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Nancy Matheson Burns graduated from college, and got a job buying fish for a food distribution company. Every day Nancy's job was to go to the wharves, where the men would be gutting and cleaning the day's catch

Christ at Work - Ecclesiastes 5: 12-20; II Thessalonians 3: 6-13 - September 23, 2007­Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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Nancy Matheson Burns graduated from college, and got a job buying fish for a food distribution company. Every day Nancy's job was to go to the wharves, where the men would be gutting and cleaning the day's catch. She was almost always the only woman around. The fish guys were what you might call "salty," if you know what I mean. Nancy was spending her days up to her ankles in fish guts, getting blasted with foul language, fending off rude remarks and sexual come-ons, and on the wall, surrounded by calendars of naked women.

Nancy began to think, "These wharves are no place for a Christian. I've got to get a job doing something holier." So she decided to get a job selling advertising for Christian radio stations. She sent out a few applications. But she couldn't shake the feeling that God wanted her in the fish guts. When she read the Bible, God kept sending people into difficult places, not away from them.

So she decided to try an experiment. Instead of being put off by the guys' salty bravado, she tried to take an interest in them and their work. She got them to teach her about fish. She talked to them about their lives, at work, and play, at home. At one place she even ripped down the girly calendars and replaced them with nature calendars. "Now that you have something better to look at, I hope it helps you have a better day," she told them. The guys began to like her and respect her ... some days, Nancy might be the only person who treated them with respect. And they helped her discover that she loved fish. She came to enjoy the fish business. She started taking delight in supplying her customers with fresh, safe, quality seafood. If you've enjoyed good fish in Massachusetts restaurants, chances are you've been served by Nancy Matheson Burns.

(Story told by Pastor William Messenger, Hamilton-Wenham, Mass.)

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In this morning's scripture lesson from the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 5, verse 19 says, " ... all to whom God gives wealth and possessions and whom he enables to enjoy them, and to accept their lot and find enjoyment in their toil- this is the gift of God." It seems to me that Nancy Matheson Burns is an example of what that verse means. Confronted with a miserable experience on her job, she contemplated leaving. But then, instead, she decided to "accept (her) lot and find enjoyment in (her) toil." The result was that she became a positive force in her workplace, she touched many lives with her example and Christian witness, and she found herself blessed in the process.

That's the pattern I want to lift up today: when you accept your work as a gift, those three things can happen: you can become a positive presence in your workplace, you can touch people with a Christian example, and you can be greatly blessed in the process.

But before getting deeper into those three points, let me talk a bit about work in general. Comic writer Robert Orben writes, "Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work." The popular thought is that work is that nasty four-letter word that describes what we have to do because we're not rich. You've got to make a living someplace. One of the best gifts you can give yourself, or one of the best gifts God can give you, is to make the mental transition from work as something you've got to do, to work as something you get to do. To see work as that verse from Ecclesiastes sees it - as a gift from God. There are a lot of people driving to work tomorrow morning, or gearing up to do their daily chores at home, who don't have that perspective. They see their job as a curse. And there are some pretty nasty jobs out there. There are people who are working in sub-human conditions, an4 part of our social witness as Christians is to work to eliminate the degrading circumstance of such peoples' lives.

But most of us are not in that category. Most of us have jobs somewhere above the level of degradation. There are some of you who are in jobs that you love - and are truly blessed. To spend forty or fifty hours doing something you thoroughly enjoy - and get paid for it - that is about as good as it gets. Imagine being a taster for Dunkin' Donuts! Or a live mannequin for Laz-E-Boy recliners. Some jobs are too good to be true!

But most jobs aren't like that. Most jobs are, well- work. They're somewhere between the best of jobs and the worst of jobs. Someone said, "Variety is the spice of life; but monotony buys the groceries." Getting up and out and punching in the time buys the groceries, and sometimes you think it might drive you crazy. But even on those days, I still submit that work is a gift. If you have ever been out of work for an extended period of time, or are now, because of disability or illness or job transition -- you know very

well what I'm talking about. Having a job is truly a gift.

Even if it's not a paying job. Some of the most important work in this world does not result in a paycheck. The stay-at-home Mom, the retired person taking care of business, the volunteer in the community, the homemaker - this is some of the most essential work in the world. The point is, every one of us has a job, or many of them, and they are all unique. The work we do is one of those things that can express our individuality - this is our particular piece of the puzzle that is this community, this society, this world.

So what about faith at work? Some people have jobs that flow directly from their faith. Maybe they went into a helping profession, because it gives them a chance to be a healer or a teacher or an influence for peace and hope and justice - the things we talk about here every Sunday morning. But what if you're in fish guts? What if you are in a nasty job? What if every day you have to put up with politics, or backbiting, or unfair competition, or drudgery, or verbal abuse...? What if your job stinks? How can you live out Christian faith in a hostile work environment?

One option is the approach of Nancy Matheson Burns - she realized that in the Bible God sends people where He needs them the most - often to very nasty places. And then she went to work with a new attitude. And those three things happened: she changed her workplace for the positive; she became a Christian example to the people she worked with; and she found herself shaped and blessed, and actually enjoying the work she had hated. I know that in some job situations that outcome can seem like a far-off fairy tale. It certainly isn't possible without a great deal of prayer and persistence. But it is possible for each of us to take a different attitude - and to see yourself as God's representative in that place. Maybe, through your presence, Christ can enter your workplace.

So how does that happen? First, make positive changes. Nancy Burns started to show a caring side to the men who gave her a hard time. She started to ask about their families; find out what they were interested in; learn about their work; changed the calendars on the wall. I worked at the Loblaw's warehouse in Syracuse, and there was one foreman who did just that. He took an interest in the men. It seemed like most every night, he did something to make the work more pleasant- just asking how things are, bringing in a radio so we could listen to a football game, offering us a ride on his electric cart to the front desk. He didn't hit us with a Bible, but he lived what the Bible teaches. And many grueling nights he was the only thing that kept us sane. Christ was at our workplace.

Second, set a Christian example. That foreman certainly was for me. Every one of us, wherever we are, can be an example of how Christ would go about it. It's interesting to me that in that scripture lesson we read from II Thessalonians, when the apostle Paul needed to talk about the Christian life with the Thessalonians, he was able to point to the way he worked among them. Chapter 3, verse 7: "...we were not idle when we were among you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you."

What would an example of a Christian witness at work be? Certainly in Nancy Burns' example, and in the example of the foreman I mentioned, you see some of the things you can do - work with caring, with honesty, with diligence. Take pride in your work, and give a fair day's labor. But we can also see the Christian example in what she wouldn't do: she wouldn't join in the language, she wouldn't stand for the pictures on the wall, and so on. And this is part of the witness, too. We don't have to carry a big Bible around to represent Jesus. We don't have to be crusaders; we just have to be examples for Jesus. We simply have to show the love and integrity he would show, and refrain from the things He would avoid. Maybe people around you cheat the customer; you don't. Maybe they backbite and make fun of someone else; you don't. Maybe they cut comers and settle for shoddy work; you don't. Could that lead to some uncomfortable situations? Sure could. But what good is a faith that just goes along? And whatever people say on the surface, deep down, most find themselves having respect for someone who stands up for something important.

And then third, if you bring Christ to work with you, prepare to be transformed; to have a different attitude about the job. Burns found out that she could learn to like fish guts, and to take pride in the fact that she was providing good, safe food for people.

Dr. Martin Luther King once said, "If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo carved marble." Whatever and wherever your job is, you can be proud to do that piece; you can be the Michelangelo of your unique vocation; and you can bring Christ into the work place. He is Savior, healer, teacher, Lord - but before he was any of that he was the carpenter's son. He knows the workplace. He knows about cranky customers, about long hours, and deadlines, and drudgery, and discouraging results. He is in the transforming business, and if you take him to work every day, he can change your workplace into holy ground, and change your heart along the way.