Online Sermons
14th Sunday in Pentecost (proper 18): September 6, Martha Rogers
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsI never thought of my father as a biblical scholar, but he use to frequently tell me the same thing that our reading from Proverbs tells us this morning: A good name is to be chosen over having great riches. "Whatever you do", he would say, "work well and be proud that your name is on your work." Other times he would say that the reputation of a good name was what I should strive for in life and that I would get it by the good work I should do.
My father, James William Crowley, was an Irish laborer, a union man, who put together the old lino-type metal words to compose a newspaper page so that people could have a well designed page to read. He had to learn to read upside down and right to left, opposite of normal reading. He had to have each line and each page hammered down into a metal tray so that it could be inked and go to press. Imagine that….every single letter of every single word on every single page of the newspaper was hand set. Of course, his newspaper kept up with the times and started using machines that would put out an entire word in upside down and left to right metal, so that eventually my father would only design, space and hammer down words, not individual letters. It was a dirty, hard and noisy job. Those linotype machines made quite a racket. He was on his feet all day, his work clothes were covered in black oily ink and his rubber apron showed years of wear. His mallet was heavy and his hands were rough and calloused. All to produce a daily newspaper. He did this for 47 years. I thought of him as an artist, a designer…someone who could take letters and words and pictures in metal and make them all fit into one nicely designed page with even margins and interesting layouts. His job title was that of 'composer'. He composed the pages people read. He was well known in his craft and was proud of his good reputation, which earned him a good name. He was proud to be a Crowley.
Monday is Labor Day. For us it marks the wistful end of the summer, typically the last long-weekend before school starts and the fall work season sets in. This holiday was established 117 years ago, and made a legal holiday by Congress some 105 years ago, to honor workers and give us all a so-called 'workingmen's holiday." This day was intended, according to the Department of Labor, to "constitute a yearly tribute to the social and economic contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country." Labor day was supposed to give workers and their families a day full of celebration, with recreation and amusement, a parade was in the early legislation, accompanied by speeches from prominent citizens. Samuel Gompers, found and long-time President of the American Federation of Labor, pointed out that Labor Day is unique as a national holiday: "All other holidays" he said, "are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor day" Gompers said, " is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation." This holiday, recognizing the vital importance of work, is devoted to all workers, to a community of workers. Labor Day is more than a holiday for me, for it’s a day that reminds me to uphold economic justice and the need for fair-living wages. This day brings alive the pain and agony of those who have lost their jobs in this economy.
What I had never heard before as I looked into the history of Labor Day is that tomorrow's holiday makes today officially Labor Day Sunday. By a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceeding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement. For exactly 100 years we’ve had a Sunday dedicated as Labor Sunday.
Thomas Aquinas wrote: "To live well is to work, or to display good activity…so always rejoice in the good work that you do."
So first of all, for all who work, or seek to work, on this day we celebrate you.
Everyone works. Anyone who exerts strength and skills, sustains effort, labors, creates, does, toils, and overcomes obstacles to achieve; this is all of us. We must rejoice in the good work that we do, we must honor our commitment to a job well done, we must take pride in the fine craftsmanship of whatever we create, whether object, task or system. Know that your work is noticed and valuable. Work is at the center of adult living. Think of it—house work, yard work, paper work, office work, home work, not to mention the work of a job, if you are lucky enough to have one in this economy.. Most of our hours are spent in working. And the work that we do, each person adding his or her own piece of the community puzzle, makes up our society.
Matthew Fox writes: "Work comes from inside out; work is the expression of our soul, our inner being. It is unique to the individual, it is creative. Work is the expression of the Spirit at work in the world through us. Work is that which puts us in touch with others, not so much at the level of personal interaction, but at the level of service in [and for] the community."
Hildegard of Bingen, a German theologian, mystic, spiritual teacher and visionary who was active around the year 1100, and who is the focus of the Women's Retreat next weekend, says this: "A person becomes a flowering orchard. The person that does good work is indeed this orchard bearing good fruit….whatever humanity does with its deeds in the right or left hand permeate the universe." Your good work permeates the universe.
Another German theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart, from the 1300's, wrote this: "The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great, and the outward work can never be great or good if the inward work is small or of little worth. The inward work always includes in itself all size, all breadth and all length" of the knowledge and love of God.
And in our 2nd lesson read today, James asks "what good is it if you have faith but do not have works?...faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead."
If I was to borrow from all these quotes it would go like this: Your effort--your work--is the expression of the Spirit which fills and infuses the universe, arising from the inner core of you, that divine place, where faith and God cohabitate in your soul.
Meister Eckhart reminds us that for any effort to be great, inward work must be done first and be done with as great an effort. . The work of the soul and the heart has to accompany any effort you outwardly make and call work. Or you shrivel and die and your material riches become who you are and what you are known by. And when you die, they rust and rot and are thrown or given away.
So make a good name for yourself; love yourself so you can love your neighbor. Do the work of your soul. And then maybe the miracles of Jesus will be your companion: for your deafness will begin to hear anew and your voicelessness, released, will speak what the world needs to pay attention to. For no matter how great or small, your effort (your work) is the expression of the Spirit which fills and infuses the universe, arising from the inner core of you, that divine place, where faith and God cohabitate in your soul. Tend it well. It will be what you are known by. Amen.