Working for the Man

       Today is Palm Sunday.  Two thousand years ago, Jesus rode into Jerusalem .  Crowds threw their cloaks on the road to make a carpet before Him.  Disciples waved palm branches and cried out joyfully, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”  When some Pharisees tried to stop the crowd’s praise, Jesus boldly proclaimed that if the people were silent, even the stones would shout for joy.

       I want to set Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in the context of a story Jesus told that same day.  Jesus tells about a nobleman who gives money to each of three servants and tells them to do business with this money until he returns.  Two of the three invest the money and show a profit. When the master returns, he praises them and rewards them generously.  The other one takes no risk.  He simply buries the money and returns it with neither loss nor gain.  He is punished.  Even what he has is taken away.

       In the parable there is not extra praise for the one who brings in the most money.  Anybody who gave the job the good try is rewarded.  The one who gets in trouble is the slacker.  He buries his talent in the ground, and then goes so far as to try to blame the master for his own inaction.  “Well, hey,” he says to his master, “You’re a mean guy, so I was too scared to do anything.” 

      That’s not even good logic.  If the master was really mean, he wouldn’t have dared to do nothing.   In fact, his lord is anything but a hard man.  His lord joyfully and generously rewards servants who take risks.

       Now Jesus isn’t just talking about how we should invest coins. He is talking about how we should use all of our resources -- including the abilities, intelligence, and opportunities that God gives us.

       It’s not a coincidence that this parable of risk-taking is wedded to Jesus’ final week among us.  After all, that’s what His whole life was: a grand, life and a death risk on God’s part to show us how much we are loved.

       But let’s face it.  Most of us will get up tomorrow and return to the proverbial daily grind.  What does it mean to take risks for God for five out of every seven days in our daily work?  It’s not easy.

       “I get a knot in my stomach every Sunday evening,” one man said.  “I dread the coming week. I work for a boss who seldom shows an ounce of compassion and never tells me whether I have done a good job.  I feel tremendously alone in this company.  I work with colleagues who really aren’t friends.  I spend most of the day on the telephone or pushing papers to another office.  Seldom do I see the end result of my work, and frankly, I haven’t felt good about what I’m doing for the past half dozen years.  But it’s hard to quit when you are paying off a mortgage and have two kids to put through college.”

       The pain this man expresses is not unusual.  Americans are having increased difficulty coping with their work environment.  The Opinion Research Corporation of America has found that workers are more dissatisfied in their work now that at any time during the past twenty-eight years.

        I believe this is partly because the nature of work has changed.  Dr. Mary Pipher of the University of Nebraska writes:  “In the 1930s people worried about physical survival – food, shelter and warmth.  People had bad teeth and scars from injuries poorly treated.  Hands were knobby from hard labor and frostbite.  Now most Americans have their survival needs satisfied, but this doesn’t necessarily make life easier or better.  In some ways it’s easier to worry about harvesting wheat than self-actualizing, or about making sauerkraut than networking with the right people.  In some ways it’s more rewarding to milk a cow or to bake a pie for hungry children than it is to fill out paperwork for an insurance company, supervise disgruntled employees or sell fancy underwear to strangers via telephone.”

       Work has changed.  But that doesn’t mean that it is no longer central to our lives.  Economics Professor Gordon Dahl of Rochester University observes about modern life that “Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and to play at their worship.  As a result, their meanings and values are distorted.  Their relationships disintegrate faster than they can keep them in repair, and their lifestyles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot.”

       That is an “ouch” quote if I ever heard one.  We all work – and sometimes we “worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship.”

       In Genesis, God pronounces the curse upon the man for his participation in the rebellion in the Garden of Eden: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it, by the sweat of your face you will eat bread.”  In the curse, drudgery was introduced in the world.

       But work existed before drudgery.  Genesis 2 tells of the sad situation of the earth because there was “as yet no man to till the ground.”  The sense is that the earth is incomplete without people to work it.  Genesis 2:15 says that God put man into the Garden to “cultivate it.”  So from the beginning, we have had work as an aspect of our relation to God’s creation – and this relationship of work was one of fulfillment and joy.

       Work is natural for humanity and is honored by God.  But with the fall in the Garden, work became toil.  Work is no longer what it was meant to be.  But there is something within us that wants work to be meaningful – something that is calling us back to the joy in work of the Garden.  This is the root of our modern turmoil.

       We define ourselves by work, but are not even fulfilled in that with which we define ourselves.  We feel that we should be more in work and work should do more for us and yet there is a curious emptiness about all human accomplishment.  We are feeling the effects of the curse as surely as Adam felt the effects when he tore his hands on the thorns.

       Work is the place we tend to put much of our best time and best energies.  It is a place we tend to get at least part of our definition of who we are.  This makes our work a crucial arena for living, expressing and developing our Christian lives.

       Is that a depressing thought?  How do you feel about inviting Jesus Christ to be part of your day to day routine, your interpersonal relations and your office politics?  But remember that Jesus worked for years as a carpenter.  He knows about ethical struggles, rude customers and interpersonal politics.  Nothing that happens in your office will shock Him.  And if we are to live complete Christian lives, it means that we must invite Him into our offices as well as our church and our homes.

       Sp, this Palm Sunday morning, as we approach the celebration of Easter, let us explore three biblical steps we can take to welcome Jesus Christ in our work.

       First, know who you are working with.

       Last fall I heard an ad on the radio that positively amazed me.  A woman was complaining about the problems of being the boss.  All her time, she said, is being consumed with hiring, firing, raises, evaluations and various people problems.  She doesn’t know what to do.  Then this guy with a big radio voice says: “Why don’t you do what I did?  I lease my employees.”  He tells her that this company came in, hired all his employees, and then he leased them back.  The advantage is that now he doesn’t have to worry about people stuff.  The company that owns the employees handles all of that.  He is freed up to get about the important business of making money.

      Isn’t that great?  Now he doesn’t have to handle people as people but as parts.  There would certainly be a lot of advantages.

      Treating people as things is not an option for the Christian – for the simple fact that people are people and people are more than we often think they are.  We must never forget whom we are really working with.  They are people Jesus Christ loves and died for and He calls us to love them in His name.

       The second step, after knowing who you are working with, is to know who you are working for.  Scripture says that we are not to work as people pleasers but unto the Lord.

       A man named Mark Littleton writes in Discipleship Journal; “Often when I come home from work I wonder about the value of what I’ve done all day.  I’m a sales representative for a company that sells machinery to make corrugated boxes.  It’s pretty hard for me to think of that as a ministry.  Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be a heavenly reward for all this mundane activity.  How should someone like me view his job?  Are there eternal rewards for it?  Or is it lost time?  Does it count for anything in God’s kingdom?

        Paul writes to the Christians at Colossae , “Slaves, (the ancient equivalent of employees) obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.  Whatever you do work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for people, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

       Paul doesn’t just come out and call for slavery to be abolished altogether because that would do more harm than good.  The Roman Empire lived in fear of its slaves.  The Romans had fought three long and bloody “servile wars” including the revolt of the gladiators under Kirk Douglas – sometimes known as Spartacus.  For the church to be seen as encouraging revolt would be for the church to burn the very bridge it needs to cross in the spread of the gospel.  What Paul does instead is to establish a climate and an understanding of human life and dignity, which can no longer allow slavery to exist.  And it worked.  Slavery is finished except in parts of the Muslim world like the Sudan .

       But that does not mean that work and service are finished.  So let us reflect on what Paul has to say to slaves and masters and see how these words apply to us and our modern work in our modern world.

       John Calvin, the great Reformation theologian, wrote on Colossians 3: “No tasks will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.”  Of course someone working as a hit man for a crime family can’t claim that his work shines and is previous in God’s sight.  But someone collecting and disposing of the garbage that would otherwise choke a city can make the claim just as truly as can a doctor saving peoples lives.  As far as God is concerned, labor in the wheat fields, when done in faithful submission to God, is as worthy of a crown as Paul’s preaching at Rome .  It is something for which he, too, “will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.”

       Mark Littleton writes: “This touched me recently when I was talking with a non Christian friend.  He complained bitterly of his poor salary and benefits.  It hit me that no matter how little or how much I was paid today, it was nothing compared with the coming reward from God.

       “My friend had nothing beyond a check and the material goods it could buy to show for his efforts.  Those could not ultimately satisfy.  But the thought of standing one day before Jesus and hearing Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put in charge of many things.  Come and share your master’s happiness!” drives me on.  That will be far greater than any Oscar, Pulitzer, Nobel, or Grammy prize the world offers.

       For the third and final step to recovering joy on the job is to know what you are working for.  Recognize that by your work, God is training you to be a co-creator, a participant in His creation.  That’s part of the point of Jesus’ Palm Sunday parable.  He says, “The one who is faithful a little is faithful in much.”  This world, and how we do our work is a testing ground for eternity.

       We sometimes tend to think of work as a necessary evil or as a means to make money, or perhaps as what we have to do to survive since we aren’t rich.  But actually, our work is God’s will for us.  It is part of what God is using to conform us to Christ’s image.  God isn’t calling us to burnout. But he is calling us to fulfill who we are.

       God calls us to find joy in our work.  But where does this joy come from in today’s world?  It comes from knowing who we are working with, who we are working for, and what we are working for.

       Mark Littleton concludes: “tomorrow I will head for the office.  Then for eight hours I will labor in the world of business, computers, harried salesmen, and confused machine operators.  Many will ask me to make decisions and meet their needs immediately.  Some will get angry with me.  A few may swear at me.  Perhaps someone will thank me for my efforts.

       “But through it all I know One will be watching me, empowering me, and planning to reward me well.  He’s the one we all serve.  So next time you dash to work and stumble into your office or plant or store, tell your real master about your needs, your cares, your hopes and goals.  Ask Him to empower you for the job and to make you faithful.  Thank Him for his promised reward.  And then see what new energy, joy and fruitfulness, you will find in your work.”

        Aren’t you glad Jesus is the one who’s in charge of your rewards?  Maybe you’re in an environment right now where a person’s worth is based on their grades, or their looks, or their income, or their clothes, or their personality, or their performance.  Thank God, He doesn’t care about that stuff!  His rewards are based on “well done, good and faithful,” not “well done, good and successful.”

       And unlike life’s “county fair” where the awards are based on comparing one to another, God doesn’t compare you with anybody!  He created a unique “you” with a unique plan for your life.  So when you try to base how you’re doing on how you compare with someone else – usually someone you think is better – you’re playing it people’s way, not God’s way.  2 Corinthians 10:12 says, “When they compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.”

       You may be unappreciated here, but if you’re faithful to your Lord, you’re going to receive extravagant awards there. “You have been faithful with a few things,” Jesus says, “I will put you in charge of many things.” And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, “Stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

        Colossians 3:23 declares, we are not working for people but for God.  We cannot really serve both.  If we are addicted to people’s praise and thanks and rewards, we are working for people.  But if our goal is to hear the words “well done, good and faithful servant,” from the mouth of God, it is God whom we are serving.  Then if we fail it is for God and if we succeed it is for God.  That’s a very freeing thing.

       The Bible makes it clear that in the future life we have work to do.  But that work will be joy and gladness—not drudgery and toil.  God has promised a time when the curse will be at an end and work, as all of life, will regain what it lost in the fall.  So in the meantime, let us live in anticipation of this good news by doing all that we do as to the Lord—and it is from the Lord that we will receive our reward.

       “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord,” we shout today.  Blessed is Jesus who held nothing in reserve, did not retreat even from the cross, and with no regret poured out His life of love for us.  God grant that we may follow in His steps: no reserve, no retreat, no regrets, until that day we hear our Lord speaking to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy I have prepared for you.” Amen.