Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this Labor Day
weekend is from Genesis 2: 15: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in
the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”
There are so many things I want
to know about what the Garden of Eden was like. Can you imagine a beautiful
place with the perfect temperature, humidity level, and air so clean that
allergies cannot exist? Can you imagine being able to pick fruit without
worrying about residual herbicide or insecticide contamination, where you can
drink from a stream without worrying about e. coli poisoning, where the sun
warms you gently, where the breeze cools you perfectly, and where you share the
space with all kinds of animals – including snakes, spiders, lions, tigers, and
bears, oh my – without fear? Truly, that sounds like the utopia of all utopias.
But what amazes me the most is
the concept that Adam was given work to do in the garden, but the work wasn’t hard,
the way we know work to be. It wasn’t a burdensome chore. Weeds weren’t
troublesome. There were no fire ants or wasps or Black Widow spiders to contend
with. Sweat didn’t get in his eyes. It was truly a joy, in every sense of the
word, a pleasure, a peaceful, symbiotic coexistence of serving God’s creation
as its caretaker while being a recipient of the gifts it offered. In every
possible way, it was a perfect existence while working in God’s garden.
That is mind boggling to me
because all that you and I know is that work is, well, work. People say, “it’s
not work if you enjoy what you do,” but that’s not exactly true, is it? I love
my job – most days. I get to tell God’s people about Jesus – that’s a great job
– but then there are other days, like when I’ve wrestled with what to say to
broken hearts, or what not to say to angry souls, or how to handle conflict,
all while trying to compose a sermon that speaks the truth of God’s word and
not my own desire to lash out. I love preaching and teaching, but there have
been days when sweating in hayfields and fence rows, being sore for days on
end, would have been a welcome tradeoff. You know what I mean, because you have
those moments, too, when you wish you could have your “Trading Spaces” moment
and do someone else’s job – or, no job at all – because it is just so hard.
While we might look back into
history with some disdain at Adam and Eve, there is no way they knew what those
forbidden bites would do to all of creation, including the gift of work that
God had given you in the Garden. With two, delicious but damning bites,
creation fell, mankind fell, and work – that peaceful, copacetic relationship
of service – became work as we know it. “Cursed is the ground because of
you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles
it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the
sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out
of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return.” (Gen.
3:17b-19)
In his novel, The Backpacker,
author John Harris describes what work has become.
“Work is a four-letter
word. It conjures up the same image the world over: getting up in the morning
to do something you don't want to do, day in day out. After a few months work,
or years, depending on the person's primeval yearning for freedom, you feel
like a robot: alarm clock, get up, wash, catch the train, work, go home, watch
TV, go to bed. In that one sentence I've probably just described the daily
routine of 95% of the working population of England. It's the same in every
other developed country in the world. Routine is the cause of most marriage
break ups and social discontent.”
It's a less sanctified way of
describing what the Preacher wrote in Eccleasties:
“Meaningless!
Meaningless!” “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What
do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?... 9 What
has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing
new under the sun.
Is that it? Is our work
meaningless, destined to be a four letter word for misery and endless struggle
this side of heaven?
I have a running joke in Bible
class, that the answer to any question is one of three options: Jesus, Baptism,
or squirrel. Apply that here: the answer to this question, “Is our work
meaningless?” obviously isn’t squirrel, and baptism doesn’t quite fit the bill,
so the answer must lay with Jesus. How on earth (literally – how, on earth)
does Jesus make our work have meaning?
He redeems it.
We usually think of redemption as
having to do with us and our sins. We often say, “We are redeemed in Christ
Jesus,” and this is true. To redeem, remember, means “to buy back.” Think of a
coupon: the store redeems it from you, that is, it literally buys the coupon
from you. You receive it freely, but it is not free: it costs the store or the
manufacturer the price of the item. Likewise, you receive God’s grace, that is
your redemption, freely, and it was freely given to you, but it was not free.
Forgiveness, redemption, salvation is not free to the giver. The cost was
great. Jesus redeems you from sin, death and satan by His life. He pays the
price for you in His perfect life and innocent blood. He exchanges His life for
your life, His holiness for your sins, His grave for your grave. And, He
redeems you both now and into eternity.
And, because He loves you to
redeem you, He also redeems everything about you, including your work.
In the Christian church, we speak
of the doctrine of vocation. Simply, your vocation is where God places you in
this life. But, he doesn’t just place you to exist. Vocation comes from the
Latin “to call,” vocation, vocation. He called you in Baptism to be His
beloved, and He then calls you to service in His name. But He doesn’t just call
you to serve in His name with a holy pat on the back, an “attaboy” or
“attagirl,” and a go-get-em blessing. He serves in you, through you, to those
around you. And, you can have multiple vocations at once. I am a pastor,
husband, father, son, neighbor, citizen and more. You can have the vocations of
spouse, grandparent, citizen, employer, employee, and neighbor all at the same
time. And, in those vocations, Christ fills you with His Spirit so that you
serve those around you in Christ’s name and with His love.
So, when you change your
grandson’s loaded diaper, your vocation is grandparent and in your loving
service, Christ is present, at work in your work. When you write the report for
your boss, your vocation is employee, and in your service, in your work, Christ
is present, working in and through you for your boss, your company, your
client. When you go to school and learn and study, your vocation is student,
and in your service, in your studies and homework, Christ is present, serving
you, your classmates, and those you encounter as you grow. When you make your
spouse dinner or do the laundry, your vocation is to be husband or wife, and
your service is the mutual care and support of each other and Christ is at work
in you and through you to your husband, to your wife. Whether you are mucking
out a horse stall, doing your multiplication tables, cleaning up a patient’s
vomit, or washing the dishes, your work, your vocation, is redeemed and made
holy in Christ. Christ redeems your work, however hard and uncomfortable and
unpleasant it might be at times, and He turns it to make it holy, so that in
your labors, His is also at work in you and through you and with Him, you serve
your neighbor.
And, the flip-side of the
doctrine of vocation is that God serves you through those around you. God heals
you through the doctors called to the vocation of medicine. God gives you daily
bread through the farmers and ranchers and bakers and store managers and
stockers and truck drivers all called to their vocations of providing food to
your kitchen table. God speaks to you through the pastor whose vocation is the
office of the holy ministry and the Sunday school teachers whose vocation
assists that ministry. God helps you, parents, rear your children through the
teachers, administrators, and support staff whose vocations all care for your
children while God works through you in your various vocations. And, students, God teaches you through the
teachers and coaches and custodians and food service staff whose vocation
places them as God’s representatives to you.
Because Christ has redeemed your
vocation, your calling, you are never without value. I occasionally hear
someone, usually someone who is home-bound or shut-in, lament that they aren’t
worth anything to anyone because they can’t do anything. They have bought the
lie of the economy of the world: value is the sum of ability plus
productivity. As long as I can do, I am
worth something, but when I lose that ability I am worthless. If you see life
through the lens of cost-benefit analysis, pretty soon you become as jaded as
the writer of Ecclesiastes where its you, not life, that is meaningless. That
might be how economists think, but that is not how God’s people are to
think. In God’s economy, your worth is
not in what you do but what Christ has done for you. His death makes you
invaluable to God; His redemption makes you precious to God; His name, placed
on you in baptism, makes you beloved to God. So, when I hear someone, like a
shut-in or home bound Christian, lament that they are not worth anything, I am
quick to correct that misunderstanding. Sometimes vocations can change. For
this home-bound, shut-in child of God, the vocation is now less of serving and
more of being served. Their vocation is one that allows others to care for them
and, in return, to reciprocate the mercy and love of God with gratitude. In
that work of being served, even this is made holy in Christ.
Tomorrow, the nation will mark
Labor Day, a day to celebrate the American worker. For the Christian, every day
is Vocation Day, to thank God for the gift of work and the opportunity to serve your neighbor. Whether you are busy in your vocation or taking a rest from
your labors, whether it is work or work, whatever you do, playing with
the kids, making lunch, doing the laundry, or even quietly sitting with your
spouse and watching a movie, do it to the glory of God, knowing that in Christ,
your vocational work is blessed in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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