November 18, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco
The word, “lunch-hour” is becoming more of a misnomer. Fewer and fewer people are actually taking 60 minutes for lunch today
In a recent survey of more than 1,000 employees, some 63% of respondents said that the lunch “hour” is the biggest myth in office life today. More than half of workers take 30 minutes or less to eat (that’s why it’s called fast food), and some of them do so at their desks while they continue working. When I first came to FCBC, I actually tried to suggest that we who are staff in the office that day would come to the Library to eat our lunch—that didn’t last for more than one time! Many of us use our lunchtime to run errands.
Another study revealed that in 2005, workers were spending 14% less time for lunch—an average 31 minutes—than they were in 1996, when the average was 36 minutes. We have lost 5 minutes! I’m afraid to say that I eat my lunch at my desk reading junk mail or email.
This shrinking lunch break is a sign of how much work we are being asked to do, as well as the fact that we have so little time for personal errands that we find it’s necessary to try to squeeze them into our workday. Not many of us have stay-at-home spouses to handle errands while we are at work.
Now hourly employees, especially those who are under union contracts, are supposed to be given certain regular breaks, including one daily for a meal, and when companies fail to do this, they may face a labor action or even a lawsuit. But salaried employees have no such guaranteed lunch breaks. We work until the work is done!
As if we didn’t already know it, this news about the shrinking of our workday lunchtime is evidence that in general, we are hard-working people. Not only do we work 40 hours a week, but sometimes 50 or 60 hours, we are getting less and less time for any kind of relaxing lunch break.
Paul’s Work Ethic
If we take Paul’s comments to the Thessalonians at their face value, we might assume that the apostle would be right there with those employers who encourage us to work through the lunch hour.
Paul writes, “Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness…” Further on, he adds, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.” And he scolds those, “living in idleness” as “mere busybodies,” and tells them to start working. Now we can blame our shrinking lunch hour on Paul!
With a work ethic like that, Paul would be a highly prized shop manager at any major corporation today. Paul is our man to turn our trade deficit around, or so it would seem.
But when we read Paul’s advice in the context of the full letter, we see that the apostle was talking about life in the Christian fellowship, and in that setting, Paul’s words take on a different complexion.
Early Christians
The early Christians and particularly those in the Thessalonian church expected Jesus to return to earth in their very near future. It’s likely that some concluded that working hard at making a living was pointless because the kingdom of God was at hand.
It’s also possible that some in the fellowship were poor and expected the church should take care of their needs indefinitely.
So Paul says, “keep away from believers who are living in idleness”—or at least that’s how the NRSV translates it. But the underlying Greek means not so much “living in idleness” as “living in disorder” or “being disruptive.”
We see this a little clearer in the old KJV when Paul’s words are translated as “withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly…” And the J.B. Phillips’ translation gets at it, too, when he translates this as “don’t associate with the brother whose life is undisciplined.”
But the translation that is the best for our message today is the one from Clarence Jordan in his Cotton Patch Version of Paul’s Epistles, it reads, “part company with every brother who bucks out of the harness…”
In a moment, I’ll explain why I like the Clarence Jordan’s translation the best, but first here’s the shocker: Paul’s not talking about the workplace, he’s talking about the worship-place. He’s not expecting us to apply what we have come to call as his work ethic in our offices and factories. Rather, Paul is warning against believers who are disorderly in that they don’t pull a share of the church load.
Church Load
The Fall season in every church is probably the busiest. It’s busy getting the new year budget completed. We are busy with Thanksgiving and the gathering of loved ones together. Advent and Christmas are just around the corner. In the Fall months, a church needs to address certain matters in order to maintain its smooth and responsible operations. This means that what we place on the shoulders of others within the faith community matters.
Take for an example, if I am unwilling to give generously to support the church, I am in effect asking other church people to carry my share of the financial load. Sometimes we see in a church one person who makes a large contribution and we say that the person is carrying that church financially “on his back,” and while that was a great compliment for that contributor, it doesn’t speak well of others in the church who relied on that person to do that for them.
Here’s another example: if I have the ability to teach but never step forward when a teacher is needed for one of the Sunday school classes, I am implicitly asking someone else in the church to take care of that instead.
Or, if I want to see the church to grow but never see it as my privilege to invite my neighbors and coworkers to worship with me, than I am making other members responsible for what I want to see happen.
Here’s one that Bill Chin would like to hear: if I have the physical mobility and ability to help clean-up the church but only complains about how everything is dirty and in disarray, then I am expecting someone else in the church to do that which I could be doing.
Paul wasn’t urging Christian believers to work through the lunch hour, he was urging them to pull together in the ministry of the church. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul makes a similar point by using the human body as a metaphor, with each church member being the equivalent of a body part that functions on behalf of the whole body.
Out of Harness
Remember I said that I like the Clarence Jordan’s version of this verse “keep away from believers who are living in idleness” to be translated as “part company with every brother who bucks out of the harness?”
Here’s an illustration that comes from our California heritage that would make my point. In California’s Death Valley National Park, you can view the remains of the old refining operation of the Harmony Borax Works, near what is now the Furnace Creek Ranch in the park. This is the site that recalls the years in the late 19th century when borax was hauled out of the valley.
Borax is a mineral widely used in industrial, chemical and household applications, and in Death Valley, it can be found lying on the desert floor in a compound nicknamed “cottonball.” Starting in 1883, the Harmony Borax Works processed cottonball to separate out the borax. The problem, however, was getting the borax to the customer. The nearest railroad was 165 miles away at Mojave. The route to get there was a combination of desert, with temperatures as high as 130 degrees, and mountains, with steep grades. And much of the route was waterless.
The solution the company came up with was a team of 20 mules pulling two wagons filled with borax and a third wagon containing a 500-gallon water tank. The ore wagons weighted 7,800 pounds each could carry 10 tons of borax. When the two cargo wagons were linked together with the water-tank wagon, filled to capacity, the total load was 36.5 tons. That’s why 10 pairs of mules were needed to pull this train.
The operation continued only until 1889 when borax was found in a more accessible location, but during those few years, the 20-mule teams hauled more than 20 million pounds of borax out of Death Valley, with each team making the round-trip to the railroad head in 20 days. And remarkably, throughout the entire time, not a single animal was lost, nor did a single wagon break down.
Now as good of an illustration that this is already, here’s the part that’s especially fascinating. Driving this team was not simply a matter of cracking a whip and saying, “giddy-up,” especially when it came to navigating curves in the mountain passes. The animals were all hitched to an 80-foot chain that ran back to the wagons, and as the team started around a sharp curve, the chain tended to be pulled into a straight line between the lead mules and the wagons. If that were allowed to continue, the lead animals would pull the rest of the team and the cargo straight over the edge of the cliff.
To understand how to avoid this disaster, we need to know the make-up of the mule team. These were not simply 20 animals hitched up in any old order. The first two mules were called the leaders, and they were chosen for their intelligence and ability to pilot the others. The next 10 mules were the “swing team.” They had been trained to respond to commands such as “stop” and “pull,” and their main task was simply to put their muscles into moving the train forward.
Following the swing team came the pairs dubbed “pointers, sixes and eights.” These animals had been specifically trained to help the train negotiate a curve, in a manner I’ll describe in a moment. Finally, there was one more pair called “wheelers.” The wheelers were the largest and strongest brutes of the team. In fact, sometimes this pair was two draft horses rather than mules.
When the train came to a curve, one of the two teamsters moved out with the pointers, sixes and eights, and ordered them to jump over the chain and pull at an angle to the rest of the team, while they also sidestepped forward. This forced the chain to conform to the bend of the curve. The whole procedure was a grand demonstration of training and teamwork: The lead animals kept the train on track, the swing team provided locomotion, the pointers, sixes, and eights maneuvered the chain around the bend, and the wheelers kept the wagons tracking behind the chain.
The 20-mule team is a good image of how a church should function. We each have our gifts, and should exercise them, each doing what we do well, but working them in harmony for the forward motion of the whole congregation. It’s without saying but we are inviting you to participate in supporting the ministry at FCBC through your pledges and donations. The Nominating Committee has been busy contacting many of you to serve on boards and committees in 2008. And in all of our fellowship group meetings in the coming weeks, we will be selecting new chairpersons and making plans for our 2008 activities and so the question for us is: Are you willing to pull your share of the church load?
Get Harnessed
Now it’s possible that you might not like this image of the Christian life as being in harness with others. We like the idea of freedom and being completely unchained from others. Most of us like the idea of doing our own thing; perhaps that’s one of the reasons why we have one car for one person in America.
But a life completely unfettered is a life of emptiness and meaninglessness. Freedom is only real when we are in a community that involves us in worthwhile tasks to spend our time.
The freedom of the gospel is not one of no harness. Jesus himself talked about his followers taking on his yoke (Matthew 11:29-30), and a yoke is a part of the harness system. The yoke that Jesus offers us is not one of restrictions and legalism, but with this yoke, it serves as a guiding rein that steers us into spiritually healthy lives.
One of the greatest assets of our church is the fellowship groups. Some have existed for over 50 years; others are being birthed every few years. If you are not in one right now, you are missing one of the strengths in this church. As a member of a fellowship group, you are chained together like a 20-mule team. Every person has a part in moving the fellowship to go forward. No one feels left out but rather, everyone gets to come along. And in some way, we tend to get into each other’s business, not necessarily that we are nosey but rather we are concerned and caring. Instead of a life completely unfettered, we have a life that is full of meaning and purpose.
Getting back to Paul, he is saying to us to keep away from those believers who are standing idle, those who are being disruptive and to imitate him and his coworkers, who used their gifts for the good of the community.
If you are not yet harnessed or you might appear to be taking an extra long lunch break, it’s time for you use your time, talents, and tithes for the health of the church. Let’s be a 20-Mule Team Church, working together in harmony and with one purpose in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.
Let us pray.
Dear God, we are thankful for the close relationships that we have with one another and especially with you. We pray that we are able to receive your yoke and become harnessed with you in lifelong discipleship. Enable us to commit our lives and our talents to the work of your kingdom as we joyfully serve you through this faithful church. In the name of Jesus Christ who has unified us in the fellowship of this church we pray. Amen.