The Nobility of Work
a sermon by John W. Wimberly, Jr.
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
August 31, 2008

Text: Romans 12:9-21

At this year’s General Assembly two overtures were passed that, if affirmed by a majority of Presbyteries nationwide, will finally allow us to ordain LGBT elders, deacons and clergy in the Presbyterian Church.  This week I was at a small gathering of conservative clergy in our denomination.  They are trying to figure out how they can stay in the denomination if the overtures pass.  I was the liberal in the room because, in a dismaying turn of events, they view me as a reasonable radical.  I told them not to spread rumors that I am reasonable!  It has taken me a long time to build my reputation.

Conservatives sense the winds of change are blowing in an irreversible direction within our denomination which will, ultimately, give congregations and Presbyteries freedom as to whom they ordain.  As the conservatives consider whether to stay or leave, I reminded my friends that those of us at Western have stayed in the denomination even though we have never been able legally to ordain LGBT officers and clergy.  I emphasize “legally.” For years on this issue, Western has practiced ecclesiastical disobedience, a hallowed tradition in the church.

As we talked, we questioned one another, “Why stay together?” My answer is the theology of John Calvin.  Despite our many differences, everyone in that room views reality through a lens shaped by John Calvin.  We believe God is in control of history; we are justified by our faith, not our works; the good intentions of human beings inevitably go astray; God’s responds to our disobedience with love, not wrath.  With Calvin, we believe the laity, not clergy, are the heart of the church; decision making is best placed in the hands of groups, not individuals; civil government is as important as church government; work in the home, workplace, and community is as important as work in the church.  As Presbyterians, we have a shared set of key core values.

Personally, the Bible leads me to believe that LGBT folks are as healthy and holy as any other child of God.  I also believe all God’s children, not just those who confess Jesus as the Christ, are welcomed into heaven by God.  But despite my liberal beliefs and their conservative beliefs, we share important core Calvinist beliefs.  It is for that reason that I hope we can remain in dialogue and, if at all possible, within the same denomination. 

There are few core teachings of Calvin that I like better than his view of work.  The Protestant work ethic is the butt of many jokes.  But it is no joke.  The Protestant work ethic helped shape Europe and these United States into highly productive, purpose driven societies.  It has filled even the most menial and mundane forms of work with meaning and purpose by linking our work directly to God’s redemptive work in history. 

Calvin is quite clear that we are not saved or justified by our work.  This is an important Word in our work-obsessed city.  Too many of us feel a need to prove our worth through our work.  We are trying to prove our worth to ourselves, our families, neighbors, colleagues and even strangers.

When we meet one another in this city, our first questions tend to be, “What do you do?” “Where do you work?” or “How are things going at work?” We define ourselves and one another by what we do, not by who we are or whose we are.  But proving ourselves through work is a futile endeavor

Think of all the little children and youth who have tried to prove their worth to their parents.  In these situations, no matter what the child does, it usually isn’t enough.  When we see this sad scenario playing out, we realize the key role a parent plays in establishing a child’s sense of self-worth. 

As he grows up, little Yossi, who we baptized today, can go to the best schools, get the best jobs yet never feel valued.  But because Jason and Esther are telling him, “We love you; You are the most important person in the world.” Yossi will know and develop a deeply seated awareness that he is valued. 

Of course, this is where God is so important.  Some children are never blessed with healthy parents.  They don’t get the message that they are invaluable. 

However, said Jesus, whether or not we get affirmed by our earthly parents, there is another alternative: our divine parent.  God offers us an eternal and unconditional affirmation; an affirmation we can’t stop even if we run as far away from God as we can.  If we can own God’s affirming Word, deep, deep in our hearts, no human words will ever destroy our sense of self-worth. 

Because of his strong emphasis on justification by faith not works, Calvin spent a lot of time explaining the relationship of faith to works.  He didn’t want people to think work doesn’t matter.  To Calvin, the key issue is why we work. 

Calvin had a very egalitarian notion of work.  It strikes at the roots of our habitual efforts to rank vocations in our society—where some are prestigious while others are scorned.  In Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin wrote, “Therefore, lest through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, God has appointed duties for every person in his or her particular way of life.  And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his or her limits, God has named these various kinds of living ‘callings.’ ...no task will be so sordid and base, provide you obey your calling to it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.”

Garbage person, stay at home parent, President of the United States, website developer, Calvin didn’t see one job as more important than the other.  All our work, if done to glorify God, is “precious in God’s sight.” Why we work, not what we do at work, is what matters.

The importance of work—hard work, consistent work, determined work—has been on center stage this past week.  As we see African American and female candidates for President and Vice-President, respectively, we see the results of an incredible amount of self-sacrificing work that has been going on for decades and decades.  We tend to focus on the efforts of people such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Elizabeth Cady Stanton when it comes to rights for women and people of color.  No one can discount their courageous, remarkable work.

However, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are not standing where they stand solely because of a few courageous, prophetic leaders of social justice movements.  They are where they are today because millions upon millions of nameless, faceless women and persons of color have worked long and hard in obscure callings. 

In some instances, the work was directly related to the drive for civil rights.  In the early 1960s as a college student, my wife went door to door in North Carolina registering African Americans to vote.  Not much glamor there.  But it was work that thousands of Americans did back then to get us where we are today.  As laws changed, opportunities were created. 

But while new laws create new opportunities, only hard work creates new realities.  The enormous changes in our society have come about through decisions by millions of women and people of color to seize new opportunities through hard work.  This hard work by individuals in schools, businesses, government and other institutions has made today’s new vocational landscape a reality. 

Women and people of color have worked as students, excelling in higher educational institutions.  However, even equipped with quality educations, they oftentimes had to take jobs below their skills and intelligence.  They watched less qualified white males get jobs ahead of them.  Nonetheless, slowly but surely worked their way to the top.  They plugged away. 

In the 1970’s, my sister took a job in the oil business.  She started as an administrative assistant.  Eventually her work was rewarded with a higher position called “land-man” which tells you everything.  For years, she was one of only a handful of female land-men in the industry.  Almost every meeting she went to was all male.  Not easy stuff.  But she did her job and usually did it better than her male colleagues.  By the end of her career, she was the boss of the land men at her company.

Small steps.  Steps created through hard work.  No news articles.  No public notice.  Just hard work by a woman in an oil company.  This is how the world is changed—hard work in places outside the line of our vision.

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin owe their success to millions and millions of people who saw a door of new opportunities and walked through it.  They worked long and hard.  Today, we are all enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Now surely, getting to where we want to go doesn’t always happen.  The simple fact of the matter is—not everyone can do what they want to do.  I certainly haven’t been able to do many of the things I dreamed of doing when I was in my twenties and thirties.  But if we begin to view our work through God’s eyes, if we see our labor as part of a bigger effort, if we see ourselves as one element in a much larger effort God is leading, we realize the value of our toil.  Viewed through God’s eyes, our seeming insignificant job no longer seems so insignificant.

When I came to Western 25 years ago, I assumed it was a stop along the way.  I figured I would be here for 5-7 years and then move onto a bigger church.  Incredibly, the idea of climbing the corporate ladder is alive and well in the church.  But as I worked here, I began to see that I could accomplish much more by moving deeper into the D.C. community rather than moving “up” the denominational ladder.  I became less impressed with big churches and more impressed with the possibilities of working in the same vineyard for a lifetime. 

I just finished an amazing book, The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan.  It details the Dust Bowl tragedy in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska in the 1930’s.  I am going to talk about the book at more length in a future sermon on the environment. 

For today, I want to focus on the people who lived through that terrifying, demoralizing experience.  We often hear stories about the many people who left the Dust Bowl and headed to California or elsewhere.  However, Egan reminds us that two-thirds of the people in that area gutted it out.  Year after year, they planted their crops only to watch them be destroyed by drought, dust storms, or millions of grasshoppers descending upon them.  They sat trapped in their mud houses as tons of airborne soil swirled over them.  Many died from inhaling the dirt and dust over such a long period of time.  It was a catastrophe beyond even Katrina’s scope. 

Why did they stay?  These strong folks believed they were called to work in that place.  It was where they were supposed to be, what they were supposed to do.  They loved their land.  The dust bowl would be a desert today if they hadn’t stayed and worked with the government to rebuild the area (Interestingly, one of the characters in the book is Judge Wilson Cowen who became a member of Western in the 1960’s when his friend President Johnson appointed him to a judgeship here in D.C.  He died a few years ago.).

The sense of finding one’s place and sticking with it is a huge key to a faithful, joyful and productive life.  Our place may not be the most glamorous place.  But it is our place. 

We may not have the job we dreamed of having.  The world may be making our work harder than it need be.  But it remains our work.  God expects us to do it well.

The simple nobility of work is underappreciated in our culture.  This isn’t the result of a change in attitudes only by workers.  It is also the result of a change in attitudes by employers.

Today, employers increasingly view workers not as their greatest asset but as a fungible asset.  Workers can be hired, laid off/disposed with barely a thought given to their individual contributions to the company. 

If we are going to restore the nobility of work, employers and employees alike need to rethink their compact.  If employers want employees to work long and hard, workers need to be respected.  No health insurance, no job security, no recognition of the small sacrifices people make for their jobs—these are signs of disrespect.  If employees want employers to respect them, we need to give our employers our best—not some days but every day.

As Calvinists, we have been given a real gift when it comes to understanding work.  We assign to work a sacred purpose which is essential to work being fulfilling and purposeful.  It is a gift we need to share with the world.

Let us pray: Gracious God, you call us to serve you.  Our work is a huge part of that service.  Help us to find our calling and then work it long and hard.  As we do so, we will build a world that we will be proud to pass along to Yossi and the other children of the world.  Amen.