“And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.”

My first real job was as a busboy in an all-you-could eat buffet place called, “King’s Table”.  And yes, in Southern Indiana in the 70’s, there was enough fried chicken, mashed potatoes, Cole slaw, creamed corn and marshmallow jellos to stuff many a king and queen. I always thought it a bit of an oxymoron in a gluttonous place like King’s Table (I still recoil every time I see a heat lamp hanging over a buffet line) that the Manager would tell all of us workers that “Idle time was wasted time”, but it stuck with me and he was right.  “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean”.  I used that one many times in my Pizza Hut HR days.  Sure, we are to have down and rest times in our work, but I don’t think we spend enough time on the benefits of the reduction of idle time.  If we removed the time at work that we surfed social media, had distracting conversations, checked frivolous emails and stared out the window and then replaced that time with leaving work that much earlier, we’d probably all put our heads down and get our jobs done without much idleness.  For the actualized, that is what they do and I have always admired them.  The time at work is for work.  Idleness is for some other place.

Jesus calls out that idle words will be judged.  Idle words would be those that the dictionary describes as “(of a person) avoiding work; lazy.”  It’s a good earthly lesson to follow, but that’s not what Jesus was talking about.  He was completing a statement about who will be recognized as working with him and not and how we can tell that by the fruit that is borne of our spirit, lives and actions.  He then throws in the judgement of our idle words.  It’s above my pay-grade to theologically interpret the words of Jesus, but I can say that what I hear here is that Jesus is challenging (me) us to not slough off the responsibility (and work He has given us) to further His Kingdom in all that we do.  What great King reigns over a land that He is content in keeping the same size? We have few years left (no matter how young we are) and those years, months, weeks, days are too precious for us to become idle.

Reference: Matthew 12:36 (New Living Translation)