PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Matthew 16:21-28                                                                           What Profit ?

Labor Day Sermon Aug. 31, 2008:  People's UCC, Dover, DE:  The Rev. Dan Griggs

 

            When I preach on a single verse of scripture I usually begin by showing how that verse is related to the verses before and after it.  I'm not going to do that today—I'm going to take verse 26 out of its context and offer a meditation on what it might mean to Americans on Labor Day weekend, 2008.  By way of excuse I will say that this Gospel Lesson contains not one but at least three subjects, and it looks like somebody has taken sayings of Jesus from different occasions and stitched them together.  It appears first in the Gospel of Mark, and Matthew got it from Mark.[1] 

            The saying I want to focus on is in verse 26: 

 

Now you are very familiar with this saying—probably in a different form that says:

The translation is more slippery than you might think.  This is the way Dan Griggs translates it:

Put that way it sounds like an economic question instead of a religious one, and the listener is supposed to think:  "If he got rich, nobody owes him anything if he dies."  That gets us pretty close to income, and careers, and pensions and Social Security, and Labor Day—which is where we want to be today. 

"What does it profit?"  "What is owed?"  And what I want to say about this today is pretty straightforward.  In the name of God, by the Spirit of Christ, you and I are called and invited to live in this world and be involved in its business.  Here is "profit"—not to receive but to participate in life.  That's my point. 

 

            My grandfather Griggs was a farmer, and my grandfather Waller was a doctor.  They both loved their work.  I knew a civil engineer in Ohio who laughed and said, "My claim to fame is that I was the one who designed the sensors on the automatic-flush toilets for the rest areas along the Ohio Turnpike—and he meant it:  he was proud of his work. 

On the other hand, when I was the chairman of our Chesapeake Association's Church and Ministry Commission, we had a brilliant woman candidate for ordination:  she held a PhD and read several languages, she was out-going and energetic; but when we sent her to the Princeton Career Center to take the battery of psychological tests required before we ordain a person, the psychologist wrote back and told us, "Under no circumstances should you ordain this person."  In the little interim ministry job she did while she was in care, she made a terrible mess of things and had to be relieved; and she never understood why.  It was not her "calling," you see.  (And by the way, that's one benefit of a local church's being in a responsible denomination—the ministers get tested before they show up in your pulpit.)  She was also an attorney, and I heard later that she got a government job and was doing great.  That was her "calling."

            The person who gets to do their life-work in the field they love really does have a "calling."  Luther and Calvin both taught that it's not just clergy who receive a "vocation" from God—a "calling"—that the shoe-maker, the banker, the miner, the musician the saleswoman, and the home-maker all are "called"—all have a divine "vocation."[2]  So I say on this Labor Day weekend, to do your work as well as you can is your calling; and "what does it profit"?   Here is "profit":  not to receive but to participate in life. 

 

            Now I just mentioned the home-maker:  my mother used to object to the term "housewife":  she corrected me, "I'm a home-maker."  And she was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a member of not one but two families—her own, and my father's, too.  I could say something similar about my father.  Near the conclusion of Ecclesiastes, after the writer has thought through all the things people can do in the world and whether they are worth anything, comes this insight:[3]

            It doesn't matter whether you like Senator Biden or dislike him:  the fact that he has gone home to Wilmington to his wife and family almost every night after the work of the Senate was done   is worthy of respect.  And you have, too; and that's worthy of respect.  To love your partner in life, to be involved in your children's lives and the things they are doing or that they did, to pay attention to aging parents' needs, to allow yourself to be immersed in the energies, the ups and downs, the laughter and the tears, the poverty and the wealth of these specific people—that's "profit."  And even if you are alone in the world, or nearly alone, to nurture friendships, to find human contact where you not only receive but give of yourself—that's "profit."  Here is "profit":  not to receive but to participate in life. 

 

            But work and family don't make up your whole existence:  you live in a world full of people and issues and quandaries.  Is there any "profit" to be had here?  Well this is the stage on which your personal ethics gets played out.  Somebody said, "Ethics is who you are when nobody is watching."  But there are people watching, people whose lives are affected by your words and your actions—or your silence and your inaction.  There is value not just in doing you job, but in how you do it.  There is value not just in money, but in how you get it, and how you give it.  This aspect of our lives is called "stewardship," which means "management."  I do not live on the planet all by myself:  I am my brother's brother, and my sister's brother, too.  And not all my brothers and sisters look like me, or speak the same language I do.

            It is in the realm of ethics that we also find our place in public life.  In ancient Greece there was an assumption that a free person (back then it was almost always men—but free women also had their public works):  it was assumed that a free man would take his place in the democratic process and speak from his heart in the city assembly, take his turn on the town court, train for service in time of war—even Socrates the great philosopher served as a soldier.  A person who withdrew from public responsibility and stayed out of the assembly lived what we call a "private life":  the Greek word for "private person" was IDIOS, from which English derives the word "idiot"—someone lost in their own world.[4]

            What I'm saying is that there is "profit" in living honorably, ethically, and participating in the social and political processes of the community.  Here is "profit":  not to receive but to participate in life. 

 

            So far we've identified "what it profits" someone as:  your vocation in life, your love and involvement in your family, and your ethical behavior in your work and public life.  It is also "profit" for you to be named among those who worship God, who place your dependence on God when your soul is weighed in the balances of life.  Sometimes we call this "piety," but that word doesn't communicate the full depth and breadth of meaning:  I'm talking about being a person of faith, and letting your faith guide your life decisions. 

            Just at this point in a sermon like this a preacher would usually tell the story of a particular person, maybe a well-known person like Pat Boone, Vaclav Havel, Mark Hatfield, Marian Anderson, John Updike or  Annie Dillard.  But who can live up to the lives of the great?  And on the other hand, who among even the great can possibly live your life?  This is your life, and your church, and your own personal trial by fire:  it's your own illness, your own pride in a child who has done well, your own divorce, your own checkbook.  And it is your own faith by which you step forward.  Here is "profit":  not to receive but to participate in life. 

 

Jesus is talking about death again.  Not his own this time, but mine and yours.  Is there anything you believe that's worth dying for?  But what Jesus is really getting at isn't that.  What he's really after is this question:  Is there anything you believe that's worth living for? 

            Is there anything you're willing to give up your home for and go somewhere else, you know not exactly where, and start all over?  Most young women find the faith and the courage to do that again and again:  when they marry, when they have a baby, when somebody gets a promotion and a transfer to Buffalo.  I've been amazed at the depth of my daughter Beth's faith and self-surrender as her husband works through medical school.   She gave up a career as director of an English as a Second Language network in central Virginia that had an impact on the way the U. S. Justice Department handled the personal information of junior high school and high school students from Brazil and India and Korea after 9-11:  she gave that up to move and look for any work she could find.  And after two years she gave up that work to move up into the mountains west of Bristol, Virginia and start looking for work again—to give support and provide a home for Jon.  I'm amazed.  It has cost her.

            You who have served in the military in war-time—you've seen it, too.  Where's the "profit" in this?  People are willing to give up everything, including their lives.  Here is "profit":  not to receive but to participate in life. 

 

            Well, tomorrow is Labor Day.  The nation has set that day aside as a memorial to the women and men of America who work for a living—no longer only the labor unions, but the workers.  And we buy a little house.  And we have a couple of children.  And we put something back for retirement.  But where's the "profit"? 

What will it profit if your work, your love, your ethics, your faith and your willingness to sacrifice all speak the language of faith?  It will profit you everything.  Here is "profit":  not to receive but to participate:  and to leave the world a little better place for your having been here.  May God bless your work. 

AMEN