Working In Love

Preached at Prescott Memorial Baptist Church
August 28, 2011
Genesis 41:37-57, 42:1-6

We made fun of her. We were teenagers and it was our job to make fun of anybody over age thirty. She was short, fat and had a name that rhymed with “turtle.” Her name was Pirtle so we called her Pirtle Turtle. We were the youth group at my church in Jackson, Tennessee. Mrs. Pirtle devoted herself to providing clean and Christian programming for the teenagers…skating nights, bowling competitions, pizza parties, talent shows, Bible quizzes, camping trips, hay-rides, ice cream suppers, car washes. Mrs. Pirtle had five children of her own and she wanted them to feel connected to the life of the church so she made things happen. No matter how awful we were she grinned in a good natured way and kept on doing what she loved to do—making a place for the young people in the church. We rarely admitted how much we needed her but she must have picked up some kind of personal reward through osmosis or something because she hung in there and kept her spirits up.

When I turned twenty-one I dropped out of college for no good reason and got a job at Rockwell Power Tools. I worked on the assembly line. Little grenade looking contraptions came by me on the conveyor belt and my job was to affix five wires into a cylinder on each grenade that came by. These grenade things came by quickly! And I could only get about two out of five before they moved on down the line. God help the person who actually purchased any of the power tools that passed by me during the time I worked there. I couldn’t keep up.

Hundreds of assembly-line workers sat on stools in a dimly lit warehouse. We had to focus on the conveyor belt in front of us constantly. A whistle blew at 2 hour intervals so we could have a bathroom and smoke break. All of us took lunch break, thirty minutes, at the same time. Any phone calls that needed to be made were made during the lunch break. The sameness coupled with my extreme frustration over not keeping up was deadening for me.

Mrs. Pirtle worked at Rockwell Tools. She worked there for 38 years, sitting on a stool and grabbing up assembly line pieces, contributing her part to the Rockwell products. I watched her while I was there. Mrs. Pirtle was the same person at work as she was at church. At work Mrs. Pirtle was faithful, productive and cheerful, full of life-giving joy. She came alive in that warehouse the same way she came alive in the church basement while MC’ing the annual teenage talent show.

She sat on a stool at Rockwell for 38 years. And she worked in love at the church. You could see the love in her face and hear it in her laughter. Mrs. Pirtle is one of those people I think of when I look through my memories for those who have been called to work for good in the world. She knew what her purpose was.

Pharaoh was pleased with his servant, Joseph, and referred to him as “the one in whom is the Spirit of God.” Pharaoh described Joseph as discerning and wise. So Joseph was given authority over all of Egypt. He received Pharaoh’s signet ring, garments of fine linen, a gold chain, a royal chariot and the daughter of a priest for his wife.

Joseph’s career blossomed. Suddenly he was the man he had dreamed of becoming, the one with work to do that came with respect, responsibility and power. He had dreamed dreams, endured hardships, remembered his strengths and gifts and was ready to be impressive as soon as he came up out of the dungeon. He had a strategy for feeding the nation. And his strategy was a success.

Between the day that Joseph first told his father and brothers about his dreams (You remember? The sheaves of wheat bowing down to him in the field, the sun, moon and eleven stars lining up to bow down to him in the sky…) and the day that the signet ring was placed on his finger there were many opportunities for Joseph to lose hope, to get down and depressed, to give up on himself and his strengths.

But Joseph’s purpose was to work for love of the God who created him, for love of the way God created him. It worked. He won his place in the dream.

Work is part of life. We want to be paid for the work that we do and we want, even more, for our work to be meaningful. Many of us will work for almost nothing so long as the work rewards us with a sense of truly sharing the best of ourselves. We want our work to be appreciated. We want our work to make a difference. It is the prize we keep our eyes on up ahead- sharing ourselves and seeing that the world around us is brighter and better because of the work we have done.

And don’t be thinking you don’t have what it takes to make a big difference in this world. You do. You are a human being created in the image of God and that qualifies you for amazing work.

In the year 1662 an ordinary foot soldier named Nicholas Herman noticed a dry and leafless tree in the middle of winter and he focused on it. He realized that spring would come and change that tree altogether. This ordinary man during an ordinary work day had a simple reflection on the cycles of life and that moment changed a foot soldier into a man of constant prayer.

Nicholas Herman entered the Order of Carmelites in Paris and became known as Brother Lawrence. His letters and conversations have been written and turned into a classic called “The Practice of the Presence of God.” Brother Lawrence dedicated himself to living in a constant conversation with God. At any moment in the midst of any work the soul can practice the presence of God. “All that I do,” he wrote, “I do for love of God.” He worked in the kitchen washing dishes and practicing the presence of God. Ordinary work with great purpose. Four hundred years later we are still being inspired by this man’s reflections on his work and his connection to God in the kitchen.

Like the birds that fly over our heads, each one of us has wings to fly in our work, to transcend the ordinary and create extraordinary transformative moments—simply by connecting our work to the power of God’s love within us.

We are the church. As a church we are called and equipped to work together. The purpose of the church is to be a transforming people who work together in the light of God’s grace. Everything else is up to God.

Our work is to engage the lonely in affirming friendships, comfort the broken hearted, heal the sick, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, protect and respect the children and vulnerable, remember those in prison and spend time with them, treat all people as we would want to be treated ourselves.

Like the birds that fly over our heads we spread our wings and fly when we work in love and for the love of God.

Joseph had two sons: He named the first child Manasseh which means God has made me forget all my hardships. And Joseph named his second child Ephraim which means God has made me fruitful in the land of my misfortunes. Hard times were over for Joseph. His work made him a governor. God in Joseph’s life and work delivered the reward of a successful life in the palace.

Meanwhile back in the land of Canaan, the old man, Jacob, and his sons were getting hungry. The food had run out and they learned that food was available in Egypt. So the old man asked his sons, “Why are you standing around looking at each other?” Step outside the circle of your familiar here and see if there’s a cure somewhere for what’s starving us.

The brothers traveled to Egypt where they found food and they found a chance to be fed and forgiven by the brother they had wronged long ago. The story comes full circle. The story is all about love, God’s love moves with and through this story at all times. The story is all about trusting in God’s steadfast love.

So let me say a little something about the world in which we’re working… We live in a world where people are not motivated by oughts and shoulds. People in this congregation will not be shamed into dedicated service for the church. “If you really loved Jesus (or this church) you would volunteer to teach in Sunday school every week.” This doesn’t work. And that kind of emotional bullying is even less effective outside the church: You ought to be in church or else…People roll their eyes. Twenty percent of our neighbors, family and friends are quite comfortable today living without any kind of faith community or commitment to any particular religious belief. Compare that with around three percent in the 1950’s. This is the world we work in today.

Rather than tell our neighbors, family and friends what they ought or should be doing, it is more helpful to ask questions.

Peter Drucker, famed teacher of management and consultant to many of America’s corporations, has made a career out of asking two simple questions: “What business are you in?” and “How’s business?” For the work of the church these questions can be re-worded “What purpose are you serving?” and “How’s your purpose going?”

Anthony Robbins now serves a huge congregation in Seattle, a growing church--vibrant and effective in its outreach. But he tells about a time, twenty years ago, when his ministry seemed lifeless, his work meaningless. He says, “I had no notion what was going on. I felt hollowed out from the inside. Life had lost its pleasure. I went home from church after preaching one Sunday, lay down on the bed, unsure whether I would or could ever get up again. In time I did get up and went on about my work but savoring none of it. In time I came to know this experience as depression.”

He goes on to say- “It was not like having a sinus infection where the problem is clear and easily treated. The experience of depression required learning and change before I could get close to a solution. I learned that medication helped and I learned that other steps were required in order to find my purpose in life. I had to do some rethinking about ministry and the ways I worked. I had to do some rethinking about church and what its purpose is in the world.

I had to change my ideas about what work belonged to me, what work belonged to others and what work belonged to God. I had to learn how to trust and rely on God. I had to learn not only to preach grace but to experience grace myself. I had to learn to live less attached to outcomes and more open to letting God be God in the world, in the church and in me.”

Robbins says: “So far this has been the challenge of my life. Living with the questions, the learning and the changes have made my work what it is now, an ongoing conversation with God.”

Asking questions, learning, changing, growing. These are the things that life is made of. What is the purpose of this church? And what can you learn by asking that question?

Mrs. Pirtle devoted herself to providing clean and Christian programming for the teenagers…skating nights, bowling competitions, pizza parties, talent shows, Bible quizzes, camping trips, hay-rides, ice cream suppers, car washes. She worked at Rockwell and at the church. She worked in love, in an ongoing conversation that kept her connected and motivated, unattached to the outcome.

Brother Lawrence washed the dishes, dried them and put them away as he talked with God. It all began with a leafless winter tree and realizing that tree would be covered with green leaves when spring arrived. Life belongs to God, life of the trees, life of the birds, life of our families, neighbors and friends. The life of our church belongs to God.

Joseph, drawn up from the dungeon, found a place to work. Joseph and God fed an entire nation. The steadfast love of God provided for Joseph a place to work where he could reconnect with his brothers, feed them, forgive them and restore them to a life where the entire family could live together and work in love.


Amen.