We have a love-hate relationship with our jobs. If we do not have jobs, we are anxious, because no job means no income, and no income means trouble, so we want to work. But when we get those jobs, we begin a love-hate relationship.
We say that we love our work, but then we want to take as much vacation time as possible, we invest in the retirement program and count the days until our Social Security kicks in, and we take delight in holidays like tomorrow. Labor Day! That means there’s no labor. We like that, because we have a love-hate relationship with work.
In our world, work defines us. What you do for a living becomes your identity. You not only get a paycheck; you get status, you get accolades, and you get the thrill of investing yourself in something that matters – if you have certain kinds of work. But the down side is that sometimes we work at things that do not matter, just to put bread on the table. Sometimes we labor over things we do not like, just to stay alive. Sometimes work drags us down, and we hate it. But we can’t leave it. We can’t leave it either because there is no opportunity to do something else or because we have chained ourselves to our work. It’s a love-hate relationship, you and I and our work.
But God is able to deliver. God is able to deliver us, even from labor that does not satisfy, from work that we do not love. God is able to deliver.
The story of our deliverance begins in a brickyard. It’s a brickyard where men and women are being put to hard labor, making bricks for Egypt’s king and for his dreams of glory. Imagine those huge pyramids, those immense temples that you can still visit in Egypt. Calculate how many millions of bricks it must have taken to build such places, and then imagine, if you are Pharaoh’s engineers, how you will get so many bricks. It will be lots of work for somebody, hard and unyielding work. Who will do it?
They turned to the children of Israel and put them to forced labor. They enslaved the Hebrews. Day after day, month after month, under the broiling sun, with no reward but a whip when you are slow or a shove to the ground when you stumble, the Israelites made bricks.
One day through Moses and Aaron, their leaders, they made a simple request: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’” Pharaoh, may we have a brief holiday, please, so that we can worship our God? That request would set off a chain of events that resounds even today. That request would inaugurate God’s deliverance for them and for us.
For God is able to deliver. God is able to deliver us even from labor that does not satisfy and from work that we do not love. God is able to deliver us from among the bricks.
I
Notice, first, that the world in which we work values nothing more than the profit motive and the productivity count. We are living, as did the children of Israel, in a culture where the bottom line is the bottom line, and human needs and spiritual concerns and ethical matters count for very little in the marketplace. Our workplaces are very much like Pharaoh’s brickyards. It’s about the stuff and not about the spirit.
When they asked Pharaoh for a little time off to go to worship God, Pharaoh thundered back, with a sneer in his voice, “Who is the Lord, that I should heed him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go!” No, I want my bricks and I want them now!
For many of us work feels oppressive because the things of the spirit are ignored. The human factor is overlooked. The Lord is not known. It’s all about management getting what they want, and the devil take the hindmost.
When I was a college student, thinking I wanted to be an engineer, I did an internship with a prominent company in North Carolina. Along with the tasks I was doing, I watched the way the place was run. At the end of my three months my supervisor called me in and asked me what I thought of their operations. I told him that I was troubled that the only African-Americans working in the building were either cleaning the floors or serving food in the cafeteria. I had seen only whites in management or in the professional ranks. His answer was that the purpose of the company was to make money for the shareholders and not to dabble in “social issues.” In other words, we don’t care about what is fair, we don’t care about what is right, we don’t care about giving someone an opportunity. We just want our stuff made and we want it now.
So let’s start with this unpleasant fact: we live in a world where those who have power will use it to exploit others. And so if you are working and you hate your work, it may well be because the system under which you are working is not about people, not about the spirit; it’s about profit and product. You will not love that. You will just tolerate it and take home your paycheck and hope for something better.
So remember: God is able to deliver. God is able to deliver, even from labor that does not satisfy and from work that we do not love. God will deliver from among the bricks.
II
Now we have no record of just how these Hebrews felt about making bricks. Were they proud of their handiwork? Did they compete with one another to see who could make the most in one day? I doubt it. It was something forced on them, and they did what they had to do to survive. But notice that they did work faithfully. They stayed at the task. Even when Pharaoh denied their request, they did not rebel, they did not go on strike, they did not fight. They just went on making bricks.
The king voiced his complaint: “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get to your labors!” And indeed they got to their labors; but they never forgot that their principal obligation was to God and not to Pharaoh. They prayed as they worked; they sang as they labored; and they never gave up hope that they would be allowed to be themselves and to worship their God.
But did you know that some of us, in our love-hate relationship with our work, have put ourselves on Pharaoh’s side in this argument? Some of us have decided that we would rather work, work, work than do anything else. Some of us have taken Pharaoh into our own hearts and let him rule us, forgetting that God is our God and that His priority is that we grow in the things of the spirit. There are spiritual things you cannot do if you do nothing but get to your labors and succumb to workaholism.
I have friends who toil in their law offices from early morning until late at night, six or even seven days a week. The firm expects it, the clients want it, it rakes in the dollars; but those who do it know that it is harming their families and preventing them from spiritual growth. Still they do it anyway. Pharaoh has gotten into their hearts: get to your labors!
I had a pastor friend who used to boast that in the nearly thirty years he had served his church he had never taken off a day, not even holidays. He wanted to impress you that he was a dedicated servant of the Lord. But his health was shaky, his marriage was disintegrating, his children were in rebellion, and, in fact, even the church he worked so hard for, in the end, disowned him and forced him to leave. Pharaoh had gotten into his heart: get to your labors! Labor at the expense of the spirit.
Some of you know the history of slavery here in America, or the history of the years of racial discrimination. During those years African-Americans labored at their jobs, cleaning and hauling and farming, “tote that barge and lift that bail”; but, praise God, Pharaoh did not get into their hearts. They labored, but it was with hope. They worked, but with an expectation. They knew that God is able to deliver.
God is able to deliver, even from labor that does not satisfy, from work that we do not love. Work faithfully and well, yes; but do not let Pharaoh consume you. God has something better. God will deliver from among the bricks.
III
Now let’s think, too, about what it means to work in tough times. In times when the economy seems to be collapsing. In times when the job market is declining. Almost 10% unemployment now. Times when we fear we may not have enough to get by.
When Pharaoh looked around and saw that the Hebrews were thriving, despite all that they had had to bear, yet their numbers were growing, Pharaoh panicked. “Now they are more numerous than the people of the land …” Pharaoh got worried. The king decided that he had an immigrant problem!
Have you ever heard anybody complaining that “they” are taking “our” jobs? Too many Hispanics, too many Indians, too many Africans, and they are taking jobs that plain vanilla American folks should have? I’ve heard that. But I see who is offering landscape service. I see who is putting a new roof on my neighbor’s house. I see, when I go to the nursing home to visit someone, who is staffing that place. I see who picks up my garbage. No, immigrants have not taken the jobs Americans want. They have taken jobs that Americans dislike. They are doing our hard labor. Still we are afraid. We think we have an immigrant problem. We think there isn’t enough to go around.
Pharaoh too was afraid, and fear drove him to something completely irrational. “Now they are more numerous than the people of the land … you shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks … let them go and gather straw for themselves. But you shall require of them the same quantity of bricks as they have made previously … for they are lazy.” What an irrational and self-defeating thing to do! Pharaoh would use up his human capital, he would make the work next to impossible, and probably the bricks would be inferior because the straw was needed for a binder. But Pharaoh was afraid; and fear makes us do irrational things, things that punish others and even hurt ourselves.
Brothers and sisters, you did not come to hear politics today, and I am not going to preach politics. I am not going to take sides in the public debate. But I am going to say, on the basis of my understanding of what it means to be a follower of Christ, that as we work through these health care discussions, surely we can agree that a great nation can create a way to offer adequate health care to everybody. Can we at least agree that, however it is to be done, a nation that honors the Biblical injunction to love our neighbors can do something – something! – for everyone within our borders? Not to do so is to force people to make bricks without straw. Not to do better than we have done is to push people over the edge, just because we are afraid of the cost.
Just this week I got a call from a woman in the church I recently served as interim pastor. She was calling to ask me to conduct a burial service at Arlington for her sister. Her sister and the sister’s husband were that couple in Prince William County who died in a murder-suicide after a foreclosure. I cannot say who made what mistake, but I just know that never, never should people be so pushed and so pressed that this would happen. And I just wish somebody had been able to say to this couple that God is able to deliver.
God is able to deliver, even from labor that does not satisfy, from work that we do not love, and from a financial system that forces them to make bricks without straw and to live without adequate resources. God has something better. God will deliver from among the bricks.
IV
Now when things really got desperate down in Pharaoh’s brickyard, the people pushed their leaders, Moses and Aaron, and these two brothers in turn pushed God. They prayed an anguished prayer. I’m not sure I would dare to pray this way, but they did: “O Lord, why have you mistreated this people? … and you have done nothing at all to deliver your people.” “You have done nothing at all.” Pretty daring prayer, don’t you think?
You be the judge as to whether God had done nothing at all for His people in the brickyard, but this prayer turned the tide. This prayer brought from God a word of powerful encouragement: “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh … by a mighty hand he will let [the people] go.”
And you know the story. You know of the plagues, the Passover, and the Red Sea. You know how God delivered His people into freedom.
Freedom: God’s people gained their freedom because even in the midst of an oppressive system they kept alive their faith that God would deliver.
Freedom: God’s people gained their freedom because they went on and did their work, unpleasant though it was, hoping despite all appearances that God would deliver.
Freedom, free at last: God’s people gained their freedom because even when they were told to make bricks without straw they knew they had a weapon mightier than Pharaoh and stronger than his overseers. They prayed to a loving God who would not abandon them. God would make a way where it seemed there was no way. God would deliver them from among the bricks.
I sat for lunch this week with one of the members of Takoma Park church, where I was once pastor. I asked him to bring me up to date on his family. He told me how his wife had been working long and difficult hours, sometimes arriving home as late as 10:00 pm. Their daughter hardly saw her mother any longer. And my friend says that he was considering asking his wife for a separation; their marriage was floundering. To make it all worse, she disliked her work. It was too demanding. The conditions were oppressive.
But several months ago the large law firm for which she worked laid off fifty people, and she was one of them. You might think that would be tragic. You might suppose that would be disastrous. But my friend says that that layoff saved his marriage. He and his wife and their daughter are happier now than they have been in years. Pharaoh is no longer in charge of their hearts.
Oh, God is able. God is able to deliver. God will deliver us from among the bricks of our unfulfilling work and our difficult labor.
Your brick might be dissatisfaction, but God has something better in your future.
Your brick might be an oppressive atmosphere, but God has someone better for you.
Your brick might be prejudice and injustice, but our God is a God of justice, and He will deliver.
Your brick might be the hardness of your own heart, but God has a gift to give you anyway.
“By a mighty hand he will let the people go.” From among all the bricks, God will deliver.
