Sermon - “As unto the Lord”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)

September 8, 2024

Genesis 1: 26-29; 2:15-17

Genesis 3: 1-7, 14-19

Psalm 8

2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13

Luke 6: 31-38

“As unto the Lord”

Has anyone here ever heard of Dolly Parton? My Carol gives me a rough time about her—for obvious reasons—but I happen to think that she is a rather good singer and has a very uplifting and inspirational personal story to tell. There is one song of hers that became very popular, perhaps even infamous, as a kind of female workplace protest song. It was the song ‘Nine to Five’.

One of Dolly Parton’s friends describes what led up to the song. Hers was the kind of job where you were there, but just not ‘seen’. You were just part of the wallpaper, overworked, underpaid, and disrespected. But aren’t quite a few jobs like that?

I suspect that many of us have had those kinds of experience. I remember my first full-time job, working in the hot summer sun in a market garden for 85 cents an hour--where the boss threatened to fire you even for the slightest misdemeanour. The only things I liked about the job were quitting time and payday. And then there was my summer working on a factory assembly line, a mindless, boring job if there ever was one—and a somewhat dangerous one to boot. (We were sloshing around a dangerous, highly toxic chemical as if it were water!) These experiences made me decide that I never wanted to have a permanent job anything like them.

Even so—as I was preparing for today’s sermon--even with these personal experiences, I wondered whether there was a general perception about work that mirrored this. I decided to ‘test the waters’ by checking to see what cartoons about work life showed up on the internet. What I found there was quite revealing:

-there was one that said, “This job has no future…I should quit, but I

really like the donuts.” Sticking around only for the very small

perks of the job…yes, that happens all too often.

-there’s another one where everyone is peering around or over their

cubicle walls. to see if there’s something better. I suspect that many

workers feel that way.

-and there’s another where the man is dreaming of something better,

a tropical vacation, but is stuck behind a desk.

And then there were a bunch that told the story from the management end of things:

-there is a boss who is gloating to a visitor, “The company shrank, but

I got bigger.” Isn’t that the story all too often?

-and another that has boss who is asking his board, “We have an

agreement in principle. The question is, do we all have the same

principles?” A very good question indeed: what principles do some

bosses, some companies, some organizations have?

That said, is this the way that God sees work? It is interesting, and rather illustrative, to see what the Bible says about it. Our readings from Genesis tell quite a story. They reveal that work was originally a wholesome, fulfilling, pleasant activity, a partnership between us humans and God. Work was to be a creative enterprise on our part. But then sin got in the way and work became loathsome and onerous and difficult. Weeds entered the picture amid back-breaking toil.

Even so, that was not to be the final story as the Bible tells it. Work was to be seen as a gift from God, a way not only of earning a living and finding meaning and fulfilment, but also a way of serving God and other people. That’s why the apostle Paul advises us to ‘work heartily, as unto the Lord’, for that, indeed, is who we are working for.

Work was to be a shared and cooperative enterprise between employee and employer. On the one hand, the worker was to be diligent, trustworthy, conscientious, and responsible, while, on the other hand, the employer was to be respectful, caring, sympathetic to the needs of his or her employees, and yes, even generous on occasion. The New Testament parable of the Workers in the Vineyard provides an excellent illustration of this latter idea. God, who is represented by the landowner, recognizes that the last of the workers hired have some extra needs and so he goes out of his way to be generous and help them out.

All of this was rooted in the Scriptural idea that humans, all humans, are valued and precious, and are to be accorded respect and dignity befitting this status. Now, this is where it gets interesting. It may well surprise many people to discover that labour unions began in Britain largely with Christians, with such groups as the Tolpuddle Labourers. Agricultural labourers were in a sorry state, due in part to the Enclosure Movement which deprived them of their garden plots and small fields, and in part to their increasingly lowered wages. Many of the landowners preferred to keep up their profits by paying their workers a pittance and leaving the fate of these workers to the government operated local poor relief system.

Many of the leaders of the fledgling unions were Methodists who had discovered their innate value to God and their purpose for life and who had learned leadership skills through their involvement in the church. They had taken Jesus’ love of others strictly to heart and so took up the mantle of standing up for others and helping them in their time of need. Many of them were arrested and sent to Australia in prison ships for their efforts, and yet stood solidly for God and their faith in spite of their hardships. (By the way, it may also surprise you to discover that Labour Day began in Canada, and indeed, was the first such observance anywhere in the world.)

And so, this whole labour business began with people like us, people who believe in the Lord Jesus and trust in Him.

However, when it comes to the subject of work, there are a couple of other things that we need to be aware of. The apostle Paul, in telling us, that we are to work as if working for the Lord, never differentiates between one kind of work and another. He never says that some kinds of work are better than others, spiritual work/ church work, for instance, being better than secular work, or white-collar jobs better than manual labour like farming or construction or digging ditches. All of them are ‘as onto the Lord.’

And, not only that, it means that those who have certain jobs, jobs that are considered ‘higher status’ by some in society, have no reason to boast, and no reason to think that they have a preferred status when it comes to God. None of us, regardless of our task or performance, have earned a place with God. Our standing with God, our salvation, are gifts of God bestowed upon us regardless of our work. (This is something we should be very grateful for.) And so, while our work can never be said to ‘earn us’ a place, a standing with God, it certainly can be a way of acknowledging our gratitude and praise, honouring that gift, and serving both He and others.

And so, in a sense, it comes right back to the original narrative of what happened in the Garden of Eden. God had already created the rest of the universe and given names to many things, and yet He chose to entrust us humans with the ‘rest of His work’, to give us the responsibility of tilling His garden, caring for the creation, and naming the animals. Certainly, He could have done all this Himself, but instead He chose to involve us and work with us in this. And that, indeed, is what He has continued to do ever since. That’s where He involves and calls us, each of us, to work with Him. Thanks be to God for such an incredible privilege. Amen.