Enjoy the Fruit of Your Labor

Before we get too far away from Labor Day consider one of the most common misconceptions students and sometimes adults make about work, which is that the most important thing about a job is to enjoy what you are doing. While that is important, the first thing we need from our work is the ability to meet our physical needs, and that in itself is worth celebrating.

      "What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity. There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" 

Ecclesiastes 2:22-25 (NRSV)

The writer of Ecclesiastes initially decides that all human endeavors, including our labors, are just self-serving vanity—chasing after the wind. Work does not seem fulfilling, which is in keeping with the judgment upon the decedents of Adam and Eve. God put humans in the Garden of Eden to work and keep it. Once they gave in to temptation and sinned, God allowed work to be more frustrating and difficult due to weeds that infested the ground. The writer ponders the subject and comes to the conclusion that when we die we will leave behind all that we have worked to accumulate in this life. We will leave behind the sum total of our efforts for others to enjoy, not a very enjoyable way of thinking about work.

 Things are not any different today. Too many today are unhappy in their jobs or with their employment status. The first successful establishment of an English colony on this content required a rather harsh understanding of work. Captain John Smith had to warn the insufficiently motivated settlers of Virginia saying, “No work, no eat.” Sadly, it has been recently proven that some of those settlers had to result to cannibalism of their own dead during a particularly harsh winter. No work, no eat; no eat no live; no live, be eaten.

In a very real sense work is not fun, it is necessary. Many find work difficult, monotonous, boring, and uninspiring. Managers and supervisors can be unwise, unkind, and unsympathetic. Workplace violence born from worker frustration and anger is a growing problem.

Yet, perhaps due to our learned work ethic, we can easily feel guilty for not being thankful for job, for not working hard enough or perhaps for not having a job at all. Still others have the problem of not having work to do. Perhaps they do not have the skills, education, and training they need, perhaps they are disabled, have child care issues, or need to stay home with a sick relative. Still others have psychological issues that make it seemingly impossible for them to hold down a job.

All of these difficult issues surrounding our work do seem to be a fulfillment of the judgement God has placed on us through the sin of Adam.

But there is also good news in the biblical text, a different way to think about work and enjoyment. God revealed to the writer that work makes possible the enjoyment of the fruits of one’s labor. So work is a blessing not because it is fun but because it allows us to earn money to do the things we need to make life possible and more enjoyable. One commentator put it this way,  “[If] blocked [from going] down the high road, one is to take the low road, eat and drink, and though toiling, enjoy oneself as best one can—which is quite different from finding joy in one’s task.”

Well, that is what the Bible says, but does that apply to us today? Last week I posed a question on the church Facebook and Twitter pages, “Do you find joy and fulfillment in your work?” Only one person gave a positive reply. Perhaps many are unhappy in their job because they expect the wrong thing from their job. God is present and we can turn to God to find the joy we seek when our labors seem fruitless. Have you ever considered that when we gather at the Lord’s Table we enjoy the blessings of Jesus’ sacrificial work on our behalf but we also enjoy the fruit of our work to plant, harvest, process, and prepare the grapes for the wine and the wheat for the bread. And do not forget God’s plan for us to rest from our labor and delight in his presence during our weekly Sabbath. As one career adviser put it, “the most important thing you can do to make your job enjoyable is leaving it behind at the end of the day. Go home and enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

Work is a burden that can also be blessing in the joy that it can provide.