confront the person in a supportive way. Most people appreciate this type of accountability because it helps them live their lives with integrity and balance, and ultimately be more successful.
We had a situation where a person kept procrastinating. One of the other guys in the group looked at him and said, “I’m not going to give you any more advice. You’ve been here three years now, and you still have the same type of problems. You haven’t done what we told you to do the first two years, so I am not going to waste my time giving you any more advice. Go fix it and then come back. Quit wasting our time.” That guy is not in the group anymore.
All business leaders need this sort of honest and supportive accountability, but many don’t have it because they haven’t sought it.
If you don’t have honest and supportive accountability, you haven’t sought it.In our first reading, Samuel seeks out his mentor Eli to help him discern the voice of God. Three times God called Samuel, but Samuel didn’t recognize his voice, so he ran to Eli saying, “Here I am… You called me.” (1 Sam 3:6) But Eli hadn’t called him, so he sent Samuel back to bed. Finally, when Eli realized that it was God who was calling Samuel, he said to him, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” (1 Sam 3:9) When God called Samuel a fourth time, “Samuel answered, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’” (1 Sam 3:10)
In our Gospel, John the Baptist was standing with Andrew and John, “and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. (Jn 1:36-37) Andrew and John listened to John the Baptist’s witness. They were seeking the Messiah, and when they found him, they followed him.
Selective Listening
Our world is filled with so much noise, loud voices who are seeking their own agenda. It is hard to hear the voice of God in all that chatter. Our world is also filled with swindlers and con men and people who are seeking their own good, their own profit. Swindlers will take advantage of your weaknesses, your pride, lust, fear, or greed, and convince you to do something that isn’t in your best interest but theirs. These people can use us for their benefit if we choose to follow them.
With all the noise in the world, with all the advertisers, media (social and otherwise), friends, and colleagues clamoring for our attention, it is a challenge to discern the voice of God in our lives. We need help. Samuel needed Eli to help him. We also need others to guide us.
The good news is that the same media platforms that are filled with people who can derail us are also full of folks like you and me who want to listen to the Lord and follow him. There are books and magazines, TV shows and movies, podcasts and video blogs that are there to strengthen us as we follow the Lord. We need to seek them out and seek out others so we can help each other sort through the noise and hear the Lord speak. We need to actively pursue wise and trusted counsel so when we’re tempted to justify following the wrong path, we can be steered back on the right course.
Follow the Right Path
It’s never too late to get back on the right course. Prison wasn’t the end of the story for Walt Pavlo. The former altar boy turned con man has used his experience for good. As Frank Abagnale said in his endorsement of Walt’s book, his story “explains, but does not excuse, how people take the wrong path.”
Walt acknowledged his failure and took responsibility for it. At his sentencing hearing, he said, “It has been said that the road to a righteous life is narrow, but it is nonetheless a road and not a tightrope. I should have known better, and I vow to do better.” And he has. Walter Pavlo, Jr. now consults and lectures on Ethics and Corporate Responsibility.
The road to a righteous life is narrow, but it is nonetheless a road and not a tightrope. ~ Walter Pavlo, Jr. @waltpavloVow to Do Better
As we begin this new season of Ordinary Time, let’s also vow to do better. We may need to do some house cleaning and unfollow the voices that keep us from God and “like” those that take us into a deeper relationship with him. He is the wisest and most trust-worthy counsel that we can rely on as we face our daily challenges. Christ is our Light. Let’s follow him to the Father. To him we pray:
God, you call us daily to arise and follow Jesus your Son. Awaken us from whatever holds us back from listening to your voice. When we are careless in our choices of whom to listen to, awaken us from our sleep. When we become distracted by our daily cares and enticed by worldly goods, shake us from the deadly sleep of sin. When we grow deaf to your Word because of the noise that surrounds us, breakthrough our deafness. Speak Lord, for your servants are listening.
May God bless you abundantly this week as you listen to his voice and follow his Son and may you always glorify the Lord by your life.
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