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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
1 August 2004“T.G.I.F.”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
TGIF. "Thank God, it's Friday."
That pretty much sums up most people's attitude toward work. Drudgery, long hours, tension, stress -- how glad we are to reach the weekend.
As it happens, the Scripture lessons today contain a number of passages that echo this jaundiced view of labor. For example, the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes remarks, "I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun."
Moreover, he believes that misery is the lot of other laborers: "For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation."
Not only did the author hate working, but he resented the fact that he would likely leave the wealth he earned behind for others to spend: "I turned and gave up my heart to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun,." He despairs not just because the work was hard but, as he says, "because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it." The writer of today's Psalm agrees: "they will carry nothing away at their death ..."
Work is bad enough -- and, on top of its miseries, you can't be sure you'll live to enjoy all you've earned. In other words, "you can't take it with you."
The transitory, uncertain value of work is the theme of the parable Jesus tells in today's Gospel. In the story, a very rich man amassed a fortune. He looked forward to many years of eating and drinking and having a great time. But then, as he was ready to retire, he died.
So in the lessons, there are two connected thoughts: work is hard, and the money earned from work won't be with us forever.
But Jesus says there is a hidden benefit to recognizing the limits of earthly toil. When we see that amassing a fortune has no ultimate significance, we realize that laboring for wealth isn't the biggest thing we have to worry about.
So we don't have to delay life's pleasures in order to prepare for some future time of luxury and leisure. As Jesus says at the beginning of the Gospel: "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."
Yet even if we avoid greed and the dream of a luxurious retirement, most of us still have to work. If we don't work for a living, then we have housework or we may do chores for other people or some other kind of work.
And so for all of us, the Bible texts retain their sting.
Indeed, the first book of the Bible, Genesis, seems to portray work as a curse. Adam and Eve didn't have to labor for anything when they were in the Paradise of the Garden of Eden; but after the Fall, they had to get their own food and clothes and shelter.
Even if we don't find work a curse, it can be boring; it can seem to lack any higher purpose -- it's just something we do to pay the bills.
A few Christian thinkers, though, have offered a larger perspective on human labor. The French mystic, Simone Weil, for example, believed that work is a way to share in the rhythms of the universe.
Weil therefore argued that the value of work will depend on how we approach it. In her diaries, for example, she talks about monotony -- the tedium that is part of even the most desirable occupations, a tedium that makes us thank God it's Friday.
Weil writes, "Monotony is the most beautiful or the most atrocious thing. The most beautiful if it is a reflection of eternity -- the most atrocious if it is the sign of an unvarying perpetuity. "It is," she says, "time surpassed or time sterilized."
Simone Weil concludes "The circle is the symbol of monotony which is beautiful. On the other hand, the swinging of a pendulum of monotony is atrocious."
I myself would offer a couple of minor examples of atrocious and beautiful monotony. In the "atrocious" category, I put filing. I find filing incredibly tedious. Only on a hot summer weekday when I have no excuse to avoid the piles of paper around me -- only then, do I sort and file. Talk about the pendulum -- never do I watch the clock more. (I fear that anyone who has to consult these files in the future will have their own experience of atrocious monotony!)
By contrast, I enjoy doing laundry. Sorting the clothes, experimenting to find the best detergent, seeing neat piles of laundry at the end of my work: even when this chore is boring, I find that it's satisfying.
Washing the clothes reminds me of my family; it reminds me of the service God gives me to do. I know the clothes will come back to me later to be washed again, in an inevitable circle -- a circle that is, as Simone Weil suggests, a symbol of the wholeness of life.
Thus we may be able to see a beautiful monotony as our labors point to a higher purpose. For social workers, it's easy to see a higher purpose because they know that the poor and the elderly need help.
Yet even ditch-diggers could get a certain satisfaction from knowing that their labor was giving them money, and that money would put bread on the family table.
Of course, as Jesus would point out and Simone Weil would agree, a mystical perspective on labor isn't compatible with running over everyone in your path so you can make a pile of money and live on easy street.
The mystical view also admits that work can be tough and its rewards uncertain, and we can't take our work with us when we die.
In this regard, we might recall a verse in the last book in the Bible, the Revelation of St. John, a line which is quoted in our Burial Service: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit, for they shall rest from their labors."
In Heaven, we rest from the toils of this life. The passage from Revelation doesn't mean that life after death will be a celestial snooze! Instead, the Christian hope anticipates being alive in community and enjoying a shared experience of truth and beauty. Heaven will be much more than eternal repose.
Yet whether or not we can see the spiritual value of our labors now, we can be sure that God will one day grant us relief-relief from the "pain" and "vexation" of work -- and even in this life, God will give us moments of rest from the grind of labor -- from the weight and fatigue that leads even the strongest skeptic to thank God that it's Friday.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.