Sermons

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Work: Blessing or Curse?
September 3, 2000
Pastor Dan Baumgartner     
Genesis 2 & 3 

It’s good to be with you on this Labor Day weekend.  Labor Day is not, of course, on the church calendar.  But our work, our labor is such a huge part of our lives that it is difficult to ignore.  The average person spends easily over half of their waking life at work of some kind.  Jesus understood this.  His teaching is filled with stories of fishermen, farmers, construction workers, fruit pickers, IRS agents, bosses, workers… everyday occupations which occupied people’s lives.  And so it seems appropriate this morning that we reflect a little on what work is, and what scripture says about it.

As we do this, I am very aware of the comment from George Macleod, the founder of the Iona community in Scotland.  It is said that Macleod often took the job of cleaning that community’s latrines so he “would not be tempted to preach irrelevant sermons on the dignity of labor.”  I confess…I have not cleaned the restrooms at Bethany this week…but hopefully this won’t be irrelevant!

As we talk this morning, I’d like you to think of a very broad definition of work…basically the activity which occupies our day…what we do with our time.  For the sake of discussion, work includes an occupation like lawyer, grocery store clerk, and teacher.

It might include being a student, or a retired person who mentors younger people in different work, or volunteers.  Or perhaps the hardest work of all…the stay-at-home parent.  Whatever you do…how do you think of it?  Is work a blessing?  Or a curse?

I want to offer you this morning five statements:

1.  In the beginning, work was good.

Some of you may want to dispute that already.  Some days I do, too!  Work can seem pretty tedious, monotonous or meaningless.  I remember in college, I worked for awhile installing the computer system which our auto parts company had purchased.  It was in the very early days of the computer, and every part number in our warehouse had to be loaded by hand.  In an auto parts business, that means over 200,000 part numbers.  And so I would sit at a computer screen and enter “Krylon Spray Paint.  Part # 1501.  High Heat Engine Paint.”  Then the pricing information.  Then I’d go to the next one.  “Krylon Spray Paint.  Part # 1502.”  Etc.,  etc.,  etc.   Terrible. 

But look with me here at Genesis 2:4-7.  This is just after the seven days of creation, days when God made the heavens, the earth, the planet, the system, and people… and God kept saying, “This is good…very good.”  And then it is followed by the description of the wonderful garden of Eden.  Then in verse 15, God tells the man to “work the garden and take care of it.”  It’s part of the human life, to work…and it’s part of what is “good.”   

Now, after Adam and his wife Eve disobey God and choose their own way after listening to the serpent…in what we call “the Fall,” then God gives (Genesis 3) “the curses.”  One each for the serpent, for Adam and for the woman, Eve (Genesis 3:17-19).  The work of humankind now sounds very different.

But my point here is that work is not the RESULT of the Fall.  Yes, the ground is cursed, and will be less plentiful, requiring more work.  But this is after things have been messed up.  In the beginning, work was good.  It is part of God’s good creation.

2.  Work is important for us

Isn’t it interesting that we spend so much time avoiding work?  Trying to get rich quick, or retire early, or whatever.  But in Genesis 1, as we are made in the image of God…we are wired to work.  That seems right to me.  We seem to have a natural propensity towards work.  Or at least, it is not good for us to be purely leisurely.  The New Testament is filled with admonitions to work.  In I Thessalonians 4:11-12 Paul encourages believers to “live quietly, mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands…so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.”  In 2 Thessalonians 3 Paul gives us a sort of proverb:  “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

The Old Testament also pitches in, like in Proverbs 19:15:  “Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless man goes hungry.”   Certainly it’s important in making a living, in providing for yourself.  But it goes further. 

There is something inherently satisfying about work, about working hard and seeing progress.  We go up to a cabin on Whidbey Island that has been in Anne’s family for many years.  One of my earliest memories of going there with her family is what I called the “Friday Evening Routine.”  That was back in the days when mainly just the fathers of each family were working.  Wives and kids would go up to the cabin on Friday afternoon, and then about 6 pm there would be a steady stream of cars down the one road, all dads getting off work.  Up and down the beach, the pattern was exactly the same:

Dad drives in the driveway, parks the car, says hi to the kids, kisses his wife, disappears inside the house…then reemerges a short time later, gets the lawn mower out of the garage, and starts to mow.  At first I thought it was just weird!  But then, it slowly dawned on me that many of these were guys whose jobs showed them progress very slowly.  Some owned companies, and it might be a quarter, or 6 months or a year before they could really sit down and say, “Look what we’ve accomplished!  Look where we’ve come!”  But mowing the lawn.  It’s so easy to see progress.  These guys could mow one strip, look back and say, “Look what I’ve done!”  We’re not just wired for leisure.  And this goes against the popular idea of “I slog through work to get to the weekend.”

3.  What we do for work is important

It’s always a question, isn’t it?  Is my work meaningful?  We are all gifted in different ways, with differing abilities.  Ideally, we will get to work at something we have passion for, something that is life-producing…not life-threatening.  We want to be able to be stretched and challenged, to grow as a result of what we do.

There is a wonderful story about the Jewish author Chaim Potok which illustrates this need to do meaningful work.  Potok was drawn to literature and writing from an early age.  Always, however, his mother had different plans for him.  When he headed for college, his mother said “Chaim, I know you want to be a writer, but I have a better plan.  You should be a brain surgeon.  You can make a lot of money, and you can save people from dying.”  When he came home at Christmas, it was the same thing:  “Chaim, I know you want to be a writer, but I have a better plan for you.  You should be a brain surgeon.  You can make a lot of money, and you will keep people from dying.”  So it went.  Every year, every vacation, the same advice from his mother.   

Finally, in his last year of college, he felt like he was going to explode…again his mom said, “Be a brain surgeon.  Make a lot of money, and keep people from dying.”  Potok practically shouted: “Mom!  I don’t want to keep people from dying…I want to help teach them how to live!”   

It is best to be able to do those thing our passions and gifts respond to.  But there’s another question that goes along with this:  Is the work I’m doing okay?   I encounter this all the time, and it is a very important question.  Not just, “Am I doing something that stokes my passions?” but “Is this type of work okay?”  Christ calls us to follow and become servants, and work really allows us the opportunity to serve others.  Now, if you are a doctor, a counselor, a nurse, a teacher, or parent...it might be easy to make this connection.  Others of us may need to look harder.  But regardless of how explicit or implicit the question of how we serve is, we still fact the question of whether we feel good before the Lord in what we do. 

I have a good friend, Jim, from Minneapolis who is extremely bright, loves the Lord, is a great dad and husband.  But my friend also deals a great deal with anxiety and depression.  Now, for many years Jim has been involved as a consultant to the gaming industry, helping people construct and operate casinos.  He does great work…and yet, he is plagued by this unrest and anxiety.  The more I have talked with Jim, the more I am convinced that deep down inside, he doesn’t feel like his faith is compatible to his work…that there is an inherent contradiction.  He’s not ready to hear that yet, but I think he will be some day. 

4.   Who we are at work is important

At any given moment, you may not be in exactly the job you want.   But who are you at work?  We spend so much time with people.  For most of us, the biggest impact we will ever have on people with our faith will come with the customers, bosses and colleagues we have at work.  So the question is,  Does Jesus come to work with you?

Years ago, when I was in business I always was the last one to leave our office.  There was a young man, a janitor who was Asian, who came in as the evening janitor every night at 5:30 pm.  I’m embarrassed to say that for months I never paid the slightest bit of attention to him.  Every night he would come in to empty the garbage, every night I would say, “Sure, come on and get it.”  I was just so busy. 

Finally, after several months, one day I stopped and talked with him.  We struck up a relationship.  His name was Tom, he was putting himself through community college, and it turns out he was from Cambodia.  Over the course of many conversations, he eventually told me that most of his family had been murdered on the “killing fields” of Cambodia.  He had been forced to move to the States to live with relatives he had never met.  Over the next months, we talked about many things.  Even about what faith in Christ meant.  He was a fascinating person, but I was always so embarrassed of those months of daily interaction without ever actually meeting him.

Our workplaces are the number one place of making a difference for the gospel of Christ.  It is such a great place, in this day of mega-mergers, downsizing, consolidations and job instability…in a world where people are constantly told they are expendable…we get daily opportunity to value people, to tell them what Jesus tells us…that people are of primary importance.  And so I wonder where those places are where you can connect with peoples’ lives through work.

5.   How we work is important 

Colossians 3:22-25

Paul’s word here is that we honor God…in how we work.  That we worship God…not just in a sanctuary, but in our offices.  That the ground is holy because of where God is, and that God desires to be where we are.  We honor God by our worship.  We honor God by how we work…and so we want to work well.

I want you to keep all of this in a primary framework, which is quite simply this: What we do for work…is NOT our primary identity.  It’s hard not to let it become that way.  It gets reinforced every time we meet someone new, and the first discussion after the weather is “so…what do you do?”  I always love to imagine myself in one of those situations where someone asks, “So, what do you do?  I.e. who are you?”  And instead of giving my occupation, I would say: “Well, I love to run, I play golf, I have 3 kids, but most importantly I know that I am someone deeply loved by God, and I’m reminded of that every  time I look at the cross.  So…how about you?!”   Someone once said, “Our work will never be fulfilling if it is our primary means of being fulfilled.”

We are drawn again and again to our true identity: people loved by God.  Work comes somewhere after that.  And when we know this deep down inside, when we are reminded of it…then work can be a blessing.  A blessing to ourselves, as we live out the passion and many hours we invest.  A blessing to others, as we invest in the many work relationships we have.  And a blessing to God, as we live out our work as kingdom people.  Amen.