Over the past several months, I have begun to think that the word “duty” has nearly faded from the American, perhaps Western, vocabulary. In the rare times it is used, it’s almost with distaste as an antiquated concept tied to constrictive ideas, or, more likely, in some sort of joke aimed at six year olds. I know it isn’t the first word that comes to mind when I’m thinking through my list of things to do, nor on the tip of my tongue when laying out instructions to my children. It’s a bit of a heavy word, for only being four letters, meatier than “responsibility.” It has a sense of stuffy honor. It’s an “ought,” not a “should.”
I don’t know that it was specifically used in the message, but, for me, its presence was felt. Chris’ story of his really rough Saturday was both amusing and distressing, and as so many of us are parents, teachers, nurses, and human beings it was, I’m sure, a bit reminiscent of days we’ve all had. Aside from the pigeon; that was special. In a world where finding and sometimes paying someone to do the jobs we don’t want to is so entirely commonplace that doing it yourself is a novelty, it often feels heroic to do what life, in that moment, has called upon you to do. But you do the next right thing; you do your duty.
The men being called into discipleship under Jesus were doing their duty. They may not have enjoyed the washing of the nets, but it was part of their job as fishermen. It was the work their fathers had done, and possibly had been doing for generations. They had been raised to value the work of maintaining the nets, had been taught that it was good work, worth doing. They couldn’t do the work of fishing, and thereby surviving, without doing all of the other work that came before, and after, again and again. The monotony of duty.
This brought to mind something that has been in my atmosphere recently. It’s a Latin phrase: ordo amoris. Translated as “order of loves”, it is drawn out in St. Augustine’s City of God. It’s about rightly ordering the affections; prioritizing what is good over what is, in whatever degree, less good, and acting accordingly. Augustine calls this the definition of virtue. To rightly order the affections, to know what is good, and to love what we ought, whether or not we feel like we love it. Likely, these fishermen had been doing this task on repeat for many years of their lives. Sort of like the dishes, the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, the doing, the tending, the caring, the repeating…all the “again” things that come as duties.
But God…
He appeared on the shoreline, calling to them in words familiar, but strange. Fish for men? Should we drop our nets and follow? Somehow, in a moment, they were making room for their affections to be re-ordered. (Their seemingly quick response baffles me every time.) They heard the voice of the Lord, and it’s almost as if they knew it. The thing they had known as good for so long was now to be placed below this new good thing. Cleaning nets didn’t stop being good, but in this moment it wasn’t the better, the best. For the next three years they would follow Him. Over and over again their loves would be directed and trained into a new, right order. What do you mean children have value? What do you mean we shouldn’t call fire and brimstone down on this city? What do you mean, “Put away the sword?” What do you mean forgive again?
As I listened to Chris talk about these ordinary men caught in a moment of ordinary work, I was reminded that duty is not a bad word. Doing what is set before you is good work. There will be days of ordinary, messy, not so fun work, but guided by ordo amoris, I can learn to love what must be done. However, it’s not quite complete yet. Our deepest ancestors cast off God’s order, and our affections have been disordered since. Jesus came and called his disciples into a new order of loves. Surely there were still days of cleaning the nets, but some days looked different than those men had ever imagined. Some days the right order was novel and perhaps delightful; other days it was even harder, more frightening, or perhaps well below their pay grade. But through years of training, of the Lord calling these things good, their affections came into this new right order and they continued all sorts of good work in Jesus’ name, by the power of the Spirit, to the glory of Father.
Amen. Let it be so.
