Is Work a Four-Letter Word? | Unity Church of Ames

Midweek Faith Lift

July 11, 2018

Is Work a Four-Letter Word?

Rev. Deb Hill-Davis

Even

After

All this time

The Sun never says to the Earth,

“You owe me.”

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the whole sky.

—Hafiz, paraphrased by Daniel Ladinsky

That is the light and the love that illuminates our work when we approach our work from the consciousness of work as a process of giving and receiving. Ideally, whatever work we do, we give as freely as the Sun gives its light, warmth and energy to the earth. And the earth blooms with plants and animals and brings forth an incredible bounty. And whatever comes to us as a result of our giving allows us to thrive, grow in every way and to prosper and then give even more. It is an endless cycle of giving and receiving for our good, the good of others and the good of the planet. Ideally, this is the model for work, when it is NOT a four-letter word.

That is the very real, bottom line question about work that we face every day that we engage in “work.” What am I giving and what am I receiving? At the most basic, human level, I give my time, services, labor, skills and effort and I receive a paycheck, which allows me to purchase all that I need in order to live. When we keep it at that level, we are most likely to make it a barter situation, rather than giving and receiving. And then it becomes inherently frustrating when we constantly settle for what we don’t want. This pattern becomes reciprocal whereby our employer demands more than we want to give, we withhold and don’t give our best and everyone ends up in a place like hell, where work is a 4-letter word.

How do we find freedom and prosperity in this downward spiral?

Butterworth begins Chapter 6 with a Scripture, which is an admonition Jesus speaks to his followers who would be his disciples. It is in John 8:31-37

True Disciples

³¹ Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” ³³They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵ The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶ So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. ³⁷ I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. (NRSV)

What a powerful admonition! Jesus tells us very directly that it is in knowing the truth that we are set free. He also makes it very clear that if we are to be truly free, we are free in the “Son”, in our Christ Consciousness. When his listeners, who are good Jews, reply that they have never been slaves, it is clear they do not understand this kind of freedom. They don’t get that the most powerful kind of enslavement we can have happens within us. And Jesus also makes it clear that when we have this mental enslavement, that is when we are in “sin” or off course; we have missed the mark and we are seeking what we need outside of ourselves and we will never find it.

Jesus declares that we forever have a place in God Consciousness, and that reason that we don’t experience that freedom is because “there is no place in you for my word.” Wow, that is such a direct observation, and so very true. When we don’t make room in our consciousness for the Word, the Christ of us, then no matter what material wealth we have, we are not truly free. This kind of freedom is an inside job and takes place within us. It is an inner freedom that we experience no matter what the outer circumstances we encounter. When we look to our Christ center, we will not be disappointed, we will find the kind of true and lasting freedom we are seeking.

What is that freedom when it comes to the experience of work? The freedom comes in the willingness to grow, to expand in consciousness as a result of our work. It comes in the willingness to give and invest in our own learning and growth, trusting that our good will come to us just like the sun shining on the earth. We do not keep score, making sure we get exactly as much as we are giving. We have stepped out of the barter mentality and into the Divine Flow of Giving and Receiving. We are building on our process of faith and our practice of gratitude. When we truly make that investment, then cognitive, emotional, and spiritual growth are the payoffs. It really doesn’t matter what you do as work, as long as it is not hurtful to anyone including you. What matters is the consciousness from which you do it and then the payoff is valuable beyond measure.

Butterworth quotes, on page 100 of Spiritual Economics, a German educator, Fredrich Frobel who says, “The true origin of man’s activity and creativeness lies in his increasing impulse to embody outside of himself the divine and spiritual element within him.” When we cultivate the mindset that we are God’s enterprise here on earth, then our work becomes an expression of that divine identity. And in that expression it begins to have a sense of meaning and purpose.

When we arrive at that place where there is a place “in us” for the word that is the Christ, as Jesus described it, then we begin to understand our work as a calling. It is then that our work, no matter what we are doing, whether paid or volunteer, takes on that larger meaning and purpose that we are seeking. It becomes our ministry, our calling. The energy of the Universe is that of Giving and Receiving; it is not Taking and Hoarding. When we mistake one for the other, we are enslaved by fear and then greed and an inflated sense of entitlement. It is a kind of hell, a true dead end where we begin to believe that our good is paramount and if it comes at the expense of another, well no problem, as long as I get mine.

It is no secret that race consciousness is caught up right now in a cycle of greed, of taking and hoarding and that this cycle has produced a dangerous and significant imbalance of energy. This is not the first time that we as a culture, as a nation have been here. This isn’t a political issue; it is more a survival issue for all of us. It is as if the sun has started charging for its light because it is afraid it won’t have enough. That is not a sustainable model for it is not in alignment with the spiritual law of giving and receiving that sustains the life of the Universe.

When I worked in the schools, it was clear that the most dangerous kid in the school was the kid who had nothing to lose. Each child in the school community needs to have a stake in the school, whether in academics, sports, music, drama, and on and on. My personal mission was to help each kid who was frustrated and wanted to quit, find a way to make a contribution that mattered to them. Kids got referred to me because they could not find a way on their own to succeed. My mission was to help each kid I worked with to see what they could do and to begin to value it.

That is how we make our work into a gift. Not every kid could get top grades, but every kid could make some kind of meaningful contribution. That became my calling and ministry in my school job. I didn’t do it for the money, that’s for sure, because I didn’t make a pile of money. I did need to get paid, but that was not my primary motivation. And my frustrations were not with the kids but the mindlessness of the “system.”

There is an inherent need in the human heart to make a meaningful contribution and to feel valued within a community. This is the spiritual power of work that takes it out of the barter system and into the energy and the generosity of giving and receiving. It is in this energy that work becomes a source of growth in every way and a doorway for the affluence of the Universe to flow through and to you. It is clearly the only way that the generosity of the Universe can flow to you because God can only do for you what God can do through you. There is no other way.

Butterworth urges us to do our work for the health of our own soul, not just for economic wealth and more “stuff.” Our work is about service and putting ourselves in service to a higher purpose or a higher good. Our question each day is to ask how we have served that higher good, and to hold space for all people to have enough and to find that higher path, the one that includes all of us. Many, many people are searching for Life’s inmost secret that will insure happiness and joy. What Butterworth says is, “Life’s inmost secret is the divine pattern in you which you can only really know when you are giving yourself in service.” P. 108 Anything less does not satisfy the soul and then we just want to escape in all forms of addiction and distraction.

There is something new which is emerging in race consciousness which is seeking even greater expression. Richard Rohr wrote about it in his June 27 meditation and I want to share it with you.

[Thankfully] the restorative economy is beginning to prosper. In the United States today, tens of thousands of companies are committed to some form of environmental commerce that competes with businesses that are not willing to adapt. The impulse to enhance the economic viability of life on earth through the recognition and preservation of all living systems is becoming increasingly central to religion, science, medicine, literature, the arts, and youth. It will be the dominant theme of generations to come.

Richard Rohr

~The Cost of Consumption

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

While all current signs would indicate that the forces of greed and domination have the upper hand, we would do well to remember what Jesus said, “the slave does not have a permanent place in the household.” The energy of love, of generosity, of giving and receiving are as powerful as the sun that shines on us all.