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Sunday, September 05, 2010
The Dignity of Work
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 9:10a The New Jerusalem Bible
Whatever work you find to do, do it with all your might.
Our celebration this weekend of Labor Day comes when a record number of us are out of work and when millions of others are feeling fearful and uncertain about our jobs. This Monday holiday began in 1882 to recognize the importance of working women and men and to promote working conditions that are fair and humane.
As we mark this day in 2010, we sense a lot of questions about work. Will we ever recover some of the manufacturing jobs that we have lost to other countries? What are the new job fields to be explored in the next five, ten, twenty years? Are there truly some jobs that most American citizens would not usually fill, and is it important to have immigrant workers to fill those jobs? Here is the whole emotional and controversial topic of immigration and documented and undocumented workers.
As I thought about this topic of work and this day of worship, I mostly came up with questions. How can we really help our neighbors and friends who are out of work or who are uncertain about work?
We have just ended one of the most important five session seminars in our Wednesday evening Employment Search Group. These seminars were taught by St. Andrew member Bob Tipton and an average of 100 people attended each of those sessions. This is the largest turnout we have ever had in the five years of this very important ministry. Some of us said that we have several feelings about that very successful program. We are so pleased that we were meeting the needs of so many people, several of whom found work during those five weeks, and we also felt moved because there were so many people who are unemployed and underemployed and who are fearful about having meaningful work.
We saw fresh evidence of this unemployment crisis in the Denver area in Bill Johnson’s column in Friday’s Denver Post where he talked about the Sister Carmen Community Center in East Boulder County which is currently assisting 1,462 families, one hundred more than in January.
I just came up with more and more questions. What is your work, your life work? Who are you in your job and who are you apart from any job? What is your calling and mission in life and how does it relate to or not relate to your job?
This week, Judy and I just spent three days with 89 pastors of the largest congregations in United Methodism. These are people who are on the Leading Edge of new and important ministries for more and more people. We had invited all of our Bishops as well and thirty two of them were there. It was a significant time as we shared ideas of ministries that are working, ways to continue to help and involve new people, and new ways to help people who are hurting.
One of the pastors present at that event is leading some incredible programs in a congregation near Dayton Ohio. Dayton is one of the hardest hit areas in our country where the unemployment rate is close to 13 percent. His congregation has done some very important outreach ministries with people in need.
- They have established food pantries, a grocery co-op, senior lunch programs, free community meals four days a week and gently used clothing and furniture stores.
- They have taken Jesus’ words about loving and caring for our neighbors very seriously.
At the same time, Pastor Mike Slaughter of that congregation has the following to say about working and not working in his most recent book, Change the World: A Study for Leadership Teams, as he differentiates between a person’s job and a person’s life purpose and life mission.
Understanding your life purpose is discovering why you are alive and knowing the contribution you want to leave behind. Some people confuse life purpose with some (short term) goals. Life purpose is not to be confused with a job. You can lose your job but you can’t lose your life purpose and mission.
As I said, what I have for you and me this morning is mostly a series of questions on Labor Day weekend.
- What is your work? How is it similar to or connected with or not connected with your life purpose and mission? You can have a life mission whether or not you currently have a job.
- How would you describe your work? What do you do? What are you doing with the time and talents God has given to you?
- What is most meaningful and least meaningful about your work?
- Would you keep “working” if you inherited a pile of money or won the lottery? Why or why not?
- How can you make your work and your life mission more connected if they are not?
- Where else can you put your talents and energy if you are not using them well in the work you are doing? Perhaps they can be put to work in a role in your congregation or as a volunteer with the East Elementary School we have just adopted in Littleton where 80% of the children are on free or reduced lunch programs?
How are you thinking and feeling about “work” on this Labor Day weekend?
Here are three other brief reflections about work and labor as we move toward the advice from the book of Ecclesiastes that urges us, whatever the task: do it with all our might, give it everything we have, and give it our best.
I get to walk through our new building a couple of times a week, and I try to thank the workers for what they are doing. Many of them, from all the different trades, have responded over these months: “Thanks for providing the work!”
It’s just as important for all of us to know that, not only are we helping build new space that will allow us to touch even more people with God’s grace and meaning and peace over the next fifty years, but we are also providing jobs for over a hundred workers who might not otherwise be able to work and to provide for their families.
Secondly, there is an old story about a newcomer who, many years ago, was talking with some of the stone masons who were working on a European cathedral. When he asked the first worker what he was doing, the response was that he was just laying one stone on top of another using mortar to keep them together. When he asked the second worker what he was doing, the worker said that he was using his skill on that job so he could feed and clothe his family.
It was the third worker who had a bigger picture. When the third worker was asked to describe what he was doing in the building project, he said that he was helping to construct a church building that would bring thousands of people closer to the grace and love of God and would help people find meaning and direction and a place to serve others!
The third worker on the building could see the eternal significance of his daily work. The deeper truth is that the work that each of us gets to do, also, has eternal significance, whether it is teaching, office administration, healing people, working on a management team, or keeping things clean, we may need to think about it from a new perspective. Can you see how your work and your life calling can have a deeper and broader significance?
When Judy and I were in the three day meeting with other pastors and spouses, I was inspired by the common feeling of a deep commitment to excellence among the leaders in that room. It’s not that all of us were always achieving that excellence, but it was our goal to do what Koheleth tells us in Ecclesiastes 9; whatever you are doing, give it your best. Whatever task is before you, give it all you’ve got. I think that is what God asks of us on this Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and I think that is what God helps us move toward when we involve God in our work and our life purpose.
Uncle John’s Band has a Bruce Springsteen song based on the Tom Joad character in John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath set in mid 1930’s America.