Bibliography: Culture Shifts, lesson 7; sermon illustrations, work
The Industrial Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class of workers dependent on wages as their source of income. The terms of the labor contract, working conditions, and the relations between workers and employers early became matters of public concern.
In England, Parliament was averse to legislating on subjects relating to workers because of the prevailing policy of laissez-faire . The earliest factory law (1802) dealt with the health, safety, and morals of children employed in textile mills, and subsequent laws regulated their hours and working conditions.
This notice was found in the ruins of a London office building. It was dated 1852.
1. This firm has reduced the hours of work, and the clerical staff will now only have to be present between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays.
2. Clothing must be of a sober nature. The clerical staff will not disport themselves in raiment of bright colors, nor will they wear hose unless in good repair.
3. Overshoes and topcoats may not be worn in the office, but neck scarves and headwear may be worn in inclement weather.
4. A stove is provided for the benefit of the clerical staff. Coal and wood must be kept in the locker. It is recommended that each member of the clerical staff bring four pounds of coal each day during the cold weather.
5. No member of the clerical staff may leave the room without permission from the supervisor.
6. No talking is allowed during business hours.
7. The craving for tobacco, wine, or spirits is a human weakness, and as such is forbidden to all members of the clerical staff.
8. Now that the hours of business have been drastically reduced, the partaking of food is allowed between 11:30 and noon, but work will not on any account cease.
9. Members of the clerical staff will provide their own pens. A new sharpener is available on application to the supervisor.
10. The supervisor will nominate a senior clerk to be responsible for the cleanliness of the main office and the private office. All boys and juniors will report to him 40 minutes before prayers and will remain after closing hours for similar work. Brushes, brooms, scrubber, and soap are provided by the owners.
11. The owners recognize the generosity of the new labor laws, but will expect a great rise in output of work to compensate for these near Utopian conditions.
Talk about being overworked and underpaid...
Do you ever feel overworked, over-regulated, under-leisured, under-benefited?
The rise of the computer age has changed the way in which people work. The culture shift over the last 40 to 50 years in this area involves a shift from being career oriented to being job oriented. Rather than working for the company for 30 years, people of my generation will have on the average 3 careers. People of my children’s generation will average 6 career changes.
Characteristics of such a job lifestyle include high emphasis on productivity and high stress to perform in the job place. It is an environment that changes from year to year. There is no way of knowing what to expect next.
With such frequent change in our working situations, how do we plan for the future? What about benefits such as health care and pension programs? What can we plan for those? Will we be able to remain in the community in which we live, or will frequent moves and relocations be in store for most of us? Or our children and their families?
Our working world is not that of our parents and grandparents where the family remained in one place, often for several generations, and worked a company job, saving towards retirement in the company pension program.
I don’t think there will be a lot of gold watches given out on retirement day in future generations. There’s not much security in our work field anymore. Its probably the biggest lesson we’ve learned from Enron. Our value has changed to that of survival.
Chuck Noland wasa man in a hurry. His job for Federal Express has him traveling the world on a moment’s notice, exhorting the company’s employees to speed things up--"never turn your back on the clock." Chuck is the sole survivor of the crash of a company plane, and washes up on a completely deserted island. Stranded there, he must give up everything that he once took for granted and learn how to survive all alone in the wilderness.
Upon his return, he must come to grips with a world that has changed from when he left it, not only in reality, but in his perspective. He visits with a friend and coworker and shares how he lived and survived.
Escape and rescue had seemed impossible. At one time, Chuck gave up on rescue, gave up on being reunited with his wife, and gave up on living.
But then he notes:
"One day logic was proven all wrong because the tide lifted, came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I’m back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have *ice* in my glass. And I’ve lost her all over again. I’m so sad that I don’t have Kelly. But I’m so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I have to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"
*****
Our Bible lesson is about a career change for Saul. We might know him better as Paul. We read of the beginning of a new life for him.
Prior to this time, Paul has been bi-vocational. Paul worked in home construction and law enforcement. Paul was a tent maker by trade. He was also a Pharisee and a persecutor of Christians. Paul had been a part of one such case with a gentleman named Steven. He would arrest them and bring them to justice. Justice was death by stoning for anyone claiming to be a Christian. It was this was this particular job task Saul was engaged in when he had an encounter with Christ.
Saul was going to Damascus with letters from the priests in Jerusalem to arrest any Christians he found in the synagogues in Damascus. This might seem a little strange to expect to find Christians in the Synagogue, but in those first days following the resurrection of Christ, the Israelites who believed in the resurrection of Jesus were still a part of the Jewish faith.
On his way to Damascus, a bright light from heaven fell upon Saul. The light was so bright, that Saul was blinded by it. Those traveling with Saul were speechless over what had happened.
Notice they weren’t changed or affected by the light affecting Saul. They were speechless over what had happened to Saul and how it affected him. They didn’t know how to respond or what to say, but they didn’t have a personal encounter with Jesus.
They took Saul on to Damascus, and for three days, Saul went without food, water, and sight.
We have picked up with the story this evening with Ananias. In a vision, God sends Ananias - a good and faithful servant of God and a believer in Christ - to Paul. His job is to explain to Saul that he has been chosen by God for a special purpose and to restore Saul’s sight. Ananias fills the role of Christians everywhere, to share that God has a special purpose for each of us, to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others so that we might all see.
Notice where Ananias will find Saul. He will be in a house on Straight street.
Ananias, of course, is afraid to go to Saul. He knows Saul’s reputation. But God sends Ananias anyway.
This new job will not be an easy one for Saul. In fact, there will be much suffering and struggle to be the person God has in mind for Saul to be.
Saul regains his sight when Ananias lays hands on him. Saul is able to see by the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us he then ate, and was strengthened.
Saul then began his new vocation by going to the synagogue and proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God. This didn’t sit well with the Jews in the synagogue. They had understood he had come with a different purpose, as a different person than the one in front of them.
However, Saul was so convincing in his conviction, that they could not argue with him.
*****
I can personally relate to Saul’s story. I too left one career to enter the ministry. It caused some the same sort of reactions by my friends, family, and colleagues.
Some were glad, some were amazed, some still don’t think this is what I need to be doing.
I remember feelings of helplessness and uncertainty. It was a kind of blindness in which for a while, I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed with this encounter I had experienced with Christ. I couldn’t initially see the path I was to pursue.
Just a Saul ate and was strengthened, I was strengthened by study, exploration, and prayer. I continue feasting, continue searching for nourishment and strengthening for the tasks ahead. I love the ministry. But it is not always an easy pursuit.
One of the first things I did was move to Straight street. I’m not saying I suddenly became of perfect person or don’t make mistakes daily. But now there is a purpose for what I do, and an awareness of my goal in the person I am to become.
I fail often. I get detoured a lot. I stumble and stagnate at times. But I wish to be the person God intended me to be. I am trying to walk a straighter path.
For me, that meant a career change and entering vocational ministry. I realize such a change is not the call for everyone. However I do believe that we are all called into Christian ministry and service just as Saul was. For some it will mean a job change. For others, it will mean a change in how we do our job.
*****
Harry Ironside tells us a story from the past of how this played out in his life:
“When I was a boy, I worked for a Scottish shoemaker, or “cobbler,” as he preferred to be called, named Dan Mackay. He was a forthright Christian and his little shop was a real testimony for Christ in the neighborhood. The walls were literally covered with Bible texts and pictures, generally taken from old-fashioned Scripture Sheet Almanacs, so that look where one would, he found the Word of God staring him in the face. There were John 3:16 and John 5:24, Romans 10:9, and many more.
“On the little counter in front of the bench on which the owner of the shop sat, was a Bible, generally open. No package went out of that shop without a printed message wrapped inside.
“It was my chief responsibility to pound leather for shoe soles. A piece of cowhide would be cut to suite, then soaked in water. I had a flat piece of iron over my knees and, with a flat-headed hammer, I pounded these soles until they were hard and dry. It seemed an endless operation to me, and I wearied of it many times.
“What made my task worse was the fact that, a block away, there was another shop that I passed going and coming to or from my home, and in it sat a jolly, cobbler who gathered the boys of the neighborhood about him and regaled them with lewd tales that made him dreaded by respectable parents as a menace to the community. Yet, somehow, he seemed to thrive and that perhaps to a greater extent than my employer, Mackay. As I looked in his window, I often noticed that he never pounded the soles at all, but took them from the water, nailed them on, damp as they were, and with the water splashing from them as he drove each nail in.
One day I ventured inside, something I had been warned never to do. Timidly, I said, “I notice you put the soles on while still wet. Are they just as good as if they were pounded?” He gave me a wicked leer as he answered, “They come back all the quicker this way, my boy!”
“Feeling I had learned something, I related the instance to my boss and suggested that I was perhaps wasting time in drying out the leather so carefully. Mr. Mackay stopped his work and opened his Bible to the passage that reads, “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of god.”
“Harry,” he said, “I do not cobble shoes just for the money that I get from my customers. I am doing this for the glory of God. I expect to see every shoe I have ever repaired in a big pile at the judgment seat of Christ, and I do not want the Lord to say to me in that day, ‘Dan, this was a poor job. You did not do your best here.’ I want Him to be able to say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
Then he went on to explain that just as some men are called to preach, so he was called to fix shoes, and that only as he did this well would his testimony count for God. It was a lesson I have never been able to forget. Often when I have been tempted to carelessness, and to slipshod effort, I have thought of dear, devoted Dan Mackay, and it has stirred me up to seek to do all as for Him who died to redeem me.
Why do we do the job we do? What is our primary focus? What’s our driving ambition? Some of us must work to provide income for the home. Some of us work at home to keep the home running. In the last 50 years, these jobs were differentiated. Today, some of us must do a combination of the two. In any case, we all have responsibilities of one kind or another that equal a job task. In what spirit do we do them - as a job that must be done, as something needed or required, or is there a greater purpose to what we do? Is each of our jobs just a job, or is it an adventure in Christian service:
Jeanette George tells her story:
“About six years ago, I was speaking at a luncheon held in the civic auditorium of a city in Oklahoma. I settled myself at my place at the head table. I picked up my fork and noticed that two rose-petaled radishes adorned my salad plate. Someone had take the time to pretty up two radishes, just for me. Then I noticed that each salad at the head table had two neatly curled radishes.
I turned to the lady sitting to my right. “I’m impressed by the radishes, “ I said. “You’re impressed by what?” she asked. “The radishes,” I said. “Look, each salad plate at our table has curled radishes.” “Yes,” she said, exercising a questioning smile. “They’re pretty.” “They’re more than pretty,” I said. Someone took special care to do these.” “Don’t they all have them?” she asked, gazing out at the tables. I looked and was astonished. Each salad plate was adorned with two curled radishes! “They are curled! That took a lot of time!” “I’m not on the planning committee, but Gertrude is,” my table mate responded. She turned to get the attention of Gertrude, three chairs down. “Mrs. George wants to ask you something about the radishes, “she whispered. “The what?” Gertrude mouthed “The RA- DI-SHES!” “Is there something wrong with your radishes?” she asked. “No. They are fine. I just thought it was nice to have them all curled.” “Oh, Marietta does those.” “All of them?” I knew the head count in the room and was astonished. “That’s almost eight hundred radishes!” “Yes, but Marietta wants to do it. Would you like to meet her? She’s in the kitchen.” So Gertrude and I went into the kitchen, and there I met Marietta, the lady of the radishes. “Gertrude tells me you curled all those radishes. They’re lovely. Each salad looks so...festive.” “I don’t mind doing it. It just takes time,” Marietta replied. I didn’t know what more to say so I left.
Later, I spoke, and there was an encouraging response. Afterward, ladies scurried past me with murmured greetings, and a few lingered to speak of God in their lives. When we finished, it was raining heavily so we hurried across the parking lot to the car. Through the rain, I could see a lady, carrying a large polka-dot umbrella that had collapsed on one side waiting by our car. It was Marietta! She was smiling as though we had found her on a sunny day in an especially delightful garden. “I had to see you. I heard your speech. It was good!” she said.
As I slipped inside the car. Marietta crouched down close to the window and called to me, “Just remember this. You keep telling people about Jesus, and I’ll keep curling the radishes.” Dear Marietta, I haven’t forgotten. We are to do our jobs in the love of him who does all things well.”
We are to do our jobs in the love of him who does all things well.
In Jesus’ name. Amen
