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Take Your Lord to Work Day

Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt — July 20, 2008
 

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Introduction
This morning we bring to a conclusion our study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, a series of messages we have called THE COLOSSAL GOSPEL. The book began by talking about cosmic mysteries of the creation of the universe and the nature of God, but it keeps moving downward from the heavenlies into the most intimate and personal areas of our lives. Last week we looked at marriage and family life; today we conclude by considering what God’s Word has to say about the world of our daily work. We pick up the text in Chapter 3, verse 22:

You slaves must obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. ²³Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. ²⁴Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and the Master you are serving is Christ. ²⁵But if you do what is wrong, you will be paid back for the wrong you have done. For God has no favorites who can get away with evil...

¹You slave owners must be just and fair to your slaves. Remember that you also have a Master—in heaven … ⁵Live wisely among those who are not Christians, and make the most of every opportunity. ⁶Let your conversation be gracious and effective so that you will have the right answer for everyone.

Colossians 3:22 - 4:1, 5-6 (NLT)

A National Campaign
More than a decade ago a nonprofit organization focused on advancing women’s rights and opportunities launched a nationwide campaign called Take Our Daughters to Work Day. They appealed to employed parents in all careers to set aside a particular weekday in April and bring their elementary and secondary school daughters with them for a day at the office, the hospital, the store or the factory. The goal was to promote greater career options for women, and to shatter stereotypes that girls could only aspire to certain jobs and professions. The program met with gradual and growing acceptance—and also, predictably, became a target of criticism. Its success mirrors the tremendous changes in recent years all across our country, especially among young people. We have seen nearly full equality in the workplace become a reality. One example: the number of women students in medical schools and law schools now equals or exceeds that of men—smashing the image of those professions as being male-dominated.

The criticism of the Take Our Daughters to Work program has primarily focused on its inherent sexism and reverse discrimination—ironically, putting the organization in conflict with its own professed values of equality. In response to these growing complaints, the foundation has officially changed its emphasis. And so, for the last several years, we have had Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day every April.

But there’s an even more important shift that has occurred in the sponsoring organization. They have broadened their purpose from simple gender equality in the workplace to a much more all-encompassing concern for how work life and family life interact. And this is a huge, growing issue that must be faced. Many moms and dads today struggle with the challenging and delicate high-wire act of balancing demands of home, marriage and parenting with demands of ever-increasing work pressures and competition. Some of you, or your kids or grandkids, may feel like exhausted tight-rope walkers.

Work and Family
The Wall Street Journal for several years has run a regular column on work and family issues. Enlightened employers are hearing and responding to increasing pleas from their workers to grant more flexibility and understanding and greater options for scheduling. Greater numbers of men and women are exploring alternatives to the typical 9–5 job, such as telecommuting and job-sharing. These kinds of changes are not only made possible by new technologies; they’re also an inevitable and overdue reaction to the distortions of life caused by the Industrial Age.

Why do we need to set aside one day a year to take our sons or daughters to work—so that they can at least see what Mommy or Daddy does? Because of the radical and unhealthy separation that has occurred in the past century between our home lives and our work lives. In agricultural societies in earlier generations, children participated in all the tasks of both home and work alongside their parents. They were naturally mentored and taught in the daily course of life. Now, however, we send the kids off in one direction to be taught by specialists, while Dad—and often Mom—head off in separate directions to their demanding jobs.

No wonder communication, respect, understanding and cohesion in the American family have been stretched to the breaking point! How can one be equally successful in both career and family life? It’s a constant, daily and hourly struggle for millions.

Compartmentalization
A common way people try to cope with the relentless demands of life is by a technique psychologists call “compartmentalization”—separating the different roles and aspects of our lives to such an extent that we act as different people in those various settings.

The concept of compartmentalization has been used effectively in the technology of submarines. Engineers design a sub in such a way that each compartment of the boat can be completely sealed off, air-tight and water-tight. That way, if a fire, a leak in the hull, or a radiation leak occurs in one place it can be contained and the crew can survive.

But what works well for a submarine crew does not necessarily work well for a healthy human life. Many problems arise when we try to live in a compartmentalized way. We have a lack of connection with those we love, and an erosion of intimacy and knowledge—causing many marriage partners, and many parents and children, to drift away from each other. We can even develop multiple styles and personalities—which causes a lack of integrity, a dangerous opening for moral failure and unethical behavior.

Work and Faith
One common form of this modern disease of compartmentalization strikes many American Christians: that of separating our faith from our work lives. I fear that millions of Christians walk out of their houses of worship on Sundays filled with the Spirit of God, but that inner power and resolve and spiritual mindset never quite make it with them to the workplace on Monday morning. This is why I want to offer a challenge to all of us today: to make every day Take Your Lord to Work Day. That, I believe, is what our text in Colossians is saying to us.

When you go off to your place of work, you probably have a certain group of people you deal with regularly there. The Apostle Paul is telling us that we need to keep in mind the unseen presence of Jesus, who is with us at all times. He is every bit as real as your boss, your co-workers, your customers or clients, your employees. He watches and listens as you talk on the phone, as you write emails, as you take your lunch break, as you discipline your students or treat your patients or sit in a planning meeting or pound nails on a roof.

We have, in a congregation of this size and diversity, a vast range of different jobs and professions represented here. Many have taken full or partial retirement, while many others are still in the full-time work force. We also have full-time students and stay-at-home “domestic engineers.” Many of us have the freedom to give hours a week as volunteers at a hospital, a literacy class, a library or our church. In each of these unique settings the specific tasks we do—and the specific challenges we face to do them as Jesus would have us do—are different.

But the overall principles are identical. We, as Christians, are to do our daily tasks with excellence, with integrity, with high ethics, with concern for others, and with a proper motivation. Verse 23 is a challenge to all of us: Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

The First Century Roman World
A brief historical explanation might be helpful here. In the world of the Roman Empire in the first century there was not the great variety of work places and professions we have today. Most work was done either by independent subsistence farmers and fishermen, or by small family-owned and operated businesses. The economic system was one called “indenture” by economic historians: most workers served wealthy owners as their servants—either for a defined period of time or for life. The few fortunate people who sat at the top of the pyramid were rich—they were the owners or masters. The rest were at the bottom, with almost zero prospects of career advancement—they were the servants.

Though our English version of the Bible gives them the term “slaves,” they were not in the same desperate and horribly inhumane condition as African slaves were in the South, pre-1865. Had that been the situation, Paul and others in the church would have spoken out against it as being morally offensive and intolerable. But the First Century economy—though by no means just or equal-opportunity—was not that extreme.

Paul addresses these two categories of the work experience, then, because they included nearly everyone. His principles apply to all of us, whether we are employees or employers. And for many of us, in large and complex organizations, this entire passage applies: for we are, at the same time, in a role of supervision of some people beneath us, and yet we report to superiors who are over us.

Commands to Employees
Here are the specific commands Paul gives to employees, beginning in verse 22: We are to be cooperative, not stubborn or lazy or sloppy or rebellious or self-centered. If you have taken upon yourself the name of Jesus as a Christian, then you represent Jesus on your job. And you must do the tasks of your work—even the menial and unappealing ones—in the way Jesus would if He had your job.

Then, in verse 23, the scripture commands us not only to be sure our actions are consistent with our faith, but also that our attitude is as well. Even if we can get away with shoddy work or loafing or mismanaging money or treating other people poorly—that is, even if our boss never, ever finds out—we need to remember that our Ultimate Boss, the Lord, is never fooled.

Verse 24 spells it out directly: You work for Jesus, no matter who signs your paycheck or whose name is at the top of the company letterhead. One other principle in verse 24: Excellence and faithfulness bring their own reward. Yes, you may—if you do your job to the best of your ability—be given human rewards of recognition or title or a salary increase. But even in the absence of those, there is an inner sense of fulfillment that comes when we know deep inside we have done our best. And our Lord smiles upon us and is proud of us when we do so.

Commands to Employers
Those who are in positions of leadership and authority as management in a workplace do not escape the obligations of scripture. Verse 1 of chapter 4 evens it out. Those who are bosses are commanded by Christ to treat their staff or employees fairly—and that includes not only fair pay for services rendered, but also just working conditions, freedom from harassment, fair policies and procedures, and high values.

In the context of the overstretched American family, I believe this means that employers and bosses need to care as much about the marriages and families and the physical and mental health of the people who work for them as they do their production on the job.

The scriptures also tell us that those who are leaders have the greatest responsibility for the corporate culture in a workplace, and the ethics and morality of the company or organization they lead. Bernie Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom, was a faithful Sunday school teacher in a Baptist church in Mississippi. That’s a nice thing to do, but it doesn’t excuse what happened the other six days of the week on his watch—as his company “cooked the books” to the tune of $9 billion, and those who tried to blow the whistle or speak their consciences were shunned.

The secular world may think it’s “good to be the boss.” From the perspective of God’s Word, however, it’s a very heavy weight of moral responsibility.

Living Our Faith at Work
The truths of our passage of scripture apply to every single aspect of our working lives. And even those who can’t fit themselves neatly into one of the two categories Paul addresses here (“servants” or employees, and “masters” or employers) still need to “take their Lord to work” every day:

• Christian teachers need to apply love and biblical principles in their classrooms;
• Christian nurses and doctors and dentists need to bring the love of Christ and a sensitivity to need and suffering to their patients and their families;
• Christian real estate agents and car dealers need to apply biblical principles of honesty and integrity to their dealings with prospective buyers;
• Christian investment counselors and insurance agents need to put their clients’ best interests above their own desire for profit;
• Christian store managers or shop foremen need to balance love and discipline for their workers.

If you’re not sure what to do in a situation—and sometimes work problems can be very tricky or complicated—try to picture Jesus Himself sitting next to you (in your cubicle, your store, your classroom, your corporate boardroom), and ask yourself what you could do that would most please Him.

There’s one other aspect of “taking our Lord to work” that I want to address briefly. This is the matter of being open and honest and unapologetic about our faith in the midst of the sometimes-hostile secular world. It’s my hope that more American Christians will be willing to freely live their faith in their work life.

Some of us have been undercover agents, hidden in our places of work, keeping to ourselves the secret that we are actually followers of Jesus. There’s always a temptation to do that, always a risk of revealing our true values and convictions. But for our own personal integrity and spiritual consistency, as well as for the sake of obeying our Ultimate Boss and Lord, we need to stop trying to live a double life or hide who we really are.

And so I appeal to you to patiently pray for and look for opportunities to express your faith and your Christian values in your workplace. Look for allies where you work—people who are also Christians. It shouldn’t be that hard, if you show a bit of courage, to drop comments in conversations that will help you discover who else might be a believer. We are usually far too timid and fearful. I also encourage you, if you haven’t yet done so, to explore possibilities of openly living out your faith at your place of work.

While we always have to be respectful of our company’s policies and of the diversity of people with whom we work, it may be possible for you to invite some others to join you for a time of prayer and/or Bible study—before work, or on your lunch break. There is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about praying in an office or hospital or courthouse, and if done humbly and sensitively it won’t meet resistance in most cases. Talking about the Lord at work is one powerful way to overcome the compartmentalization of our faith. It may even open up opportunities for you to help someone else.

Conclusion: Created for Work
The experience of work is not just a necessity for survival. It’s also a good thing—part of why we were created. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden not to lounge around and watch TV all day, but to work and tend the Garden.

Whether we work for a paycheck, or go to school, or serve our families full-time, or volunteer: we have a divinely-implanted need for meaningful activity. And our Lord Jesus wants to be intimately involved in the hours we spend on our work lives, just as much as in our time at home and at church. He loves us, and He wants to help us make the most of all of life.