Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · September 3, 2006

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Prayer of the Day

Lord, we thank you for the day that is today.  In this hour of worship, may we be led to accept your gracious invitation, to live and work in the moment, and to enjoy the effort, confident in your goodness, to make our labors mean something important and eternal.  Amen.

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

There’s a time to be born, and there’s a time to die.

There’s a time to plant, and there’s a time to uproot.

There’s a time to kill, and there’s a time to heal.

There’s a time to tear down, and a time to build up.

There’s a time to weep, and a time to laugh.

There’s a time to mourn, and a time to dance…

There’s a time to embrace, and there’s a time to refrain.

There’s a time to search, and there’s a time to give up.

There’s a time to keep, and a time to throw away.

There’s a time to tear, and a time to mend.

There’s a time for silence, and there’s a time to speak.

There’s a time for love, and there’s a time for hate.

There’s a time for war, and there’s a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from all his/her toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on people.  God has made everything beautiful in its own time.  God has also set eternity in the hearts of human beings; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know, however, that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  That everyone might eat and drink, and find satisfaction, pleasure, in all their work – for that is a gift from God.

Message

A Fresh Approach to the Job

Rick Frost

There is an old song that came out a few years back.  It was recorded by the Silhouettes.  It goes something like this.  Actually if you know it, I want you to sing along, because if you don’t, it’s really going to be a long morning.  It goes like this.  [Editor’s note: Rick does an almost valiant job of leading the congregation in singing/speaking this Number 1 hit from the 1950s.]

Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Mum mum mum mum mum mum
Get a job; Sha na na na, sha na na na na
Every morning about this time
she gets me out of my bed
a-crying, “Get a job.”
After breakfast, everyday,
she throws the want ads right my way
And never fails to say,
”Get a job;” Sha na na na, sha na na na na
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Sha na na na, sha na na na na,
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
Mum mum mum mum mum mum
Get a job; Sha na na na, sha na na na na
And when I get the paper
I read it through and through
And my girl never fails to say
If there is any work for me,
And when I go back to the house
I hear the woman's mouth
Preaching and a crying,
Tell me that I'm lying 'bout a job
That I never could find.

It’s Labor Day, folks, in the U.S.A.  While it is not officially a part of the Church Universal liturgical celebration, it has managed to make its way into the Prayer Books.  It has been part of North American churches’ reflections for over 100 years. 

How grateful we are that most of us have jobs.  For some of us, we are more grateful, still, that our children have jobs.  While thanks and praise are clearly in order, we Christians, I am sure, would want to be quick to lift up those who, for a variety of reasons, are not able to gain a livelihood in the modern job market – those who are aged, those who are infirmed, those who are handicapped, those who are held back in any way.  Issues surrounding their economic needs, I know you know and I hope they continue, as they certainly should be, on the agenda of individuals, of families, of churches, as well as federal, state, and local governments.

There are lots of things we could talk about today.  Christian theologians, like John Cobb, have named a few of the kinds of things that we might focus on.  There are some huge moral issues that are out there today that have an impact not only on us but the whole world.  They have to do with labor.  They have to do with work.  They have to do with the economy.  The impact, for instance, of the globalization of the economy, the struggle that continues between democratic capitalism and democratic socialism.  The impact that the economic growth that is taking place on this planet is, in fact, having on our environment and its future.  There is a growing gap between the rich the poor. There is a need to reconsider the fundamental concepts of economic theory from a Christian perspective.  The one that bothers me most of all is the fact that transnational corporations now have so much freedom from any kind of control, regardless of where they might be located, they are essentially accountable only to their stock holders in today’s world.  Those are realities, folks.  They are very real, and they should, if they do not, concern Christians greatly, not only here, but everywhere.

Now, we could talk about that.  We could also talk about the ten hot jobs that are sort of cutting edge for the year 2006-2007, because, as you know, the employment market changes so rapidly right along side everything else.  Candice Conner, of Career Builders Inc., names a few.  There is a growing need, for instance, for animal-assisted therapists.  (I didn’t know this.  Did you know that?)  That is a person who has trained and is prepared to help improve the mental, social, and physical issues within humans through animal-human companionship.  It’s a whole new field.  It’s wide open.

There is also something coming up called computer-forensic expert.  That is a person who has been trained to uncover deleted information from computers, which helps the legal system track down people who are attempting to cover up their illegal activities.  It’s a whole new area.

There are a lot of other ones included in her list along that line if you are thinking about a job change or the jobs of the future.

Genetic counselors are needed.  There is something called a legal-nurse consultant.  It is a whole new area.  There is something called a medical illustrator.  The one I love the most: a veterinary physical therapist.  Amazing.  Wow!  When it comes to jobs, you never know what’s going to be the next big thing, and more importantly, you never know what’s going to be history.  Things change. 

The fact is, if my research is correct, as of this weekend, the unemployment rate in this nation is down to 4.7%, which the folks say is pretty good, really.  Nurses, teachers, and ministers are in short supply, while professional athletes, entertainers, dentists, and lawyers are a dime a dozen.

OK.  Moving right along.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, developing technologies, demographic kinds of shifts in the population, legislative changes, business trends, and consumer behavior or the five key things that determine the nature of our work-a-day world.  Of course, they are charged with tracking those kinds of things.  But the question I would like for us to consider today, on this Labor Day weekend, is more important than any of those other issues.  At least, this is what I think.  What makes our work meaningful, regardless of what it is we do, whether we get paid for it or not?

Now, in the middle of your Bible there is a book, the Book of Ecclesiastes that I read from a moment ago.  It is one person’s account, as most of you know.  It is probably an older gentleman.  He doesn’t have a name in Scripture, but we call him generally, among friends, “Q.”  His name is “Q.”  The Book of Ecclesiastes is his account, his attempt, to look at life and try to figure out what endures.  What lasts?  What is really meaningful about how we spend so many hours of our day?  What really matters?

Now, much of the Book of Ecclesiastes is consumed with his assessment of the human predicament, or the human situation, life, as you and I know it, from the time we are born up to the moment we die.  Particularly, he focuses on the limits or the lot of those persons in the world that have no relationship with God, who have no sense of God’s purposes in this world, and people who cannot seem to see anything for themselves beyond the grave.  So, he sees, in the midst of that, a busy, busy human anthill, madly pursuing many, many things, trying this, trying that, laboring away, most of the time on our own, as if somehow, by their own efforts they can master the world.  They are trying to lay bare its deepest secrets.  They are trying to change the fundamental structure of creation.  They are trying to build for themselves enduring monuments, so that they can control somehow their destiny, and achieve some state of secure, lasting happiness.  Does that sound like anybody that anyone here knows?  Amazing.

“Q” takes a hard look at that.  “Q” takes an honest look at that, at people working, laboring at life with basically an overblown concept of human powers, and consequently, out there busting their humps trying to deal and achieve unrealistic hopes, dreams, and aspirations. 

He concludes…  Now you have to understand when you read Ecclesiastes, it is not just a very nice, well-designed document.  It doesn’t have a great sense of flow and logic.  It is sort of a roller coaster.  But if you read the whole thing, one of the things you become aware of is he says if that is all there is, if there is nothing more to life between the time we are born and the time we die than that, then all of our work, all of our toil, all of our building, and creating, and achieving is essentially vanity.  Just vane, like chasing after the wind, he says.  It’s meaningless, futile, useless, impotent, hollow.

Now those, I think, are very threatening words, folks, for a very utilitarian, pragmatic, secular society in which you and I live.  Now, what is interesting to me is that “Q,” in his book, the Book of Ecclesiastes, rather than saying what you might expect, which is, “Work essentially is pointless, and, therefore, we ought to avoid it at all costs.”  You and I know some people who are into that.  Don’t we?  But he, in his book, urges just the opposite.  Did you notice that?  He calls us to be enthusiastic, to vigorously and diligently do two things.  Number One: enjoy your life.  Number Two: engage in your work.  Isn’t that interesting?  Enjoy your life, and engage in your work.

Why?  Because, he says, “The path to meaningful, joyful, purposeful living is the path that chooses to place God at the very center of your life, the center of your work, the center of all your activities.  Wow!

“Sure,” he says.  “Life is messy.  Things happen that you can’t control, that you can’t predict.”  Everyone in this room knows about the balancing act of living on the razor’s edge of uncertainty.  Everyone knows what we have heard in Ecclesiastes forever.  There are good times, and there are bad times.  Neither of which, to a great extent, do we get to control. 

As Saint Art said…  You all know Saint Art?  Art Buchwald.  Art said, “Whether these are the worst of times or whether these are the best of times, it really doesn’t matter, because they are the only times that we have.”

There’s a lot of wisdom there. 

What is certain for “Q,” the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes, this is his theme: Life is meaningless apart from God.  That is his theme.  That’s why this book exists in the Bible.  Life is meaningless apart from God.  He says, “Therefore, believe.  Have faith in, trust God.  Keep God’s commandments.  Accept your limitations.  Accept life as you’ve been given it on its own terms.  Enjoy that life you have been given as fully as you can.  Don’t trouble yourself with unrealistic goals.  Be prudent, wise, shrewd, farsighted in all of your ways, and engage in the work that God has given you.  Whatever you do,” he says, “do it with all your might.  While you’re doing it, get into it.  Enjoy it.”  Wow!  The Book of Ecclesiastes!

Now, let’s face it.  Most of the trouble we get into with our work is when we fail to keep work in its proper perspective.  We all know people who become obsessive.  They become compulsive.  They presume that somehow they can secure themselves and their futures through their work.  “Q” says, “Well, better to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  The day-to-day kinds of routine.  The rhythm of life as it comes.  The joys that come from contributing your little piece to the big picture without pretense or without delusions of grandeur.  In short,” he says, “live each day.  Enjoy today.  Enjoy the process, and know that God and God alone knows where all of our work will lead.  What it is all finally going to add up to.  What’s really going to last.  For in the end,” he says, “the best thing we can ask of God, is that God will take all of our efforts, all of our work, and somehow weave those all together into God’s great, wonderful eternal purposes, and somehow make them all work for God’s good glory.”  Wow!

I know someone who is a fine, fine woodworker.  The other day, he was showing me a very beautiful, very simple, very exquisite chair that he had made, literally, with his own hands.  “Wow,” I said.  “That chair will last forever!”  I was trying to be complimentary of his work.

He said these profound words, “No, no.  I doubt that it will last forever.  I just want it to be the best that I can do right here and right now.”

Andre Agassi, 36 years old, eight-time Grand Slam tennis champion, has obviously captured the sports world’s attention this week at the U.S. Open.  He announced prior to the beginning of that event that this is his farewell event.  He’s out there, as you know, giving it all he has.  “I want to be here real bad,” he said.  “I want to be here all two weeks.  I want to leave my best stuff out there on the court.  I’m proud of this day.  I’m glad it gets to happen just one more time.”

With his father, his brother, his wife, and his children in the stands, as you know if you are a sports fan, he has amazed everyone with his three wins thus far.  His brother Phil said before the event even started, “It will be nice if Andre wins, but it’s not really that important.  Even if he loses, it won’t put a damper on everything he has accomplished, everything he’s done.  Everyone is here, his office, the whole family.  We just wish him well.”

I think that philosophy is pretty close to “Q’s” in the Book of Ecclesiastes.  “For there is nothing,” he said, “better for people than they be happy, and do good while they live.  That everyone might eat and drink, and find satisfaction in, pleasure in, all their work, for this is a gift of God.”

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

God of the harvest, we are the laborers in your vineyard.  May we ever be your people who are full and satisfied with the toil and with the harvest.  These are your gifts and your highest hopes for your people.  Amen.