This is Labor Day weekend. We treat it as a last chance to celebrate the summer. We don’t usually spend too much time thinking about the blessing of labor, or the rights and privileges that go along with labor. If we think about jobs at all, we have anxiety about the lack of jobs, or how we might lose ours soon. If we can look beyond our present difficulties maybe we can think about the blessing of work. It is good to use our gifts and skills to make a living. Some of us are blessed to be able to use our best skills in helping others. A few people can still say that they love their work (even if some parts of it are difficult).
We live in other places besides our work. We have the work of this community to share the good news. Many of you work with me this morning in providing worship and leading each other in prayer and song. Throughout the week we have many people who visit or help other members. Some of us reach out to those who are in need. We try to live our lives as faithful Christians – even after we have left this place. I wonder how we would describe our Christian work as if it was our job.
Many of us work at jobs that have job descriptions. Perhaps the place where you work has a human resource department and policy and procedures manuals. We all hate to read those sorts of things, but they become very interesting when there is a problem. What do we do when we have trouble working with someone else? We begin to think about what we must document and whom we can trust.
The advice Jesus gives about reconciliation seems straightforward and a little daunting. How easy it would be to just walk right up to the person we have problem with and talk it over? How risky! What would happen? We are afraid that we might say something that could be used against us. We don’t know how the other person might react. We aren’t even sure it’s allowed. Are we using proper channels? Jesus sweeps aside all the ways that we hedge and dodge and asks us to speak truth directly to each other. Why would Jesus ask this?
Our places of work exist to sell a product or to offer a service. The end toward which we work is profit or some positive outcome. In the workplace we don’t take risks. We don’t want to alienate a potential customer. We don’t want to offend. This is what gets in the way of healthy and strong relationships in the church. We are worried about offending others and we worry about breaking relationships. Jesus tells us to speak the truth face to face – even if it leads to the breaking of relationships and people being cast out of the church.
This is not the kind of outcome that we should seek, and it shouldn’t happen at all. Jesus is not telling us how to punish and exclude. He is showing us how to restore relationships. He is showing us how to be reconciled. I can’t imagine a breakdown in the church that is all one sided where only one person is guilty of sin. More often we hurt each other. When there is a broken relationship there is always thoughtless words and faulty communication from both sides. If we have the courage to speak face to face, there is often the discovery that there is blame to share all around. If we have the courage to speak face to face, we can offer and find forgiveness. We can start fresh with a new relationship. It’s not that the past never happened. Instead, we find the freedom to try a new way of being together.
Paul describes to the church in Rome the basis for how we are related in Christian community. We don’t have a policy manual. We know the laws that God has given us – Paul even begins to list them. Paul is looking for something more – something deeper. We are bound to each other by the law of love. God desires more for us than that we simply refrain from harming each other. God would have us seek to follow the leading of the Spirit in reaching out in positive ways. God would have us use all our gifts to care and encourage and support each other in our life in Christ.
This is a higher calling than obedience to a set of rules – or the adoption of some sort of behavioral standard. Our standard is to love each other as we have been loved by God. It will take a lifetime to learn how to do this. It will take a higher level of accountability than we have grown accustomed to. The end is deeper love. The purpose is to know better how to love and what it costs. We will be able to speak truth and hear truth. We will be able to bear our true burdens. We will be able to live without our false masks that hide our true selves. We will be free.
This is work that we can celebrate. No one can take it away from us no matter how dismal the economy gets. We never retire from this work. The rewards only increase as we continue to seek restoration. What we lose is the sense that we are always right and we owe nothing to others. We trade pride for humility. But we also lose isolation and fear. It is a small price to pay to win the love of those we seek to love.
We live in other places besides our work. We have the work of this community to share the good news. Many of you work with me this morning in providing worship and leading each other in prayer and song. Throughout the week we have many people who visit or help other members. Some of us reach out to those who are in need. We try to live our lives as faithful Christians – even after we have left this place. I wonder how we would describe our Christian work as if it was our job.
Many of us work at jobs that have job descriptions. Perhaps the place where you work has a human resource department and policy and procedures manuals. We all hate to read those sorts of things, but they become very interesting when there is a problem. What do we do when we have trouble working with someone else? We begin to think about what we must document and whom we can trust.
The advice Jesus gives about reconciliation seems straightforward and a little daunting. How easy it would be to just walk right up to the person we have problem with and talk it over? How risky! What would happen? We are afraid that we might say something that could be used against us. We don’t know how the other person might react. We aren’t even sure it’s allowed. Are we using proper channels? Jesus sweeps aside all the ways that we hedge and dodge and asks us to speak truth directly to each other. Why would Jesus ask this?
Our places of work exist to sell a product or to offer a service. The end toward which we work is profit or some positive outcome. In the workplace we don’t take risks. We don’t want to alienate a potential customer. We don’t want to offend. This is what gets in the way of healthy and strong relationships in the church. We are worried about offending others and we worry about breaking relationships. Jesus tells us to speak the truth face to face – even if it leads to the breaking of relationships and people being cast out of the church.
This is not the kind of outcome that we should seek, and it shouldn’t happen at all. Jesus is not telling us how to punish and exclude. He is showing us how to restore relationships. He is showing us how to be reconciled. I can’t imagine a breakdown in the church that is all one sided where only one person is guilty of sin. More often we hurt each other. When there is a broken relationship there is always thoughtless words and faulty communication from both sides. If we have the courage to speak face to face, there is often the discovery that there is blame to share all around. If we have the courage to speak face to face, we can offer and find forgiveness. We can start fresh with a new relationship. It’s not that the past never happened. Instead, we find the freedom to try a new way of being together.
Paul describes to the church in Rome the basis for how we are related in Christian community. We don’t have a policy manual. We know the laws that God has given us – Paul even begins to list them. Paul is looking for something more – something deeper. We are bound to each other by the law of love. God desires more for us than that we simply refrain from harming each other. God would have us seek to follow the leading of the Spirit in reaching out in positive ways. God would have us use all our gifts to care and encourage and support each other in our life in Christ.
This is a higher calling than obedience to a set of rules – or the adoption of some sort of behavioral standard. Our standard is to love each other as we have been loved by God. It will take a lifetime to learn how to do this. It will take a higher level of accountability than we have grown accustomed to. The end is deeper love. The purpose is to know better how to love and what it costs. We will be able to speak truth and hear truth. We will be able to bear our true burdens. We will be able to live without our false masks that hide our true selves. We will be free.
This is work that we can celebrate. No one can take it away from us no matter how dismal the economy gets. We never retire from this work. The rewards only increase as we continue to seek restoration. What we lose is the sense that we are always right and we owe nothing to others. We trade pride for humility. But we also lose isolation and fear. It is a small price to pay to win the love of those we seek to love.
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