Working and Praying Go Together
Sermon
THE CHALLENGE OF GOD'S HARVEST
Here in the middle of summer our daily work can get to be a drag - especially if everyone around us is taking off on vacation. We'd rather be spending these hot days around the cooling waters of some lake or stream. A nice cabin in a shaded woods doesn't sound bad either. But the facts are pretty clear. We have a daily job that beckons us. Vacations are not our ordinary lot. We spend a major slice of our waking hours at work.
So this morning, in the setting of our worship, on this day of rest from our labors, pardon me for bringing up your job! But it seems to me that we Christians have a godly responsibility to come up with "a theology of work." Since we spend so much time at work, wouldn't it be good to have "a working principle" about our daily job?
On the basis of our Bible text here - which includes the miracle of Jesus feeding five thousand - we want to explore and proclaim this simple idea: WORKING AND PRAYING GO TOGETHER. Yes, for every insightful Christian it ought to be the case: WORKING AND PRAYING GO TOGETHER.
I.
For many people work is a problem. Their daily job is a highly unsatisfactory experience. Several months ago a best-selling, non-fiction book was among the top ten on the market. It carried the simple title, Working. It was written by a man with the highly unlikely name of Studs Terkel. Terkel is a master of listening to what other people have to say about common, human concerns. He works with a tape recorder, and the results are exciting, and authentic. In his book, Working, Terkel has us listening to a cross section of Americans talking about their jobs - about their daily work. The list of career people includes cab drivers, telephone operators, mechanics, press agents, bar pianists, stone cutters, farm wives, priests, dentists, librarians, barbers, and about ninety others.
One of the significant impressions the book left with me was that a sizeable number of folks find their daily work to be a negative experience. It wasn't the "work" of work that made jobs a drag for most people, though. Physical labor was accepted and bearable. Mental effort, too, was something most could stand, if that's the kind of work their jobs called for. Even a busy-busy schedule could easily be endured by most of the people. It was rather an over-all viewpoint, a personal outlook toward the whole syndrome and cycle of working that got a lot of people down.
That's the way it can be for all of us. Some people, for instance, use their job as a measure of their own self-worth. They are dissatisfied with their job because it doesn't say much about them as a person. They should be higher up on the ladder by this time, they feel. They can't be worth much or they would be more successful at this point than they are.
That kind of surmising can nag at all of us, isn't it true? Frankly, too often we're already living at the next highest step in our career or job. That can be mighty frustrating and distracting. If we're a stock boy, we'd rather be a clerk. If we're a clerk, we'd rather be a department manager. If we're a department manager we'd rather be head of sales. And if head of sales, then why not vice-president. And if president? Well, sometimes then we wonder why we couldn't have a nice uncomplicated, eight-hour-a-day job like our father used to have!
Or to put it in financial terms, we're not always satisfied with $6.70 an hour. Surely, I'm worth more than that, we feel! There is the meaninglessness and frustration that can overtake us in our work, because we allow it to be too much of a gauge of our personal self-worth. In our own insecurity, we are always pushing toward the next higher step.
And then there is the case that we sometimes view our work as nothing more than a necessary evil. We have to work to make bucks. In our scheme of things we aren't living for anything or anyone else, so our work, too, becomes a drag. We work to make money. We make money to have a powerful resource for purchasing commodities and services for ourself and our family. But our overriding aim is often little more than selfish personal comfort and pleasure, perhaps even having enough money to shield ourself from all the world's challenges and problems.
The other week a young man in my office expressed it accurately and with no ambiguity. "It's true, isn't it," he asked, "that everybody's working just to live as high off the hog as they can?" That's the idea for a lot of us. Having a blast. Impressing our neighbors and relatives with homes and cars and clothes and our ability to send the kids to name-brand colleges. If this is so, our daily work is often unexciting and frustrating, too, because all the rest of our life is designed mostly for our own selfish purposes. We will never feel filled. We will never be fulfilled.
What can we do about all this? We need to pray more. Our theme says, "Working and praying go together." But you are saying inside, "C'mon, preacher! That's preachertalk. We'd expect you to say that, yes. But do you yourself really believe that's an answer?" Well, yes I do, because God answers prayer, and most of us need some answers about our daily jobs.
We need to pray in the sense that prayer is aligning our will with God's will. I think the most-often quoted petition of the Lord's Prayer is the one that pleads, "Thy will be done." How true that is in connection with our daily work. To be praying and asking what God wants me to be doing with my life. To be praying in the sense of seeking his will. To get in tune with God's wishes and desires for my life. When we struggle with that in prayer, and get answers, then all of this begins to add a perspective to our work as well. Our daily job begins to have a shape. A goal emerges. There is a reason for our work.
II.
So, working and praying go together. But now we come to the flip-side of this coin and confront another challenge. As work is a problem for many, so for others prayer is the problem. Some folks say they have been praying for a long time, and quite in earnest, but nothing happens. Prayer doesn't work, they claim. It is not effective.
That always reminds me of the passage in Mark Twain's unforgettable story of Huckleberry Finn. At one point in the story Twain puts these words into Huck's mouth:
Miz Watson took me into a closet and prayed, but nothing came of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I would ask for, I'd get it. But it weren't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish line, but no hooks. I tried praying for hooks three or four times, but somehow it wouldn't work. One day I asked Miz Watson to try for me, and she said I was a fool. She never told me why. I couldn't make it out in no way. So I say to myself, if a body can get anything he pray for, why don't Deacon Wynn get back the money he lost on pork? Why don't the widow get back the silver snuff box that was stole? Why don't Miz Watson fat up a bit? No, I says to myself, there ain't nothin' to prayin'!
Why ain't there sometimes nothin' to prayin'? It could be that we don't work enough along with our prayers. Again that's the theme of our sermon, "Working and praying go together." There is an old Latin proverb that says it. "Orare est laborare." To pray is to work. To pray is not to say pious words and then stand and wait for God to act. To pray is to become a partner with God in working out our requests and desires.
In the matter of illness and dread disease, for example. Now surely we have all prayed about overcoming some dread illness or disease. We ask God for divine help and direct intervention for our loved ones. But our prayer should also include a request for the necessary commitment and dedication to work toward cures for dread disease as well. In several weeks the Jerry Lewis telethon for Muscular Dystrophy will come across your TV screen. Many people pray for a cure for this dread disease, I am sure. But the telethon itself is a prayer, too, for by giving money and time people are joining hands with God himself to lick this enemy of the human body. Praying by working.
There are many people praying for more harmony in their home. Some of you here this morning may be praying for a richer measure of true peace within your heart. But we must become bold partners with Christ now, and also be willing to cast out of our lives all those selfish desires and pet sins that are leading to disharmony in our home or our heart. We all know the slogan, "Pray for peace." But the Bible adds another dimension when it says, "Strive for peace." That is, roll up your sleeves and work for this good gift as well. Be peace-makers, not only peace pray-ers.
III.
Now all of this is so beautifully summed up in the incident of our text here, as the life and work of Jesus so often do. Five thousand people were fed by Jesus in the wilderness one day. They called it a miracle, and it was. How it happened I do not know. But Jesus fed five thousand people. A pretty good day's work for anyone!
Again, how he did it is not entirely clear, but we can't explain the whole event by simply appealing to the divinity of our Lord. We remember that all along Jesus was a man of prayer, continuously putting himself under God's will and purpose completely. A little passing sentence just before this miracle tells us that Jesus "went to a lonely place by himself." For what reason? I would suggest he went there to pray, to put himself under the Father's will and thus to have the power to accomplish much for others. I don't think Jesus ever had an identity crisis about his task in life. His work was to do the Father's will. Prayer led to his work, and his work was preceded by prayer. For him working and praying always went together.
Set before us on God's altar this morning is the meal of holy communion. As we come, we have to remember the Bible verse that says, "If any has not worked, neither should he eat." Well, someone has brought home the bacon here, that's clear. This is a rich feast awaiting us. Forgiveness and God's acceptance become our bread now. What work did you do for all this? Have you only been praying again, and not working?
Well, it's obvious that we did not work for this feast. But work was done! Behind our prayers for God's forgiveness and grace, the Lord Jesus has been working all along. At the cross he really worked as he suffered and died. And in all this he claimed you and me again for God and his table. He has set us on a new path!
Why so, and for what purpose? So that we might, among other things, make our daily work more of a prayer, more of a sacred offering to God himself. And that we might back up all our prayers with work, that we might more and more become partners with God and his power, and see what great things he can do through us and our job. May the sacred meal so nourish us now to see these things!
So this morning, in the setting of our worship, on this day of rest from our labors, pardon me for bringing up your job! But it seems to me that we Christians have a godly responsibility to come up with "a theology of work." Since we spend so much time at work, wouldn't it be good to have "a working principle" about our daily job?
On the basis of our Bible text here - which includes the miracle of Jesus feeding five thousand - we want to explore and proclaim this simple idea: WORKING AND PRAYING GO TOGETHER. Yes, for every insightful Christian it ought to be the case: WORKING AND PRAYING GO TOGETHER.
I.
For many people work is a problem. Their daily job is a highly unsatisfactory experience. Several months ago a best-selling, non-fiction book was among the top ten on the market. It carried the simple title, Working. It was written by a man with the highly unlikely name of Studs Terkel. Terkel is a master of listening to what other people have to say about common, human concerns. He works with a tape recorder, and the results are exciting, and authentic. In his book, Working, Terkel has us listening to a cross section of Americans talking about their jobs - about their daily work. The list of career people includes cab drivers, telephone operators, mechanics, press agents, bar pianists, stone cutters, farm wives, priests, dentists, librarians, barbers, and about ninety others.
One of the significant impressions the book left with me was that a sizeable number of folks find their daily work to be a negative experience. It wasn't the "work" of work that made jobs a drag for most people, though. Physical labor was accepted and bearable. Mental effort, too, was something most could stand, if that's the kind of work their jobs called for. Even a busy-busy schedule could easily be endured by most of the people. It was rather an over-all viewpoint, a personal outlook toward the whole syndrome and cycle of working that got a lot of people down.
That's the way it can be for all of us. Some people, for instance, use their job as a measure of their own self-worth. They are dissatisfied with their job because it doesn't say much about them as a person. They should be higher up on the ladder by this time, they feel. They can't be worth much or they would be more successful at this point than they are.
That kind of surmising can nag at all of us, isn't it true? Frankly, too often we're already living at the next highest step in our career or job. That can be mighty frustrating and distracting. If we're a stock boy, we'd rather be a clerk. If we're a clerk, we'd rather be a department manager. If we're a department manager we'd rather be head of sales. And if head of sales, then why not vice-president. And if president? Well, sometimes then we wonder why we couldn't have a nice uncomplicated, eight-hour-a-day job like our father used to have!
Or to put it in financial terms, we're not always satisfied with $6.70 an hour. Surely, I'm worth more than that, we feel! There is the meaninglessness and frustration that can overtake us in our work, because we allow it to be too much of a gauge of our personal self-worth. In our own insecurity, we are always pushing toward the next higher step.
And then there is the case that we sometimes view our work as nothing more than a necessary evil. We have to work to make bucks. In our scheme of things we aren't living for anything or anyone else, so our work, too, becomes a drag. We work to make money. We make money to have a powerful resource for purchasing commodities and services for ourself and our family. But our overriding aim is often little more than selfish personal comfort and pleasure, perhaps even having enough money to shield ourself from all the world's challenges and problems.
The other week a young man in my office expressed it accurately and with no ambiguity. "It's true, isn't it," he asked, "that everybody's working just to live as high off the hog as they can?" That's the idea for a lot of us. Having a blast. Impressing our neighbors and relatives with homes and cars and clothes and our ability to send the kids to name-brand colleges. If this is so, our daily work is often unexciting and frustrating, too, because all the rest of our life is designed mostly for our own selfish purposes. We will never feel filled. We will never be fulfilled.
What can we do about all this? We need to pray more. Our theme says, "Working and praying go together." But you are saying inside, "C'mon, preacher! That's preachertalk. We'd expect you to say that, yes. But do you yourself really believe that's an answer?" Well, yes I do, because God answers prayer, and most of us need some answers about our daily jobs.
We need to pray in the sense that prayer is aligning our will with God's will. I think the most-often quoted petition of the Lord's Prayer is the one that pleads, "Thy will be done." How true that is in connection with our daily work. To be praying and asking what God wants me to be doing with my life. To be praying in the sense of seeking his will. To get in tune with God's wishes and desires for my life. When we struggle with that in prayer, and get answers, then all of this begins to add a perspective to our work as well. Our daily job begins to have a shape. A goal emerges. There is a reason for our work.
II.
So, working and praying go together. But now we come to the flip-side of this coin and confront another challenge. As work is a problem for many, so for others prayer is the problem. Some folks say they have been praying for a long time, and quite in earnest, but nothing happens. Prayer doesn't work, they claim. It is not effective.
That always reminds me of the passage in Mark Twain's unforgettable story of Huckleberry Finn. At one point in the story Twain puts these words into Huck's mouth:
Miz Watson took me into a closet and prayed, but nothing came of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I would ask for, I'd get it. But it weren't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish line, but no hooks. I tried praying for hooks three or four times, but somehow it wouldn't work. One day I asked Miz Watson to try for me, and she said I was a fool. She never told me why. I couldn't make it out in no way. So I say to myself, if a body can get anything he pray for, why don't Deacon Wynn get back the money he lost on pork? Why don't the widow get back the silver snuff box that was stole? Why don't Miz Watson fat up a bit? No, I says to myself, there ain't nothin' to prayin'!
Why ain't there sometimes nothin' to prayin'? It could be that we don't work enough along with our prayers. Again that's the theme of our sermon, "Working and praying go together." There is an old Latin proverb that says it. "Orare est laborare." To pray is to work. To pray is not to say pious words and then stand and wait for God to act. To pray is to become a partner with God in working out our requests and desires.
In the matter of illness and dread disease, for example. Now surely we have all prayed about overcoming some dread illness or disease. We ask God for divine help and direct intervention for our loved ones. But our prayer should also include a request for the necessary commitment and dedication to work toward cures for dread disease as well. In several weeks the Jerry Lewis telethon for Muscular Dystrophy will come across your TV screen. Many people pray for a cure for this dread disease, I am sure. But the telethon itself is a prayer, too, for by giving money and time people are joining hands with God himself to lick this enemy of the human body. Praying by working.
There are many people praying for more harmony in their home. Some of you here this morning may be praying for a richer measure of true peace within your heart. But we must become bold partners with Christ now, and also be willing to cast out of our lives all those selfish desires and pet sins that are leading to disharmony in our home or our heart. We all know the slogan, "Pray for peace." But the Bible adds another dimension when it says, "Strive for peace." That is, roll up your sleeves and work for this good gift as well. Be peace-makers, not only peace pray-ers.
III.
Now all of this is so beautifully summed up in the incident of our text here, as the life and work of Jesus so often do. Five thousand people were fed by Jesus in the wilderness one day. They called it a miracle, and it was. How it happened I do not know. But Jesus fed five thousand people. A pretty good day's work for anyone!
Again, how he did it is not entirely clear, but we can't explain the whole event by simply appealing to the divinity of our Lord. We remember that all along Jesus was a man of prayer, continuously putting himself under God's will and purpose completely. A little passing sentence just before this miracle tells us that Jesus "went to a lonely place by himself." For what reason? I would suggest he went there to pray, to put himself under the Father's will and thus to have the power to accomplish much for others. I don't think Jesus ever had an identity crisis about his task in life. His work was to do the Father's will. Prayer led to his work, and his work was preceded by prayer. For him working and praying always went together.
Set before us on God's altar this morning is the meal of holy communion. As we come, we have to remember the Bible verse that says, "If any has not worked, neither should he eat." Well, someone has brought home the bacon here, that's clear. This is a rich feast awaiting us. Forgiveness and God's acceptance become our bread now. What work did you do for all this? Have you only been praying again, and not working?
Well, it's obvious that we did not work for this feast. But work was done! Behind our prayers for God's forgiveness and grace, the Lord Jesus has been working all along. At the cross he really worked as he suffered and died. And in all this he claimed you and me again for God and his table. He has set us on a new path!
Why so, and for what purpose? So that we might, among other things, make our daily work more of a prayer, more of a sacred offering to God himself. And that we might back up all our prayers with work, that we might more and more become partners with God and his power, and see what great things he can do through us and our job. May the sacred meal so nourish us now to see these things!
