Our being in worship on the eve of another Labor Day—the recognized end of summer, I thought that it would be both appropriate and fun for me to say something about that four letter word----“work.” Whether it is done inside the home or outside, work is an important part of our lives.

Recent events in the workplace, however, ranging from the devastating effects of what we call corporate ‘downsizing’ (which often includes sending jobs overseas) to obscene forms of corruption to what took place in a warehouse in Chicago a few days ago, this while in the Federal Courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, they were relocating the 2-ton monument of the Ten Commandments from the public vestibule to a more private location --- have certainly sensationalized the crisis of work in our society.

Sadly, rarely do you hear these days that that we get a kick out of our work. Rather what we hear is, at best, a resigned “pays the bills’ and at worst, “this job is killing me.”

According to polls, 95% of American workers hate their jobs.

(Wink, The Living Pulpit, September 1996, p.8.))

I find that figure hard to believe, but what is believable is that 95% of American workers aren’t satisfied in their jobs. We love that phrase TGIF for good reasons, don’t we? I’ve read more than just a few critiques of the church and its ministries that make the claim that we do far too little to address the pastoral issues of worker frustration, alienation, under-utilization, overwork, exploitation, underpayment, declining income, depression, alcohol and drug abuse and absenteeism. In some ways, I think that so many of the problems we face these days in our personal lives and well as in the broader society are fundamentally work-related.

C.K.Chesterton once wrote: “In the late afternoon, when the children tire of their games, it is then that they turn to torturing the cat.”

It is, I think, easy to recognize the meaning of that line. Children may turn to torturing the cat but adults either turn ‘to’, and in fact, ‘on’ each other--- or as is so well documented find others means of escape.

I have always found both some truth and some humor in Tony Campolo’s reflection on what’s happening with men and work these days. He wrote the following back in 1994 and things have really only gotten worse in the sense that we can watch football now almost 7 days a week! He writes:

“One of the sad commentaries of our time is that American men are increasingly becoming couch potatoes. So many men are escaping the deadness of their lives through vicarious participation in sports that watching games on TV has become a national pastime. Having benched themselves and disengaged from anything that might give their lives invigorating significance, more and more men have become resigned to simply watching the exploits of their athletic celebrities.”

The most recent situation with Kolbe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers gave Charles Barclay the opportunity to repeat something he has said often--- that he was ‘just a basketball player’ and that people have no right to expect him to live up to their expectations of him in his private life. Well, poor Charles and maybe Kolbe don’t realize that they aren’t being paid those millions just to make baskets and rebound… No, no, no, they are being paid to substitute for men all across the country who have lost confidence in their own ability to live heroically!

Now maybe Campolo is overstating it a bit but maybe not. Harold Kushner has written a book that I have mentioned before Living a Life that Matters. Well, in the introduction, he says that he, like most of us, lives in two worlds—the world of work and commerce and competition and the world of faith, the world of the Spirit--- often two voices with competing demands and truths… and in our quest for a lives that matter we look for and admire those who have somehow reconciled those worlds and their voices.

(Harold Kushner, Living a Life that Matters, p. 3, 16)

The voice of the Spirit needs to speak during and through our work.

In the mid 90’s Matthew Fox wrote a book titled: The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time. The following is but one of among many of his useful observations:

“Good living and good working go together. Life and livelihood ought not be separated but to flow from the same source, which is Spirit. Spirit means life and both life and livelihood are about living in depth, living with meaning, purpose, joy and a sense of contributing to the greater community. A spirituality of work is about bringing life and livelihood back together again.”

That is the fundamental problem of our lives and for our work--- isn’t it? Sometime we forget, sometimes we neglect to bring the Spirit with us to work! We do fine with the relationship between Friday and Saturday but poorly when it comes to Sunday and Monday. And yet, it is in the latter that we will discover the promise of true happiness and the living of a life that matters with work that is filled with meaning, whatever that work might be.

Let me tell you a story. The kids went back to school this week, a happening that reminded of the story of Teddy Stallard and his school teacher, Miss Jean Thompson.

One early September, (obviously this was in the good ol’ days when kids went back to school after Labor Day!) Miss Thompson greeted

her new students, as she had for many years, with the words, ‘Boys and girls I love you all the same. I have no favorites.’ Of course, we know that that wasn’t entirely truthful. Teachers do have favorites and sometimes there are kids you just don’t like.

Teddy Stallard was a boy Miss Thompson just didn’t like, and for what she thought, was a good reason. He was a sullen boy who just sat there, slouched in his seat with his head down, day after day. Whenever she tried to speak to him he was uncooperative, simply responded with a yes or a no. His clothes were musty and his hair unkempt. He didn’t do his homework, did poorly on test and there was a period in time when Miss Thompson took some delight in marking a test with the letter grade---“F.”

However, schools have records and there were records on Teddy. This is how they read:

First grade: Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude, but poor home situation.

Second grade: Teddy is a good boy, but he is too serious for a second grader. His mother is terminally ill.

Third grade: Teddy is becoming withdrawn and detached. His mother died this year. His father shows no interest.

Fourth grade: Teddy is a troubled child. He needs help.

Christmas came. The children brought presents to Miss Thompson and piled them on her desk. They crowded around to watch her open them. All the presents were wrapped in brightly colored paper, except for Teddy’s present. His was wrapped in brown paper and held together with Scotch tape. But to tell the truth, she was surprised that he even brought a present.

When she tore open the paper, out fell a rhinestone bracelet with most of the stones missing and an almost-empty bottle of cheap perfume. The other children giggled at the shabby gifts, but Miss Thompson had enough sense to snap on the bracelet and take some perfume out of the almost-empty bottle and put it on her wrist. Holding her wrist up to the other children she said, “Isn’t it lovely?” The other children, taking their cue from the teacher, all agreed.

At the end of the day when all the other children had left, Teddy came over to her desk and said softly, “Miss Thompson…All day today you smelled just like my mother used to smell. That’s her bracelet you’re wearing. It looks very nice on you … I’m really glad you like my presents.” After he left, she buried her head in her hands and cried and cried and cried, and she asked God to forgive her.

The next day when the children came to class, they had a new teacher. It was still Miss Thompson, but she was a new teacher. She cared in ways that the old teacher didn’t. She reached out in ways that the old teacher didn’t. She reached out to all the children, but especially to Teddy. She nurtured them and encouraged them and tutored them when they needed extra help. By the end of that school year Teddy had caught up with a lot of children. He was even ahead of some.

Teddy moved away and Miss Thompson didn’t hear from him for a long time. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, came a note:

Dear Miss Thompson,

I’m graduating from high school. I wanted you to be the first to know.

Love,

Teddy Stallard

There was no address. But, four years later there was another short note, and it read:

Dear Miss Thompson,

I wanted you to be the first to know. I’m second in my class. The university has not been easy, but I really liked it.

Love,

Teddy Stallard

And four years later there was still another:

Dear Miss Thompson,

As of today I am Theodore J. Stallard, MD! How about that! I wanted you to be the first to know.

I’m going to be married, the 27^th of July to be exact. I want you to come and I want you to sit where my mother would have sat. You’re the only family I have now. Dad died last year.

Love,

Teddy Stallard

And she went. And she sat where Teddy’s mother would have sat…because she deserved to be there. She was a teacher who had done, through her work and because she brought the Spirit with her, something great for the Kingdom of God. And that Spirit was the spirit of compassion, understanding, attention and the will to do what was best for those she taught.”

(Campolo, Let me Tell You a Story, pp. 167-69)

And so it should be for us all, in what we do for work, we need to bring the Spirit with us so that good living and good working, life and livelihood are not separated. Bring the Spirit and we’ll get a kick out of our work. With out, that job will kill us!

AMEN