It’s easy to spot someone abusing their authority, but what happens when we’re in a position of power? Today’s reflection reminds us to take Christ’s message of selfless service to heart, using our resources to care for others wholeheartedly.

August 24, 2025: Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Isaiah 66:18–21
Psalm 117:1–2
Hebrews 12:5–7, 11–13
Luke 13:22–30

Faith and Accountability

A reflection by Lori F. Ranner

Have you ever had a bad boss? Not even one that was uniformly terrible - there are so many ways that authority can be poorly wielded. The micromanager, for instance, who fails to distinguish between trivia and necessity, accident and essence, and thus makes your job ten times harder and more unpleasant than it has to be. Or the megalomaniac, who insists on having a finger in every pie, not trusting anyone to be worthy of delegation.

It can be so frustrating and discouraging to work under such a person. We’ve all had the experience in one context or another, for bad bosses have a talent for popping up everywhere we go: school, home, the workplace, elective communities. Very few are bad people in the sense that they truly enjoy making other people miserable - but they nevertheless leave a trail of misery and bitterness wherever they go, because they have never learned the value of collaboration and mutual respect. Power at any level has an annoying habit of falling into the wrong hands - the hands of someone who thinks they are the only ones who can possibly know what to do, and how to do it in a given situation. Thus, there is no reason for them to take on board the opinions or advice of anybody else. This results in a one-person show, reliant on the limited talents and skills of one imperfect individual who, given their modus operandi, will be unable to take responsibility for the failures and mistakes that inevitably follow. Everything good goes to their credit; everything bad goes to someone else’s: for not listening, for not emulating, for not being loyal, or driven, or devoted enough. Bad bosses always have a scapegoat to blame - and often, it ends up being someone they had believed trustworthy. Soon, the bad boss has the feeling that nobody is trustworthy, because nobody is carrying out their orders the way they are meant to be followed. Paranoia ensues, cruelty and vengeance, and we all know how that ends up.

We know it not just because of history, or because of the tyrants and megalomaniacs alive today, wreaking their havoc everywhere you turn. We know what bad bosses are like because all of us have been one, to someone, at some time. From middle school to mid-level administration, everyone has had the opportunity to misuse power, and most of us, it is sad to say, have taken it.

Of course, we protest, we are not the bad bosses! We only want the good for everybody. We see the goals perfectly clearly, some element of our perspective gives us special insight into the necessary path to achieve them. If only people would listen! If only they’d stop blocking the progress we’re trying to make! Why can’t they just lay their egos aside for once, abandon their laziness, stop embracing learned helplessness, educate themselves, suck it up, etc., etc., then everything would go as smoothly as we know it can as long as we’re allowed to just get on with it, and not have to drag everyone else alongside us, kicking and screaming. Can’t the world just cooperate with our vision, for heaven’s sake?

When Pontius Pilate asked why Jesus wasn’t more afraid of his power as Roman procurator, Jesus cut Pilate’s self-importance neatly down to size: “You would have no power over me,” he answers coolly, “if it were not given to you from above.” It’s nice to remember that sort of thing when you’re dealing with an arrogant big shot. On the other hand, it’s a knife that cuts both ways. The phrase soli Deo gloria, “glory to God alone,” reminds me that whatever kind of work I’m involved in, ultimately it’s not about me, but about the source of all powers, gifts, and agency, including mine: God. We are all answerable to the biggest boss of them all; all accountable for ourselves, and all the recipients of unearned grace.

Yet, the exploitation of those under our authority is so tempting. It is perhaps the greatest temptation known to humanity: to succumb to hubris and use our power (however limited and humble in form) to impose our will on others because it is our will, and therefore bound to be right, with little thought to how our will affects the well-being of the other, whether or not it honors their personal integrity, facilitates their own gifts, or truly nourishes the whole entity which has endowed us with this bit of earthly power in the first place, whether that be the family, the university, or the corporation. It is so easy to take advantage of others, or to demean them through the exercise of our power while seducing our own consciences with the protest that it is really for their good; they just don’t know it yet. You don’t need to be a monster to be a bad boss, the kind that is casually, not spectacularly, selfish or cruel - just indifferent to the impact of your will on others.

If it is tough to avoid being a bad boss, it’s even tougher to live under one. Perhaps it is because we’ve been damaged by those who wield their authority so poorly that we instinctively crave power for ourselves, determined to never again be the subject of the bully, the abusive parent, or the bad boss.

Today’s readings have some very clear messages both for those incompetents in authority and those who suffer under them. The words of Scripture serve as a guide, a model, and a consolation when we are confronted with abuses of power, or the temptations to abuse power ourselves.

First, the work of God’s realm is not a spectator sport for human beings. It’s our work, and it’s rough, brutal business. Following divine teaching is going to get you hurt. A radical commitment to compassion and justice in our own little corner of God’s world will probably win you more enemies than friends. Usually, those enemies will be people who are in control, and who have an interest in preserving the status quo. Standing up to someone who’s used to getting their way can earn you a bloody nose or a bruised ego, and very possibly cost you very dearly in terms of your own power and privilege.

This vulnerability can feel like divine persecution sometimes. “I’m doing your work, God,” we might grumble, “why are you letting them get the best of me?” No matter, the author of the letter to the Hebrews exhorts. Our tough times aren’t God looking the other way; they’re anything but that. His word for this kind of tribulation is translated as “discipline,” which sounds grim to modern ears. In reality, it is a word sharing the Latin origins of disciple: one who learns. Experiencing unjust treatment at the hands of others is no fun, but can it be one way to learn about moral choice? Just as our schoolyard tormentor had a choice to use their power for good or ill, so too do we all. Truth becomes translated from theory into reality when it happens to us. Inevitably, the time will come when we are in the position of power: will we remember that lesson of our own pain, and choose to wield it with respect, humility, and love? “All discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”

If not, well, Jesus is there in today’s Gospel to remind us that there’s an expiration date on redemption; our mortality guarantees that. One last chance will inevitably come before our time on earth is up, and if we’re not paying attention, we might miss it. The ensuing scenario that Jesus describes is terrifying:

The ones who think they’re in will be out. They’ll protest that they “ate and drank” with Jesus, enjoyed the fruits of this earth with him, publicly identified with his message; they were his mates! And now they are to be cast aside? Indeed. Locked out of the house, Jesus warns, to wail and gnash their teeth - the biblical watchwords for total existential despair. God (the “master of the house”) will refuse to own them: “I don’t know where you’re from.” Whatever they were doing while Jesus was among them, they didn’t take his message to heart, and as a result, they remain “evildoers,” just as foreign to the heavenly realm as Jesus is native to it, because they ignored Jesus’ example of power exercised as selfless service.

And what’s worse, in the place of the “in” crowd - those big shots who were so keen to be identified with Jesus’ movement - are some nobodies. People from everywhere but the centers of power and received privilege are welcomed in. The little people, the ones far down the totem pole, the ones with no hope and no agency, are the ones God wants; having no power or privilege makes them much less tempting to abuse! This is why Jesus points out that the way to heaven is narrow. All of us have power over somebody; hardly anyone is so poor that there is no one poorer, or weaker, or worse off. And if the opportunity is there to do good, so is the temptation to do evil. Only very few will be able to withstand their desires to dominate those in their care (for that is what authority truly means, rather than an opportunity for exploitation) in the way that Jesus did when Satan offered him dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last” should be a great comfort to us, but also a haunting challenge: as the saints go marching in, so to speak, where exactly will we be in that number?

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Lori Ranner is the author of five novels and the upcoming authorized biography of medievalist and LGBTQ+ Studies pioneer John Eastburn Boswell, to be published by Eerdmans in the coming year. She has taught classical languages and history at universities and high schools in the New Orleans area for twenty-three years.