Walnut Hill United Methodist Church
"The
Aim of Work: Life"©
Today we have gathered on the
weekend in which we celebrate the work we do and the work others do
in order that our world may function in an orderly and healthy way.
This is a weekend that we celebrate work. I don’t know what you
think about work but you might identify with the person who said, "I
like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours." Or
the person who said, "If hard work were such a wonderful thing,
surely the rich would have kept it to themselves." Many people
believe the person who said that working gets in the way of living.
Do you remember where God gives us work to do? It comes at the start
of creation after the crafty snake cons Eve and Adam into eating
from the tree of knowledge and God becomes angry and says, "because
you have listened to your wife…now you have justification for being
grumpy with your wife after a hard day at the office, it’s her
fault…"Because you have listened to your wife and eaten from the
tree which I forbade you, the ground you walk on shall be cursed and
from it you will obtain your food and work all the days of your
life. You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow!" We
understand some of this perspective that work is a curse. Talk to
most people and they will tell you. I can remember hearing the
statistic that 60% of the workers in America do not like the work
they are doing. If that’s the case, work is a curse. Many time we
get mad at God for giving us work to do. Why couldn’t life be
easier? We echo the words of the writer of Ecclesiastes who looks at
the futility of life and concludes, "What gain has the worker from
his work?"
Look with me to the God who gives
and allows us to work. Who is this God? He is the working God! Right
form the start God is a worker and a worker on a universal scale
whose work is evidenced throughout the universe as we look at the
galaxies. The Psalmist said, "When I look to the heavens I see the
work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have
established." Throughout the biblical story we find God to be a
working God. The Genesis writer wrote from a perspective that many
of us feel when it comes to work, but the biblical God is one who
creates us in God’s own image and tasks us to be like him. To work
with and for him in everything that we do. "Commit yourself to the
Lord and your plans will be established," we read in Proverbs. Paul
reminds us that we are fellow workers with God. Throughout the life
and ministry of Jesus, Jesus reminded us that we are working for
God. If that is the case, then the aim of work is life. Jesus taught
a unique way to find life and meaning through the work we do. We
hear about in simple but powerful words that Jesus says to us today,
"…take up your cross and follow me. To find life, you must lose it
for my sake." These words are our marching orders as we go about our
work. "…take up your cross and follow me. To find life, you must
lose it for my sake."
Take up your cross. That’s the first
requirement. Take up your cross. Lift up and hold onto where the
pain is in your life. Pain…why should I take hold of my pain? I want
to be free of pain! Take your cross where you are hurting in life.
Do you remember the story of the man carrying his cross trudging
down the road? At a juncture in the road there was a pile of crosses
and the man set his cross down thinking that he might find another
cross, one that would not be as heavy, one that would fit him
better. He tried out all the crosses. He found that there was
something wrong with them. They were either too heavy, or too long,
or too short and they would not allow him a comfortable journey.
Some were too bulky and others were too thin to really grab a hold
of. Finally eh found a cross that fit him just right. As he held it
in front of himself to look at what eh found, the realization came
to him that this was the cross that he had initially been carrying.
Folks, the cross and the pain that you carry in life are uniquely
yours. God says if you want to live life and find meaning in your
work you first of all have to pick up your pain, pick up your cross,
pick up that which seems to be holding you back in life and is your
excuse for not living. You know what your cross is. God allows pain.
Pain allows you to realize, many times unfortunately, what is
important in life. Pain helps keep life in perspective. Someone once
asked John Wesley’s mother, "Which one of your eleven children do
you love the most?" She replied, "I love the one that’s sick until
he’s well, and the one that’s away from home until he comes home."
You know that pain in life gives life new depth, new meaning and new
perspectives. If you have a life threatening situation…when you lose
a friend or a loved one…when you have to move to a new
community…when the children walk out the door for their first day of
school…we know where there is pain where life has the opportunity to
take on new meanings. God allows pain to help us live. To find life
don’t run from or neglect your pain, your cross, rather pick it up.
"Pick up your cross and follow me."
Pick up your cross and face life as Christ faced it. If you face
life as Christ faced life that means that you become in the lives of
other people no matter how painful life is or has been for you. The
description of the Last Judgment has the only question being asked,
"Did you feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, clothe the naked? Did
you work to replace cruelty and injustice with kindness and
justice?" To take up your cross and follow Christ means that you are
willing to become a participant in the betterment of all people…even
where you work. Jean Paul Sartre gives us one way of looking at
people: people who limit your life, people who expose and humiliate
you, people who are a nuisance and cause discomfort by their very
presence. A character in one of his plays says, "Hell is other
people." Those who keep nagging us with their poverty and pleadings
just when we have found security and prosperity; the people with
empty mouths and aching hearts; oh that we could be rid of them and
forget all about them. "Hell is other people." But listen. Christ
taught us that for the Christian other people are Christ. Other
people are Christ! And that means some rearrangement of our values
and priorities which we usually don’t like to do.
One day a man gave a friend of his a
small pocket cross made of aluminum that had inscribed upon it,
"Jesus Christ is Lord." You may have one in your pocket with your
coins. Months later the friend who was the recipient of the gift
said to the giver, "Remember that little cross that you gave me? It
started to cut a hole in my pocket so I filed down the edges so it
would be smooth and not bother me." That’s what we try to do…to
smooth away the cutting power of the cross as we follow Christ.
Clarence Jordan, the translator of the Cotton Patch Version of the
New Testament was an organizer of the Koinonia Farm in Georgia. In
the early fifties Clarence approached his brother Robert Jordan,
later a senator and justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Clarence
asked his brother to legally represent the Koinonia farm. Robert
said, "Clarence, I can’t do that. You know my political aspirations.
Why if I represented you I might lose my job, my house, everything
I’ve got." Clarence said, "Well Bob, we might lose everything too."
Bob said, "Well it’s different for you." "Bob, why is it different?
I remember that you and I joined the church the same Sunday as boys.
When we came forward the preacher asked me the same question he
asked you. He asked me, "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior.?" And I said, "Yes." What did you say? His brother said,
"Clarence, I follow Jesus up to a point." Clarence said, "Could that
point by any chance be the cross?" "That’s right! I follow him to
the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified."
Clarence then said to his brother Bob, "Bob, then I don’t believe
you are a disciple. You are an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple
of his. I think that you should go back to the church you belong to
and tell them you’re an admirer, not a disciple." Admirer or
follower? To find meaning in the work you do pick up your cross and
follow Christ.
"…take up your cross and follow me.
To find life, you must lose it for my sake." It seems inconsistent
that to find life you must lose it, but that’s the way it is when
you take up your cross and follow Christ. We are all familiar with
the name Eric Liddell, Olympic Champion made famous by the movie
Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddell, the man who would not race on
Sunday. Did you know that when he won the race you see on the movie
screen by setting a new world record that when the noise and
ceremonies were over friends and reporters ran to the dressing room
to congratulate Eric, but he was no where to be found because he had
a sermon to preach that Sunday and slipped away to prepare it. Eric
Liddell went to China as a missionary and as World War II became
immanent he sent his wife and children back to England while he
stayed on to help in China. In March 1943 Eric Liddell was one of a
number of British and Americans rounded up and placed in a prisoner
of war camp. Into that camp came a young boy by the name of David
Mitchell. David remembers the camp…more than 1,500 people jammed
into the space of three football fields. Space and food were
precious. People suffered from malnutrition. There was constant
bickering and complaining. David Mitchell noticed one man who always
seemed to be smiling. He was told, "That’s Eric Liddell, the Olympic
runner, the man who didn’t run on Sundays." In the middle of the
misery of the camp Eric Liddell always seemed to have a joke or a
cheerful word. Every Sunday he would preach, usually using his
favorite passages, the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s words about
love in 1 Corinthians 13. And because he applied those passages to
his life little by little Eric Liddell made a difference in the
camp. He started a sports program for the young people in the camp.
He even broke the rule that made him famous. One Sunday afternoon
the boys had a field hockey game and because there was no referee
the game turned into a fight. The next Sunday Eric was there with a
whistle and the games went on. Most of his time was spent talking
with people who found the strain of the camp too much to bear. Two
men later said that they were on the verge of suicide when Eric
pulled them out of depression. Another young man was completely
disillusioned by the horrible conditions of the camp and the
selfishness of the prisoners. Years later he wrote Eric’s wife. She
recalls, "He thought that God had forgotten him…until he met Eric."
Young as he was Eric Mitchell realized there was special strength in
Eric Liddell. He writes, "In spite of the way everybody else cursed
the Japanese, the conditions, the food, nobody ever heard Eric
Liddell complain or say an unkind word. His faith was not shaken, no
matter what happened. And that confidence in God spread from him to
others." Eric Liddell died in the prisoner of war camp at the age of
43 from a brain tumor.
Eric Liddell was an ordinary person.
That was his mystery: a runner inexperienced in running the 400
meters who became an Olympic champion; a poor public speaker who
converted hundreds of people; a retiring man who was popular
wherever he went. He became extraordinary because he gave his life
to God. He surrendered not to the hardships and pressures of life,
but rather to Christ. Once in Scotland Eric told a crowd, "We are
all missionaries. We carry our religion with us. Wherever we go, we
either bring people nearer to Christ, or we repel them from Christ."
Eric Liddell followed his own advice. David Mitchell, after being
reunited with his parents, never forgot Eric Liddell. "If being a
Christian meant being like Eric Liddell, then I wanted to be a
Christian." 37 years after Eric Liddell’s death a 13 year old boy
watched the movie Chariots of Fire. As they left the movie theater
he said, "Mom, I think that guy’s my hero." His mother looked
surprised and said, "But you are always telling me that Superman’s
your hero." The boy shook his head, "That’s different. Superman’s
plastic. This guy is for real." To find your life you have to lose
it for Christ. That’s been the experience of people throughout the
centuries.
This morning we gather looking for
life and for meaning in our lives, especially through the work we
do. And we hear ancient words speaking to us in new and fresh ways,
no matter who we are and no matter what work we do, "…take up your
cross and follow me. To find life you must lose it for my sake." My
friends, working does not get in the way of living…the aim of
working is life! May you find the life you are searching for through
the work you do.
