Ephesians 6.5-9 Matt 11.25-29

Preached Canberra Baptist Church 9^th August 2009

Last week we reflected on the work of Jesus – he is "the first fruits of those who have died". The power of Christ’s self-offering actually transforms’ death for us. Another way of considering this is that this was the WORK of Christ: I must do the work of him who sent me. Christ’s work is the redemption of all creation, through his teaching, through his Cross and through his community. The heart of this work is Christ’s own loving self-offering.

What then of our work? Does this dynamic of offering inform our approach to work? I want to

1. look at some of the common experiences around work – just to name them, sketch them out. You may connect with some of them.
2. look at some theological ideas around work – identity, purpose, choices, vocation
3. explore how offering - this little idea of ‘first fruits’ – might transform our engagement with work

Work is a large part of our lives. There are many issues that people have through work:

Work is classic two edged sword:

• it is wonderful – we get so much from it
• it can be burdensome or difficult.

Often we focus on the negative aspects: how many of us leap out of bed thinking "oh how lucky I am – I have a whole day’s work ahead of me!"? Do we let ourselves enjoy our work? Sometimes we harbour a guilty secret: that work is actually quite fun.

Let’s look at the positives involved in work. What benefits do we derive from work?

• Sense of self: so much of our self image derives from work. A common question on first meeting is "What do you do?" This is not a questions about your hobbies or your passions but about your job or employment. Work helps define us – which has some good aspects and some problems as we shall see.
• Work enables us to make a mark on the world: through work we can shape a government policy or contribute to building a house, or help some innocent person avoid conviction and prison, or help a young person learn and grow in character or confidence, or nurse someone back to health. In every case it would be almost impossible to do this on our own but our work leads us into collaboration with other people in ways that change the world.
• Work pays the bills! This is a very significant contribution to our lives: it enables us to shape and deliver our own private projects and activities.
• Work helps us grow: we learn so much by working. I don’t about you but some days I learn so much in my job that I should be paying the church for all the education and training.

And what about the negative factors that can affect us in our work?

Work takes time, and sometimes gobbles up our time in great hungry bites.

Work does impose disciplines and tasks on us. Others get to make demands on us – this is the flip side of collaboration which delivers results in the world. Sometimes work forces us either into activities and projects we don’t agree with, or causes us to be in organizations we don’t like being involved in.

Sometimes work exposes us to the politics of organizations and the difficult personalities that sometimes we find in the world of work.

Work can personally stretch us, testing our capabilities, exposing us to evaluation and critique.

Work forces us to make choices, from the little choices of everyday (such as what will I do next?) to "Should I take this job?" or "Should I leave this job?

Taking all of those factors together work can be draining and exhausting, stressful and even painful, or personally destructive.

Of course, if you are not working, either through unemployment or retirement – you can find yourself missing out on all the good things that work provides, or being mercifully delivered from all the bad aspects that work brings with it. If you are like most of us the good and the bad mingle together in every work day, sometimes with the good outshining the bad and sometimes the bad overwhelming the good.

If you are in the small groups there is opportunity in your conversations this week to explore what your experience has been. If not, it can sometimes be a useful exercise to find a friend and do a work-life audit, talking through the balance of positives and negatives in your work.

In this section I am drawing from a book by Paul Valler of the LICC called Get a Life: Winning Choices for Working People. I will introduce a model he uses and then reflect on the theological concept of vocation.

I once telephoned a friend and was really impressed with their telephone answer message: G’day. There are really only two questions in life. Who are you? and What do you want? You get your chance to answer after the beep.

Thankfully there isn’t just one chance to answer those questions. In fact we answer those questions every day whether we know it or not. Paul Valler’s words for those questions are IDENTITY and PURPOSE.

Identity is the question of who you are – not just a name or label or a set of surface characteristics, but who you really are, the mysterious centre and meaning of your life. For most of us answering that question is a lifelong journey, but Valler makes the point that work, what we are trying to do in the world, is a really important dimension in expressing that identity. If our work grows out of our deep sense of self then work is helpful and supportive of our identity. If our work is in conflict with our basic sense of self then we are unlikely to find it really satisfying whatever short term benefits it delivers.

The What do you want? question is about purpose or values – that which you are striving for or treasure above other things. Of course this should also arise from who you are, so that identity is expressed through purpose which should find expression through the activities of our work.

The third element of the Valler model (unfortunately not expressed in my friend’s answer message) is the tricky matter of choices. Every one of us must make choices every day – who to speak to, what to say, what to do, how to answer. If our choices are informed by our purpose which is aligned with our identity, life and work should go pretty well. The difficulty is that often our choices are driven by the requirements of the Minister, or the priorities of the boss, or the urgent demand of the moment rather than our sense of self and life-purpose. Valler’s book explores how we can apply these ideas of identity, purpose and authentic choosing so as to deal with the obstructions and impediments that get in the way of a life of manageable and fulfilling work.

These ideas of identity, purpose and choice come together in the Christian concept of Vocation: that which we are called to do. Catholics speak of ‘having a vocation’ (meaning becoming a priest or a nun) but the Reformers saw the call of God leading us into whatever form of work it is that Gods’-self wants us to be in. This concept was very liberating in the early modern period because it validated the spiritual significance of work outside the church. What it says is that God wants to be involved in your work, God cares about your work, God sees significance and God’s own purpose (as well as your own purpose) in what you do.

By the late 20^th century vocation came to be criticized. First, it was too static an idea. It tended to lock us into one social slot for all our life. Secondly, how does it work? Does the call of God strike you like what one American comedy show used to call "the fickle finger of fate" – striking at random without regard to your own interests or desires. Thirdly there is the question of how we know it is GOD calling amid all of the many voices and messages that speak to us in this age of communication?

A helpful perspective on discerning vocation is given by Frederick Buechner:

Does our understanding of offering offer any resources for resolving some of the tensions and paradoxes of work? Work was an issue for the early church mainly because most of the work was done by slaves. How could the work of a slave be fulfilling or rewarding? The reading from Ephesians offers some insight:

Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ, not only when being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord, not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. (Eph 6.5-8)

Paul here says that our work should be offered to the Lord, not to men or women, but to God. That act of offering removes us from the usual economy of transaction, of work and wage, into the economy of grace, of mutual offering and gift. We offer our work to God, and we receive the goodness of the Lord.

A fundamental reframing of what our work is all about. It means that our work is then aligned with our identity – for as Christians we are invited know ourselves in Christ and as Christ’s woman or man. Work offered to God means that our identity and our purposes are reflected in our work.

Work offered to Christ often transforms us: the wonderful gift in all this is ‘the goodness we receive from the Lord’. It is expressed beautifully in the rendering in The Message of Jesus’ invitation to all who labour and are heavy burdened, a promise not just for work but for all of life: Get away with me and you will recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (Matt 11.29-30 The Message)

I can hear your thinking ‘that’s easy for him to say – he works as a minister!". But my strongest experience of living in ‘the unforced rhythms of grace’ came from my earlier working life as a truck driver and a consultant.

Some years after I had ended my work as a truckie a young man came to share with me how my whistling and humming tunes had been a transforming influence on his life as we had worked together years before. He could sense my happiness and peace as I worked, and he knew his own troubles and difficulties. The quiet witness of a simple whistled happiness had a deep effect on his choices and decisions turning him back to his study, to a relationship he had abandoned and to a life of faith he had cut loose from some time before.

As a consultant I worked with a very senior banker whose office had a panoramic view over Sydney’s central area including the harbor. He asked me to look out over the harbor from his office and asked me what I saw. Well, what wasn’t there to see? After much urging and prompting, he finally narrowed my vision down to a shadow on the wall of a city building a block or two across from us. It was hard to make out what the shape was. I asked him what he saw and he said "Every time I look out that window what I see is the face of Jesus on that building!"

Who’s the boss? Who are you offering your work to every day? Where is Christ calling you to be? Where does your deep gladness meet the worlds’ deep hunger?

And what goodness touches you in the place of your work? Does Jesus shine for you as you look out the windows of the building? Does Jesus whisper to you in the whistling and the chatter of your workmates?

May the Lord lead us into that free and creative space where work becomes an offering of all that is best and finest in us and may we receive the very goodness of God, learning the rhythms of grace and the ways of peace.