Protestant Work Ethic

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
08.05.07; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lessons: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Luke 12:13-21

Americans just can’t seem to stop working.

Every few years, there’s another spasm of interest in this characteristic of the American economy. Unlike pretty much every other nation in the world, the American work week just keeps getting longer and longer. In major metropolitan areas like this one, the number of hours you put in each week is almost a badge of pride, yet another way in which you can prove yourself superior to those around you.

Downtown, little clusters of young associates regale each other with tales of epic hours worked, 50 hours, 70 hours, 80 hours, 100 hours in a week. Among some junior executives at area contracting firms, where racking up billable hours is next to Godliness, there’s a rumor going around that if you pound back 25 triple espressos in a row it actually rips a hole in the space-time continuum…allowing you to put in that perfect 200 hour week. Either that or your head implodes, and honestly, after 25 espressos it’s a little hard to tell the difference.

Americans work more than most of the rest of the industrialized world, with the average worker in the United States putting in 1,804 hours a year. That’s now almost a full workweek more per year than the average Japanese worker, three hundred and fifty hours a year more than the average Dutch worker, and 1,800 hours more than the average Frenchman. For all of our seeming busyness, we’re still nowhere near matching the country that holds the record for the most hours spent working, which,…surprise surprise…is Korea, at 2,400 hours annually. Amazingly, though, that’s after the average Korean work year dropped by nearly two hundred and fifty hours--six week a year--- in the last decade, the single largest reduction in hours worked in any nation. Most economists who’ve studied the dynamics of the Korean workforce ascribe this immense drop to either an increase in leisure time that’s the inevitable result of a maturing world economy. Others suggest it might be a result of what is known as the “World of Warcraft Effect.”

What’s strange about this whole phenomenon is that it’s exactly the opposite of what people used to think 2007 would look like. Back in America in the 1950s, everyone was absolutely convinced that fifty five years in the future, we’d all be working 15 hours a week. They also thought we’d be commuting via jet pack, and I don’t know which one is more disappointing. Strangely, though, studies have shown that when you take into account all the increases in technology and productivity, it should only take a modern worker 11 hours to do the work that took 40 hours to do in 1950. If we were willing to accept the same standard of living as 1950s Americans, an 11 hour workweek might even be possible.

But we don’t want to live in little 1950s houses. We want to live in huge houses. We don’t want to own just one car. We want three cars, which we’ll put in a garage that’s bigger than that little 1950s house. We don’t want just one nine inch television. We want a 108” LCD HDTV…and oh yes, they do make one…so we can see the oil glistening in the pores on Jack Bauer’s nose. We want our cable and we want our TiVo and we want our high speed internet and we want our cell phones. We NEED these things if we’re going to be happy. Because we are so much more happy now than we were half a century ago. Aren’t we?

Both Ecclesiastes and the Gospel of Luke aren’t so sure. Of all of the books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes isn’t exactly the kind of book that you flip to when you’re needing a few words of gentle comfort. It’s a striking book, an unforgiving book, one that is on the one hand part of the great tradition of Hebrew Wisdom and on the other hand opposes one of the core teachings of that tradition.

That core teaching of Hebrew Wisdom, to be found throughout the Book of Proverbs, is called retributive justice. You may ask, what the Helen of Troy is retributive justice? Retributive justice is the idea that acting wisely will cause you to prosper, and acting like Kevin Federline is your life coach will cause you to fail. If you are prudent and hardworking and invest your time and your energy carefully, then you will be rewarded with worldly riches and goodness.

The author of Ecclesiastes has issue with that whole idea. It’s not that he’s resentful because he hasn’t done well. He’s done just fine. He’s gathered in great wealth and power, but none of it satisfies him, because he’s wise enough to see that all of his work and all of his material gain ultimately means absolutely nothing.

For as hard as he will have labored for them, they will ultimately fail him. He’s worked impossibly hard, and has watched others as they’ve lost sleep, letting their successful striving for wealth consume them. But that wealth will be completely meaningless to him..and to them.. when they’re gone.

That’s the same point that Jesus is making in the Gospel of Luke. The passage from chapter 12 of that book comes to us from one of the long teachings that Luke records. Jesus is standing before a crowd that has gathered to hear him share stories and riddles about the nature of the Kingdom of God. He’s showing them what’s important and telling them what they should value in their lives. He’s just told them to trust the Holy Spirit to guide them in what they have to say when someone from the audience pipes up.

“Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” What he was hoping was to get Jesus to act as most rabbis would have acted, which is to go into a long discussion of the laws of inheritance and to come up with a legal ruling for him... for a small percentage of the inheritance, of course. Perhaps he should have waited on the Spirit just a little longer. Jesus turns him down with surprising gentleness, and instead uses his question to launch into a story about a man who had so much stuff that he was having to think about building a new five car garage with a finished attic for storage. This is someone who has succeeded by every single standard of classical wisdom. He has invested wisely, he’s planted the right crops, and he is doing absolutely everything right. The wealthy man smiles to himself, sure that he’s going to have a chance to kick back and enjoy the bounty he’s gotten. I’m going to Disney World, baby!
But as Christ tells the story, that’s not what happens. It’s at that moment that God appears to the man and berates him. “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.” In an echo of Ecclesiastes, we hear: “And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

This is the point in countless sermons where your friendly neighborhood preacher man would start talking about not storing up treasures for yourself but being rich towards God...something you should definitely keep in mind when you see the offering plate that’ll be coming ‘round later. But that totally misses the point of what Jesus is talking about.

Within the story, what is being demanded of the rich man isn’t his barns or his crops or his goods. What’s being claimed is his life...all of his days, all of his actions, all of the choices he has made. God couldn’t care less about possessions. It is life that God demands.

That’s the primary challenge facing us in our modern culture of work. A deep personal commitment to excellence in all that you do in the working world was viewed by the Protestant reformers as a sign of spiritual maturity. God has given us all certain gifts, and called each of us to a particular task in life, and our willingness to embrace that task and pursue it joyously is a sign of blessing. But we’re not called on to pursue work for the sake of profit alone. We’re called to work because what work is a joyous and honorable thing. We’re each given a vocation as a part of contributing to the broader good of God’s creation.

What work should not be, though, is all consuming. If it devours time for friendships and fellowship, and takes away those moments that should be given over to prayer and worship, then it has grown beyond its rightful bounds.

It is our lives that will be demanded of us. When the time comes to settle that account, what will we have to offer?