Tag: human dignity

Work, Love, and Dignity (Proverbs 27:1-27)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Farm Women at Work, by Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

Do not boast about tomorrow,
    for you do not know what a day may bring.

Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth;
    an outsider, and not your own lips.

Stone is heavy and sand a burden,
    but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.

Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming,
    but who can stand before jealousy?

Better is open rebuke
    than hidden love.

Wounds from a friend can be trusted,
    but an enemy multiplies kisses.

One who is full loathes honey from the comb,
    but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.

Like a bird that flees its nest
    is anyone who flees from home.

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart,
    and the pleasantness of a friend
    springs from their heartfelt advice.

Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family,
    and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you—
    better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.

Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart;
    then I can answer anyone who treats me with contempt.

The prudent see danger and take refuge,
    but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

Take the garment of one who puts up security for a stranger;
    hold it in pledge if it is done for an outsider.

If anyone loudly blesses their neighbor early in the morning,
    it will be taken as a curse.

A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping
    of a leaky roof in a rainstorm;
restraining her is like restraining the wind
    or grasping oil with the hand.

As iron sharpens iron,
    so one person sharpens another.

The one who guards a fig tree will eat its fruit,
    and whoever protects their master will be honored.

As water reflects the face,
    so one’s life reflects the heart.

Death and Destruction are never satisfied,
    and neither are human eyes.

The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold,
    but people are tested by their praise.

Though you grind a fool in a mortar,
    grinding them like grain with a pestle,
    you will not remove their folly from them.

Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
    give careful attention to your herds;
for riches do not endure forever,
    and a crown is not secure for all generations.
When the hay is removed and new growth appears
    and the grass from the hills is gathered in,
the lambs will provide you with clothing,
    and the goats with the price of a field.
You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed your family
    and to nourish your female servants. (New International Version)

Hard Work

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15, NIV)

Work itself is not a result of humanity’s fall. Before Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were tasked to work and take care of the Garden of Eden. Therefore, work is inherently good. Yet, hard labor is certainly a result of the fall.

What we humans ought to have done through our created nature, now because of the fall into sin and disobedience, we have to work with focused deliberate intention. And even then, we often don’t perform our work as we would like.

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19, NIV)

This is why wise persons throughout the ages have given priority to hard work, and branded laziness as detrimental to our human welfare.

Much of our labor is menial and mundane, no matter what the work is. Yet, through vision and persistence, the fruit of our labor eventually breaks through. It is important for us to keep our nose to the grindstone, namely, because this is what it takes to produce, and to keep ourselves out of trouble!

Like a shepherd who cares for the sheep, we are to be present, pay attention, do whatever it takes to help the sheep flourish, and hang in there through the thick and thin of the job.

Diligence and consistency are vital to our hard work. The temptation of get-rich-quick schemes and other supposedly easy paths to success and wealth sometimes rear their heads to lure us away from our daily chores.

Well-kept sheep will produce wool and milk for several years. Riches and achievements and accolades, however, do not necessarily last for long.

Affectionate Love

Hard work and relationships nurtured by affectionate love are meant to go hand-in-hand. In other words, ideally, the duty and diligence of our daily tasks, and the consistency of establishing relational well-being with others, is well-balanced and works seamlessly together.

Loving another entails both encouragement and correction, heartfelt words as well as open words of rebuke. That is, we continually think of what another needs, and what is best for the community as a whole.

Our love must entail what is good for the one being loved, for the one doing the loving, and for the whole community to which both belong. Love leaves angry speeches and jealous motives behind and doesn’t utilize them, because they are tools of hate and hurt.

Gracious Dignity

Everyone is responsible to extend basic human kindness to one another, without exception. We are to listen to and honor our parents and elders; practice self-control and patience with all; and use gentle words in every communication.

Poise under pressure, and motivation to do what is right and good helps to lift the worth and dignity of others. We extend this to people for no other reason than that it is another human being who is in front of us; this is a person in God’s image.

God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27, NIV)

All persons have inherent worth as image-bearers of God. The wise person amongst us knows this and continually applies it in all their words and actions toward others.

Wise people also understand the value of hard work, and the intrinsic worth of work itself. Furthermore, they discern that love is to be the motivation and animating principle in doing work and working with others.

The bottom line of all the proverbial wise saying in today’s lesson is that we are to help and encourage others through both our words and our working actions. Our individual lives are to benefit the whole community, so that we are a blessing to others, as well as to receive blessings from those around us.

In engaging a healthy rhythm of giving and receiving, we reverse the curse, and enable the world to return to Eden.

Almighty God, we pray that You will bless all of our various labor and work in the world. Help us to pray fervently, diligently work hard, and give liberally. In all that we do, enable us to do it with all the love You provide. Amen.

Labor and Building the Temple (1 Kings 5:13-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Mural of King Solomon and building the Temple, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Los Angeles

Solomon ordered 30,000 people from all over Israel to cut logs for the temple, and he put Adoniram in charge of these workers. Solomon divided them into three groups of 10,000. Each group worked one month in Lebanon and had two months off at home.

He also had 80,000 workers to cut stone in the hill country of Israel, 70,000 workers to carry the stones, and over 3,000 assistants to keep track of the work and to supervise the workers. He ordered the workers to cut and shape large blocks of good stone for the foundation of the temple.

Solomon’s and Hiram’s men worked with men from the city of Gebal, and together they got the stones and logs ready for the temple. (Contemporary English Version)

A lot of labor went into construction of the temple in Jerusalem. King Solomon raised a massive workforce, and placed them under the command of Adoniram. The work was not voluntary, but compulsory; no tribe or citizen in Israel or Judah had a choice of whether to labor in the forest and the quarry, or not.

This treatment of the Israelite people, in being required to work in Lebanon one month out of every three months, became a significant reason for the kingdom’s split after Solomon’s death. (1 Kings 11:26-28; 12:1-16)

There was an even larger group of workers to quarry and dress the stones in the hill country. The workforce was likely made up of both Jewish and non-Jewish persons, because of the needed manpower.

King Solomon was a master administrator. All of the planning, and movement of supplies and people, was a major endeavor to pull off. And this gets to the nub of working relations, both then and now.

Cedars of Lebanon, in “The Land of the Book,” by W.M. Thomson, 1894

Oftentimes, what looks good on paper, and makes sense to those in charge, is short-sighted. The actual people who will do the work are rarely consulted. This is especially strange and unacceptable in this day and age.

If companies can put a lot of time, energy, and expenditures into marketing focus groups to determine things like what color to use on packaging in order to sell more, then it is curious that no time and energy is placed into communication and interaction with workers.

It is sad and tragic that the corporation with high levels of effective engagement between management and employees is so very rare.

At the core of it all, I believe, is our anthropological view. Show me a workplace with sour relations and strained negotiations, and I will show you a management and executive team who use workers as replaceable parts in a machine.

But show me a company that discerns people as inherently worthy of respect and kindness, and I will show you a place where effective communication flows freely, and worker satisfaction is high.

Furthermore, our anthropology determines how we treat safety on the job. Rather than putting some safe policies in place because of government oversight and pressure, a view of people as important above all else will ensure that both the physical and psychological environment are secure – and they will take a zero tolerance approach to any and all unsafe practices, in order to preserve human dignity and life.

Therefore, why we do what we do is just as important as what we do.

And the only effective way to answer the why is through a broad and involved connection with a diversity of people within an organization. There is absolutely no substitute for this. Taking shortcuts only leads to ineffectiveness, and more importantly, to human duress and harm.

In order to achieve such an ambitious goal of constructing a temple – along with a palace and administrative buildings – a large corporate government was required to make it all happen.

Essentially, King Solomon enacted a massive administration akin to ancient Egypt and their construction of pyramids. With such a government came classes and ranks and opportunities. Frankly, it was a lot like a totalitarian regime, in which the major function was to bless what was happening.

This resulted in a humungous structure and system that became intolerant of any alternative thinking. Thus, the kingdom (the government) was prepared to crush anything or anyone that threatened the established status quo of how to operate. This is why the Old Testament prophets were not viewed well by the state, and many of them were killed.

So, if you have been following me through these reflections on King Solomon over the past several days, you may wonder if I like him, or loathe him. The fact of the matter is that Solomon, like us, is a complicated person. He tends to get hailed as the wisest person who ever lived, to the neglect of some of his unwise choices. For many, Solomon too easily gets off the hook.

Along with all of Solomon’s grandeur and sagacity, he also had a slave labor force that toiled in quarries, forests, and mines. He was given to excess in most things, and didn’t seem to have a stop button. And, later in life, he honored forbidden gods with sinister sacrifices at shrines on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The truly wise person in the room will view Solomon in his totality; will have a broader and more contextual view of work and labor; and will discern people as majestic creatures in God’s image, who also have a tragically twisted heart which can easily be prone to foolishness and harming others.

So, as we remember the temple Solomon built, we can keep in mind its beauty and architectural wonder, and the skill needed to make it happen, as well as the thousands of people who endured harsh and sometimes inhumane treatment.

Looking at history from only one angle is really not seeing history at all. We need a full-orbed understanding of people, their situations, the context of events, and the challenges they faced. Otherwise, we’ll get a sanitized version which only ends up demeaning everyone.

Lord God Almighty, who has made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of this world a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, so that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Ministry to the Poor and Needy (2 Corinthians 9:1-5)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

If I wrote any more on this relief offering for the poor Christians, I’d be repeating myself. I know you’re on board and ready to go. I’ve been bragging about you all through Macedonia province, telling them, “Achaia province has been ready to go on this since last year.” Your enthusiasm by now has spread to most of them.

Now I’m sending the brothers to make sure you’re ready, as I said you would be, so my bragging won’t turn out to be just so much hot air. If some Macedonians and I happened to drop in on you and found you weren’t prepared, we’d all be pretty red-faced—you and us—for acting so sure of ourselves.

So to make sure there will be no slipup, I’ve recruited these brothers as an advance team to get you and your promised offering all ready before I get there. I want you to have all the time you need to make this offering in your own way. I don’t want anything forced or hurried at the last minute. (The Message)

Organizing relief efforts, and giving to relief organizations, is nothing new. Poverty and need has existed as long as humans have been on this earth. The constant rub is this: Some people aren’t in poverty, and some are.

So how do we get resources from the people who have them to the people who are really in need? Just as important, and perhaps more basic, how will folks care enough about the poor to give money and basic relief?

The Apostle Paul informed the Corinthian Church that he boasted about them to the Macedonians – about their eagerness to participate in ministry toward their fellow believers in need. The Macedonian believers had been ready to participate for quite some time.

In stating this, Paul intended to stir up the Corinthians about the offering for believers in Jerusalem. He had organized a delegation of Macedonians, along with persons from Paul’s own ministry team, to go to Corinth together. The last thing Paul wanted was to have the Corinthians unprepared to give.

Paul was a person who intended to do good, and then followed through with it. He held people accountable for their actions and inactions. He organized the benevolent offering for Jerusalem’s believers, and then made sure that all of the churches good intentions became reality.

Although Paul’s concern in organization and accountability may strike some as coercion for funding, it seems to me that a more plausible reason is that Paul simply wanted to try and ensure that everyone’s giving was done from a place of love, not coaxing or guilting.

The Apostle wanted believers and churches working together for good purposes. He wanted everyone to have a positive experience of helping and being united in spirit and purpose. The churches were young, and Paul was doing everything he could to encourage their growth in grace.

A good way of fostering unity and mission would be to have the churches participate in helping needy believers in Jerusalem. It was a very worthy and needed cause – and also served the cause of Christ.

What’s more, ministry to the poor has always been a hallmark of pure religion. A concern, dedication, plan, and accountable action on behalf of the poor helps everyone, and demonstrates authentic ministry.

My dear friends, pay attention. God has given a lot of faith to the poor people in this world. God has also promised them a share in his kingdom that he will give to everyone who loves him. (James 2:5, CEV)

We are to care about the needy because God cares about persons trapped in poverty. The poor are people; and all people are important. Jesus came to this earth to have a ministry to them; and he lifted a text from Scripture (Isaiah 61:1) to give his reason for doing so:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.”(Luke 4:18, GNT) 

God has a lot to say about the poor and needy because they are dear to the divine heart. The Old Testament law was quite clear about how to treat the poor: 

Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.(Deuteronomy 15:11, CEB)  

Let’s keep in mind that only the poor in spirit will enter the kingdom of heaven. Our trust is to be in God, and not in our money or our stuff. 

The genuine believer has a real humility that demonstrates grace to people who cannot offer them something in return. It’s easy to be merciful to those who will turn around later and scratch our backs. But it is altogether a different thing to give without any strings attached. 

God cares about the condition of our souls, and not the balance on our bank statements. Since God does not judge people on face value, nor on the state of their finances, then neither should we.

The Apostle Paul, in his ministry, sought to teach others in the way of Jesus by:

  • Turning people from only associating with those they are comfortable with, to lovingly reaching out to people very different from themselves
  • Changing people’s thinking from what they can obtain and consume, to becoming people of love and generosity with their words and their physical resources
  • Putting to death: a proud spirit that looks to get ahead; all personal petty agendas; accumulation of more power; and exertion of control – but instead, provide humble repentance and forgiveness

Ministry to the poor is a non-negotiable for the Christian church. Beyond only dispensing benevolent funds, the poor need relationships, connections, resources, and a chance to give back in ways they can contribute.

Lord God, you came to honor the least, the forgotten, the overlooked, and the misjudged. You came to make the last, the left behind, the misunderstood, and the undervalued, first. You came to give a warm welcome to the lost, the orphaned, the abandoned and the destitute.

Help us to be your ears to listen to their cries; and your voice speaking out love and acceptance. Help us to be your feet walking beside those in need; and your hands to clothe, feed and shelter them. You came for the least, the lost and last of this world. Lord, hear our prayer. Amen.

What Will You Do with Jesus? (John 5:1-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Healing the Paralytic, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1670

Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (New International Version)

Christ at the Pool of Bethesda, by Artus Wolffort, c. 1625

During one of the yearly Jewish festivals, on a Sabbath day, a miracle happened. Miracles of healing are typically accompanied by celebration and joy. But not so much with this one.

It’s one of those things about living in a messed up world of broken systems, that an invalid can start walking and there are people who have frowns and furrowed brows about it.

Granted, the man who was healed by Jesus may seem a bit hard to like in some ways. We don’t really know what he was into, but when Christ bestows healing on you, then says to stop sinning, it’s probably a significant sin to warrant the Lord’s exhortation.

Regardless of any sort of sin, the man appears to be paraplegic. Especially in the ancient world, this meant all sorts of problems had to be navigated – such as needing others to literally carry you around (no wheelchair or handicapped accessible anything), long periods of social isolation, lack of bodily control over your bowels and bladder, and the continual needs for cleanliness.

This made the man hard to like by many people just because he likely had strong body odors and had to crawl to get around if no one would help. He would not have been pleasant to look at. But he would have to make sure you did because, in the absence of any charity, the guy’s only option was to beg.

I’m glad there are greater forces in the world than indifference and dislike. There is grace – which is an act of bestowing honor and/or forgiveness to another person. It is not dependent upon whether one deserves it. Grace chooses not to hold something over or against another. It is a deep concern for others that comes from within and not from without.

“I do not understand at all the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”

Anne Lamott

Another gracious act that Jesus did was to honor the man’s dignity by respecting him with a question. By asking a question, we don’t assume we know what’s best for another. Sincere questions acknowledge another’s basic humanity. “Do you want to get well?” Jesus asked.

In the life of being an invalid and having little control over much of anything, including one’s own body, being asked a question is to receive the gift of autonomy.

There are many times in my work as a hospital chaplain that I speak with patients who don’t have a lot of control in their lives. I go out of my way to ask questions such as, “May I come in?” “Is it alright with you if I pull up a chair and sit down?” “Would you be okay telling me about what is going on?” “May I pray with you?”

This is important, because there are too many other people in this world who would just barge into a room, act like they own the place, and talk at them, and not with them – hence reinforcing to the person that they’re nothing compared to others, that they don’t have any real say.

The man’s response to Jesus was to essentially say that he is alone. He has no one to help him. Even though the man is in a city, surrounded by hundreds and thousands of others, he is lonely.

Not anymore. Jesus saw him, even inquired about him and learned about the man. Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, cared about a non-descript invalid and was sincerely curious about him. In a world of everyone for himself, Jesus championed the lonely and the lost.

A simple command to obey was all. Christ told the man to pick up his mat and walk. That’s it. Just as words created the world, so a few words created a whole new life for the man. So, he got up, and he walked.

It’s interesting that the religious leaders never seemed to notice the man when he was lame, but now that he’s up and walking around, they pay attention to his apparent work on a Sabbath.

The invalid was validated by Jesus, but Jesus, the one validated by the Father, was invalidated by the religious leaders, who are the spiritual invalids.

It was against the (their) rules to carry something around. Apparently, it was okay for people to be lonely, not contribute to society in meaningful and dignifying ways, and to suffer; but it’s not okay to walk and carry a mat.

Even worse, is anyone who would heal on the Sabbath and tell the healed person to walk and carry a mat. It was so bad, apparently, that it warranted persecuting such a person. But that’s what happens when people are forced to serve rules, instead of the rules serving people.

On top of it all, Jesus was working; and he justified it by stating that his Father keeps working. This was dangerously close to blasphemy by likening himself to God. For the religious leaders, not only was Jesus unethical in breaking the law, but he was also theologically immoral; he claimed a special relation with God.

The more that laypeople get to know Jesus, the more compelling he becomes; they want to follow him. But the more that clergy discover Jesus, the more angry they become and want to do away with him.

Ultimately, it is Jesus we must contend with, and not the law and our interpretations of scripture. We need to decide what we are going to do with Jesus… what will you do?…