Fill My Work With Purpose
Luke 5:1-11
I feel blessed every day to have a job that pays me enough to live and support my family that is also full of meaningful work. That work involves searching the scriptures and proclaiming them week after week, visiting with people recovering in hospitals, accompanying people saying farewell to their loved ones and officiating those important ceremonies that mark those moments, seeking out and proclaiming God’s abundance wherever it can be found, connecting our church to opportunities where our abundance can be a blessing to our community… tons of different kinds of work!
But I remember a time in my life when I was just working to live. I’ve been a sales associate at Express and J.Crew, a waiter at a supper club, a laborer with an electrical contracting company, a warehouse worker, a maintenance technician in an apartment complex. I’ve worked more than a few jobs that sucked the life right out of me and didn’t pay me much for that life, either!
When I’ve heard the story of the disciples dropping their nets and following Jesus in Luke 5 after he enacted a miracle of abundance before their very eyes, it always seemed courageous to me how willing they were to completely leave their business as fishermen to become disciples.
But there were a few things I never thought about in this story. One of them was Simon Peter who, after witnessing the miracle of overwhelmingly full nets of fish, fell to Jesus’ feet in either fear or awe and confessing his sin. He was so stupefied at what happened he couldn’t compose himself.
It turns out that in this story in Luke, a full net of fish is astonishing. Not just becuase it was full, but because of how scarce fish had become in the Lake of Gennesaret (otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee).
Fishing back then was actually an awful job. It wasn’t life giving at all. Fishermen couldn’t just make a living to fish, they had to become a collective to be allowed to fish in the sea of Galilee at all (you can’t just be a fisherman, you had to create a fishing “business” to fish), the fruits of their labors were subject to taxes (often extracted by tax collectors who extorted more than the law permitted), tariffs (because the market for fish wasn’t local but subject to export to other areas in order to be profitable at all), and other regulations that came down from the governors of the Roman Empire.
By the time any fruits of their labor came to their pockets, it was barely worth the effort. So maybe Jesus’ offer to fish for people and not just fish was more of an enticing offer than we might expect!
I don’t think work solely for the sake of money is very rewarding. Work that has purpose gives us dignity. It gives us something to get out of bed for. And I worry for all of our sakes just how divorced from purpose and meaning our work can be in order for any of us to make ends meet these days. People generally seem to be working harder and earning less.
What if work wasn’t just about money, but about how we are all contributing to our communities? What if work wasn’t just about money, but about adding goodness to the world? What if work wasn’t just about money, but also was a means for us to have joy and added meaning for our lives?
That is the economy that Jesus sought to proclaim in his good news.
