Laboring in the Vineyard
James 2
September 6, 2009
Work is as old as human history. Genesis tells us that, this side of Eden, work is our lot. Scripture describes all kinds of work: shepherds, tentmakers, sellers of purple clothe, fishing, tax collecting, military service, medicine, teaching to name but a few. No job is raised up as particularly Godly and none is denigrated as unfaithful or, in any case, beyond redemption – not even the world’s oldest profession.
Work is, simply put, the human condition. From the time we are first able to help out around the house until the day we die, there is work for us to do.
Which makes me wonder why we only have one day to celebrate this. After all, it’s like the weather, we have it every day why not celebrate it as often as we can.
So, this morning, let’s celebrate the gift of work.
Oh, to be sure, we do not always receive work as a gift, and we can all quite easily name the parts of our own particular work that we do not enjoy, but this morning I want to focus on what in our work we celebrate, and, more to the point, where in our work do we find God or feel God’s presence. In other words, let’s talk a bit about the spirituality of our everyday lives.
I believe it was Holly Near who sang, “our work is more than our jobs, and our life is more than our work.”
So when we think about finding God in our work we don’t limit that work to what we do for money. Lots of us do yard work and house work, but few of us get paid for it. Many of us provide lots of child care, but no so many of us get paid. Many of us find ourselves providing a good deal of elder care as well, but, again, not for money. All of that is work even if none of it is your job.
The author of James is quite insistent that faith without works is dead, and I agree wholeheartedly. But, at the same time, I would suggest that work without faith is deadening. It is soul killing to go to work – whether it’s a job, school, or any of the other kinds of work that we do – to go to work without any expectation of encountering the spirit of the living God somewhere along the way.
Where, in the everyday, to you sense awe and wonder and the beauty of the created order and of your fellow creatures?
My work takes me into people’s lives at their most vulnerable. I have been amazed and overwhelmed time and time again at the privilege it is to be with the dying. That is work that would be soul-killing if I did not engage it with faith, and with eyes wide open to the presence of the living God in the midst of death. Sometimes it is part of my work to speak God into that setting through prayer, but far more often, no words are necessary. The spirit needs no naming, she is simply felt – a very present help in times of trouble.
I am happy to say that death is not everyday stuff in my work. You are, no doubt, just as happy about that.
I am happy about it in large part because the other place or situation in which I can almost guarantee myself an encounter with the living God is in the midst of God’s people; that is to say, quite obviously, in your presence I feel God’s presence. In your faithfulness, I feel the faithfulness of God. In your work, I feel the living God at work in your and through you. As you let me be Christ for you, you are Christ for me.
I believe this is what the author of James was talking about. If our faith consisted only in sitting around saying, “I believe, I believe,” but our lives did not reflect the trust that is the heart of authentic faithfulness, our words would be empty and our lives would be hollow.
But I see in you, over and over and over again, lives that have been hallowed – lives that are full and marked by the awe and wonder we feel in the presence of the living God and moved into work for the coming of the kingdom. We are laborers in the vineyards of the Lord. Come labor on.
Amen.
September 6, 2009
Work is as old as human history. Genesis tells us that, this side of Eden, work is our lot. Scripture describes all kinds of work: shepherds, tentmakers, sellers of purple clothe, fishing, tax collecting, military service, medicine, teaching to name but a few. No job is raised up as particularly Godly and none is denigrated as unfaithful or, in any case, beyond redemption – not even the world’s oldest profession.
Work is, simply put, the human condition. From the time we are first able to help out around the house until the day we die, there is work for us to do.
Which makes me wonder why we only have one day to celebrate this. After all, it’s like the weather, we have it every day why not celebrate it as often as we can.
So, this morning, let’s celebrate the gift of work.
Oh, to be sure, we do not always receive work as a gift, and we can all quite easily name the parts of our own particular work that we do not enjoy, but this morning I want to focus on what in our work we celebrate, and, more to the point, where in our work do we find God or feel God’s presence. In other words, let’s talk a bit about the spirituality of our everyday lives.
I believe it was Holly Near who sang, “our work is more than our jobs, and our life is more than our work.”
So when we think about finding God in our work we don’t limit that work to what we do for money. Lots of us do yard work and house work, but few of us get paid for it. Many of us provide lots of child care, but no so many of us get paid. Many of us find ourselves providing a good deal of elder care as well, but, again, not for money. All of that is work even if none of it is your job.
The author of James is quite insistent that faith without works is dead, and I agree wholeheartedly. But, at the same time, I would suggest that work without faith is deadening. It is soul killing to go to work – whether it’s a job, school, or any of the other kinds of work that we do – to go to work without any expectation of encountering the spirit of the living God somewhere along the way.
Where, in the everyday, to you sense awe and wonder and the beauty of the created order and of your fellow creatures?
My work takes me into people’s lives at their most vulnerable. I have been amazed and overwhelmed time and time again at the privilege it is to be with the dying. That is work that would be soul-killing if I did not engage it with faith, and with eyes wide open to the presence of the living God in the midst of death. Sometimes it is part of my work to speak God into that setting through prayer, but far more often, no words are necessary. The spirit needs no naming, she is simply felt – a very present help in times of trouble.
I am happy to say that death is not everyday stuff in my work. You are, no doubt, just as happy about that.
I am happy about it in large part because the other place or situation in which I can almost guarantee myself an encounter with the living God is in the midst of God’s people; that is to say, quite obviously, in your presence I feel God’s presence. In your faithfulness, I feel the faithfulness of God. In your work, I feel the living God at work in your and through you. As you let me be Christ for you, you are Christ for me.
I believe this is what the author of James was talking about. If our faith consisted only in sitting around saying, “I believe, I believe,” but our lives did not reflect the trust that is the heart of authentic faithfulness, our words would be empty and our lives would be hollow.
But I see in you, over and over and over again, lives that have been hallowed – lives that are full and marked by the awe and wonder we feel in the presence of the living God and moved into work for the coming of the kingdom. We are laborers in the vineyards of the Lord. Come labor on.
Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
11:12 AM
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