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Work and the CitySeptember 06, 2009 Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Listen to part one of this sermon Listen to part two of this sermon It was Tolstoy who said, “Certain questions are put to us not so much that we should answer them, but that we should spend a lifetime wrestling with them. My question: Who tells you who you are?” [1] In New York City I would say that nothing tells us who we are more than our work (or lack thereof). Our jobs or profession say a lot of about us, and reveals much of what we value. Often we’re sized up or judged on the basis of our work. Anyone who has been to a New York City cocktail party knows just how true this is. Question 2 or 3 in conversation is almost always, “So…what do you do?” It’s a very different question from “Who tells you who you are?” The answer we provide to “So…what do you do?” reveals something about our financial position, our power, intelligence, and distinguishes as part of a particular group (attorneys, bankers, teachers, retail works, actors, etc) and its attending characteristics, for good or ill. It discloses things about us we cannot control (some we like, some we don’t), and that’s just the way it is. This is how we have evolved culturally. I just returned from performing the wedding of two Christ Church members in another part of the country. For obvious reasons no one asked me what I did for a living (the robes gave it away), but interestingly I never heard anyone ask another person what they did for work. I’m sure it happened, but it wasn’t common, even among those I knew were meeting for the very first time. It always surprises me when I leave NYC how less significant that question seems to be. At this wedding I was reminded of just what an insignificant question this really is. I watched two of our younger adults make a commitment to one another that has been largely shaped by the transformative experiences of their faith, and not their professional aspirations. They chose as their gospel reading a passage most of you are very familiar with: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength…and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For them this passage is more than simply the Mission of Christ Church; rather, it is the goal and purpose of their lives (individually and as a couple). It struck me as I married them that both had been through significant defining moments in their lives over the last few years. These experiences led them to question more deeply, to draw on the resources of their faith, to question their faith and seek a deeper experience of it, and it freed them from past choices and patterns they clung to, aspirations that had little to do with love, desires that brought them little fulfillment and which no longer served them well. Their courage led them to each other, and to a love they had both longed to express and receive. It was a truly beautiful experience that says as much about our church family as it does about them. In my time with them I was reminded of two things I had once heard, and which they had both discovered on their own. The first is something Peter Gomes once said, “I’m glad I have a job – a good job; I hope everyone has a job. But a job, my dear friends, is not a life.” [2] The second is something British philosopher John Ruskin wrote: “The primary reward of human toil is not what you get for it, but what you become by it.” [3] Our two friends toiled, wrestled, and remained open to God, becoming people capable of giving deep love and receiving deep love as a result. This is who they had become through their toil. Love had become their work, or at least the most important part of their work, and today they’re off celebrating that wondrous, divine gift. Which brings me back to the question, “Who tells you who you are?” Last week we considered the subject of “Trash and the City” and claimed that Jesus’ life was spent trying to save us from wasting our own. We said he claimed that we are all loved by God and should live confidently with that knowledge. Now – that’s a good pep-rally of a sermon, but does that tell us who we are? Does knowing that help us answer the question, “Who tells you who you are?” William Sloane Coffin, in a sermon delivered shortly after 9/11, said this: It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because God loves us that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement. But [since] you do not have to prove yourself, you have to express yourself. And what a world of difference there is between proving and expressing yourself. To express yourself means basically to return God’s love with a devotion of your own. It means you do not have to be successful, you have to be valuable. You do not have to make money, you have to make a difference, primarily in the lives of those Jesus put first and society generally puts last and counts last.” [4] The gentile woman who approached Jesus begging that he heal her daughter was one of these that society puts last and counts last. Interestingly, Jesus did too, at least initially. Did you listen to the exchange they had? Jesus calls her a dog, refuses to help her, and tries to brush her off. He treats her with about as much respect as he and we would treat a stray, aggressive dog on the side of the road. But she won’t let his behavior tell her who she is. Their people’s historic animosity toward each other, and their stereotypes and suspicions of one another, had nothing to do with her love for her daughter. Instead she determines to tell Jesus who he is. She teaches him to see her and her situation as God sees her. She has compassion on him and won’t let him cling to old ideas that only divide and misrepresent. She could see in Jesus (perhaps out of her desperation) who he really was, even when he could not yet fully see it or embrace it himself. She calls him on his arrogance and insulting ways, and it shocked him. As a result he heals her daughter and embraces that an insignificant, unclean, desperate woman could tell him who he was. Notice that in the next instance, when a gentile man comes asking for healing, Jesus seems to have learned something. He approaches him with dignity, and respect. These two outcasts remind Jesus of his true identity. Who tells you who you are? Is it your money? Is it your work? Is it your sin or your broken past? I speak to people on a regular basis whose self-identity is defined by their sin or past actions. They can’t seem to let go of them, clinging to them almost in an act of desperation. Yet, again, Coffin reminds us, “There is far more mercy in God than there is sin in us.” [5] Jesus learned that it is love – love of God and neighbor – that gave him his primary identity (and this is what our Old Testament and Epistle lessons are attempting to inspire in us). A humorist quipped, “Ignorance isn’t what a man doesn’t know; it’s what a man does know, but isn’t true.” [6] We know that our work, our money, our sin does not tell us who we are. If we continue to believe that then we choose to live in ignorance. Here are two truths that we can claim without a doubt: 1.God tells us who we are: beloved sons and daughters. That is our primary identity, and that is how we should see one another. 2.Our primary work in the world is to love God by loving our neighbor (whether we like it or not). That’s who we are and what we were meant to do. Our work, our money, whatever it is that gives us a sense of identity are secondary, and should serve our primary purpose of loving God and neighbor. Jesus learned this. He learned this the tough way and it changed him. And it can change us. _____________
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