Do you know what a Skinner Box is?\u00a0 Psychologist and Behaviorist B.F. Skinner invented this device.\u00a0 It\u2019s a box with a little lever that\u2019s connected to a chute that\u2019s connected to a box of food pellets.\u00a0 You put a rat in the box, and show the rat that pressing the lever makes a food pellet drop down the chute.\u00a0 Press the lever, get a pellet.\u00a0 Press the lever, get a pellet.\u00a0 Before long the rat figures out the connection, and pretty soon you\u2019ve got a big fat lab rat, who\u2019ll sit in the box all day, pounding away on the lever.<\/p>\n
And once the rat\u2019s conditioned, even when the food pellets run out, the rat will still keep plugging away on the lever, expecting to get a pellet.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a danger in drawing too close a parallel between rat behavior and human\u2014in most cases.\u00a0 Just ask B. F. Skinner\u2019s daughter, who had a big box all her own<\/a>.\u00a0 True story!\u00a0 Still, it\u2019s amazing what we will do for some perceived reward.<\/p>\n Rewards of one sort or another are terrific motivators.\u00a0 They encourage us to do something that we might otherwise not do.\u00a0 A reward for the return of a lost wallet might get someone to turn it in, even though we all know they ought to do so anyway.\u00a0 The IRS offers a reward for people who turn in tax cheats.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s frequent flyer miles.\u00a0 How do you choose your airline?<\/p>\n Problems arise when rewards become entitlements.\u00a0 All the airlines would love to end their frequent flyer programs, but they can\u2019t. People expect them now, and won\u2019t fly on a carrier that doesn\u2019t reward them.<\/p>\n Which brings us, in a round-about way, to the parable in today\u2019s Gospel. <\/a> After herding sheep or plowing fields all day, these servants might think that they deserve a nice relaxing supper, with their employer to wait on them.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that\u2019s not how it works, is it? A servant is a servant.<\/p>\n This parable, in the context of the preceding request, \u201cIncrease our faith,\u201d makes it pretty clear that simply getting that increase in faith isn\u2019t going to change the disciples\u2019 status.\u00a0 The faith they receive isn\u2019t a package deal that means they are entitled to heaven.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what their salvation rests on.\u00a0 However much faith they have, they must remain servants.<\/p>\n This is not to condemn them to a life of servitude.\u00a0 That\u2019s not the point.\u00a0 The point is that they can\u2019t be complacent, thinking that since they are people of faith, their work is done.\u00a0 The gift of faith isn\u2019t something that\u2019s given as a status symbol, or as some kind of ornamentation.\u00a0 Faith\u2014even a little faith\u2014is supposed to do something.\u00a0 Even a tiny bit can accomplish the seemingly impossible, like tossing that sycamore into the sea.<\/p>\n The disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith.\u00a0 He responds by saying that they\u2019re not making use of the faith they already have.<\/p>\n That\u2019s pretty challenging!\u00a0 How often in your own life have you prayed for something you thought you needed, instead of digging in and working with what you have?\u00a0 If I only had more faith!\u00a0 If I only had more patience!\u00a0 God give me the strength.\u00a0 If God doesn\u2019t deliver, does that give you an excuse for not doing what you can, with what you have?<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying that we shouldn\u2019t pray for what we need, and ask God to equip us for the tasks he\u2019s given us.\u00a0 But this Gospel is a reminder that disciples are people with a mission, and people on a journey.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t expect that we\u2019re going to reach a point where we can simply rest on our laurels, expecting that God\u2019s going to deliver the big reward. \u00a0 God is calling us to a deeper\u00a0 faith than that.<\/p>\n Because what we\u2019re talking about here is a relationship with the Lord.\u00a0 And a relationship has to be more than a quid pro quo.<\/em> We\u2019re motivated by love of God, and the desire to share that love with the world.\u00a0 We\u2019re not rodents in a Skinner Box, hitting the lever to get the next pellet.\u00a0 There\u2019s no room for us to be complacent, and no reason to expect that we\u2019re entitled.\u00a0 We\u2019re not entitled, we\u2019re loved, and that\u2019s a whole different thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you know what a Skinner Box is?\u00a0 Psychologist and Behaviorist B.F. Skinner invented this device.\u00a0 It\u2019s a box with a little lever that\u2019s connected to a chute that\u2019s connected to a box of food pellets.\u00a0 You put a rat in the box, and show the rat that pressing the lever makes a food pellet drop down the chute.\u00a0 Press the lever, get a pellet.\u00a0 … Continue reading Homily for October 3, 2010 – 27th Sunday C<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5FUlW-1R","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}