What Are You Worth?

 

August 31, 2026

I did not know my worth. But I was blessed with good bosses (small mercies) who knew my worth. I was a fledgling Client Service Executive at a leading advertising agency in the early 80s (I betray my age). We had a presentation to the Mahindra & Mahindra Group, which consisted of three businesses - trucks, tractors, and the famous Willy’s Jeep.

Only in my mid-twenties, with just one year of advertising experience, I was asked (was it instructed?) by my boss, Farhad Gimi, to make the Annual Strategy Plans presentation to the management of the group – including the Chairman of the Group, Keshab Mahindra. I froze at the thought. My boss looked at me and asked, “Is there a problem?”

As at different times in my life, I said, “Problem? No problem,” like the Japanese. In their culture, they are known to say “Yes” to their bosses because of the culture they work and live within. At that moment, they may not have a clue how to solve the problem, but they put their shoulder to the grind or their mind to the task and get started.

What my boss Farhad Gimi did for me when I was in my mid-twenties shaped me forever. Since then, I have never said no to anything my bosses asked me. I also said (or left it unsaid) that if it is to be done by me, then I am in charge. I will do it my way, keeping the boss in confidence. Neither of us wanted to fail, so cooperation and coordination were key. If I still failed, my boss would take the fall with his boss.

Jesus took the fall for us. His Father wished it so. ‘And He went a little farther, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” (Mt 26:39).

He knew our worth. We were worth his life – and not just that, but also the suffering that preceded it. His resurrection redeems us.

Peter's worth went up when he proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. (Mt 16:16) Then it went up a notch further when Jesus proclaimed Peter as the rock on which the Church will be built. (Mt 16:18) Then Peter's worth came crashing down when Jesus called him a 'stumbling block' and rebuked Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan'. (Mt 16:23) Then it went up incalculably when Jesus forced an apology from Peter by asking Peter three times whether Peter loved him. (John 21:15-17) Peter, now humbled, took on the task, with fire in his belly, anointing in his hands, and spouting wisdom from his mouth, knowing and accepting the prophecy of his death akin to Jesus – only worse – upside down.

“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!” (John 21: 18-19).

Peter was a stumbling block that became the rock on which the Church was built. In our day-to-day engagement, we perceive some people as stumbling blocks. Largely misconstrued because we have ‘legendary’ expectations from them. The same stumbling blocks become a source of blessing to us by their patience and humility – not competing to score on a scale of rudeness, but winning over with grace.

Fr Mike Schmitz, host of Ascension Presents, in one of his Sunday Homilies (22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Times), shares a folk parable:

A son wanted to know what he is worth. He went and asked his father. The father pulled out a gem from his pocket and told his son to take it to a shopkeeper and ask how much he would pay for it. But not to hand over the gem to the shopkeeper. When the shopkeeper asks how much is expected, the father instructs his son to show two fingers (like the peace sign). The son returns home with the gem and tells his father that the shopkeeper said $2.  The father then sends his son to an antique dealer with the same modus operandi. The antique dealer says $200.  The father then asks his son to do the routine with a jeweller. The jeweller says $200,000.

The moral of the parable – the father tells the son – don’t let others tell you your worth.

Jesus had gone to Nazareth – his home town. He visited the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Jesus stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah handed to him. (Lk 4:16-17) Jesus read the scroll, sat down and declared, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:21). “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. (Lk 4:22) With a note of derision and disbelief. They signalled to Jesus his worth to them.

They could not reconcile the quiet and possibly introverted Joseph who chiselled wood into furniture with an eloquent Jesus who produced miracles that all the prophets of the Old Testament put together would have testified that Jesus was the Messiah, as Zachariah and Isaiah clearly indicated with their prophecies.  

How often we too judged prematurely and resisted engaging with some people. Then one day we discover the person’s true worth when he turns up as a chief guest at a function and is lauded for his meritorious service to the nation and the success that followed him. We had written off the person. Now we want to rub shoulders with him.

To Jesus, his fellow men did worse.

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Lk 4:28-30)

What got them so furious? Jesus was showing a mirror to their cussedness. Even Elijah and Elisha had to find prospects outside Judah to work their amazing miracles. “Truly I tell you,” He continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years, and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” (Lk 4:24-27)

There are times we engage with people and frown that they are distracted and scatter-brained. I formed such an opinion of a person who was trying to be helpful – but little short of my expectations. I learnt later that her 21-year-old son had died just a few days after my interaction with her. In hindsight, I hope I hid my irritation well. I am devastated by the news. I am a work in progress. I pray Jesus melt me, mould me, and make me what you want me to be.

-        Mathew Anthony