peace be with you friends our first
reading for this weekend is taken from
the marvelous book of proverbs
you can find that in your bibles right
after the book of psalms
it's part of the so-called wisdom
literature so these texts that
are more poetic in nature proverbs is
associated with
king solomon who's the paradigmatically
wise figure in the old testament
it's made up of a series of aphorisms or
brief
statements mostly about the moral life
although
you can find some pretty high
theologizing too
go to proverbs chapter 8 and you'll see
reflections on
lady wisdom who was with god at the
beginning when he created all things
and that had a good amount of influence
on the later sort of logo speculation of
the church
so the book of proverbs marvelous it's a
great book
to kind of peruse you don't have to you
know read it cover to cover
but you can find wisdom in these
aphorisms
well the reading for today is taken from
the very end of proverbs
from chapter 31 the final chapter
very interesting how a book dedicated to
wisdom
ends with a kind of hymn of praise
to a wise industrious resourceful
wife it ends with singing the praise of
this
marvelous woman we could speak if you
want of a kind of feminism within the
book of proverbs since it ends
this way and lady wisdom is identified
in
proverbs chapter 8. but i don't want to
focus so much on
that theme today but rather on what i
call
a theology and spirituality of
work it's a theme that's very dear
to saint pope john paul ii
but one that we don't reflect on i don't
think adequately
that work itself in its various
manifestations
is not something extraneous to the
spiritual life
not something secular that we do
alongside of our spiritual interests
but in fact is filled up with spiritual
power
you know when i was coming of age i
can't tell you how many times i heard
this little adage you know it's it's not
about what you do
it's who you are right it's not it's not
what you do
it's not doing that matters so much it's
being that matters
well i mean i'll admit there's something
to that distinction
sure i i get it you know at the same
time i've
always felt that distinction is
simplistic as though we can simply
divorce our being from our action
our being from what we do when
in point of fact i think our
being is deeply influenced by
our acting and by our doing
work has a lot to do with the kind of
people that we become again another john
paul ii
theme in our moral choices he said
we make ourselves the people that we are
becoming and in a similar way
in the work that we do we become the
people that we are
meant to be now here's the first thing
to think about now under this
rubric adam
according the book of genesis was given
work to do not simply
after the fall but before the fall
so there's a tendency to think well yes
after sin
entered the world then work is this kind
of terrible burden
you know we have to labor by the sweat
of our brow etc
now i don't deny for a second that work
like everything else in life became
worse
after the fall it became more difficult
and complicated that's true
however remember adam was given work to
do
before the fall therefore it belongs
to what's good and beautiful and
positive
in our way of being human
someone that was very prominent our
country some decades ago
the political commentator william f
buckley jr once said this
and i've passed his advice on to many
people who who struggle with
with depression he said industry
is the enemy of melancholy
industry is the enemy of melancholy in
other words when you're feeling down
one of the great things you can do is
get to work
get to work on a project
tends to make you feel better now why
why because
work engages the powers
think of your powers of mind your powers
of
will your powers of creativity and
imagination
all of it is is awakened when we give
ourselves over to
a project i'll give you a silly example
from my own life you know much of my
life is um
kind of cerebral you know i'm preparing
things like this like a sermon i'm
writing an article i'm going and giving
a talk somewhere
something i find really satisfying no
kidding
is doing the dishes so especially during
covet i've been home
more often and so i've sort of made it
my responsibility to do the dishes after
dinner
and you say oh it's kind of drudgery and
it must be really tiresome
not really for me i kind of enjoy it
here's this big mess of of dishes and
then through you know
simple effort of my hands and so on
i can bring all that to order there's
something
satisfying about it now extrapolate from
that to
all these different forms of work that
we engage in
and how powerful they are how how much
they awaken
what is best in us think of it this way
too john paul ii made this point many
times
in our work we become collaborators with
god
co labore to work with
could god accomplish all his purposes on
his own well yeah of course he could
he's god
but god gives us the extraordinary
privilege
of cooperating with his work
he draws us into this activity so that
we can
with him bring about a greater world
okay now with all that in mind it's kind
of a general
theology or spirituality of work i want
you to look at this wonderful passage
from
the 31st chapter of proverbs as the
author
sings the praise of this industrious
intelligent woman
listen she seeks wool and flax and works
with willing hands
she's like the ships of the merchant she
brings her food from far away
what i love about that yes she's working
with willing hands but she's also
seeking wool and flex no one's just
handing her what she needs for her work
no no
she goes out you know with a sense of
industry and purpose
and she finds what she needs like the
ships of the merchant how wonderful this
sort of exotic image of
bringing goods from far away well that's
what this industrious woman does
through her work furthermore
she rises while it's still night and
provides
food for her household think what it was
like in the ancient world
to provide food for your household i
mean
i can make my my breakfast and lunch in
a couple of minutes
because it's all there you know the eggs
and bread and cold cuts and
soup it's all there i just have to throw
in the microwave or in a toaster and
it's done
but imagine now in ancient times when
you had to provide
food for your family go out and hunt it
or you had to grow it and you had to
prepare it
so of course she's up in the middle of
the night every day
working working engaging her powers for
the sake of her family how about this
i'm still
continuing with this passage she
considers a field and buys it
with the fruit of her hand she plants a
vineyard
well this woman's not just you know
doing manual labor she's doing that
but she's she's a business person going
out there and looking at different
options she considers this field she
buys it she invests
she's engaging not just her manual
powers but her intellectual powers
john paul ii is strong on that too i
couldn't help but think
with this great stress on hands in this
passage the work of hands and the fruit
of your hands
of one of my great heroes bob dylan has
that marvelous song forever young
that has the line may your hands always
be busy may your feet always be swift
may you have a firm foundation when the
winds of changes shift
that's a deeply biblical idea may your
hands always be busy engaged
active then how about this now a
different type of
handiwork she opens her hand to the poor
and reaches out her hands to the needy
how wonderful
the same hands that prepare food and and
work the fields are now reaching out to
those in need
perhaps it's the fruit of her industry
that gives her the wealth that she's
able now to share
that too everybody is a type of work
isn't it work on behalf of the poor
terrific she does that too
then this her clothing is described and
it's described as being a
fine linen and purple that means it's a
very high level
we'd say like it's a very fancy suit of
clothes
but listen but
strength and dignity are her true
clothing terrific isn't it so she is
wearing fine clothes but her
the real beauty of her clothing is in
her strength
and dignity how does she become strong
through work where's her dignity come
from
from her work you know those who um
suffer with unemployment and and that's
a that's a
curse in our society what they feel it's
not just the financial burden of that
but it's the
it's the loss of dignity that that
people often feel when they lose their
work they lose their livelihood that's
where it comes from
then this not just physical work not
just
investment not just giving to the poor
but listen to this
she opens her mouth with wisdom and the
teaching of kindness
is on her tongue she also does
intellectual work
john paul ii talked about and he was a
man that knew both
manual labor when he was a young man and
then a lot of intellectual labor
philosopher theologian a writer a
teacher
he spoke about his desk as his
intellectual workbench i've always liked
that because
i do a lot of work like that and when i
sit down in my office at my computer i
often think of
john paul the second line this is your
intellectual
work bench you put in a good many
hours of work on a sermon or an article
or a book
what are you doing well listen again she
opens her mouth with wisdom
and the teaching of kindness is on her
tongue she does the work of the mind
terrific terrific and then
here's the wonderful coda with which the
reading ends for today
charm is deceitful and beauty is
fleeting
true isn't it oh that person's charming
that can be
deceitful maybe they're charming because
they want something out of you
they're charming because they're playing
a game beauty
we all know that's fleeting even those
beautiful people how long does that last
not that long but listen but a woman who
fears the lord is to be praised give her
a share in the fruit of her hands
let her works praise her in the city
gates
you see what he's doing now at the end
is correlating all of this wonderful
work that this woman does
intellectual moral physical all this
work by which she realizes herself
and he puts it now under the aegis of
the fear of the lord
quite appropriate quite appropriate it's
under god
that we do the work which conquers our
melancholy
yes indeed but more than that which
awakens
our powers but more than that gives us
the dignity god wants us to have
so in light of this beautiful reading
could i invite everybody
listening to me now when you go off to
work
and whatever that is i mean from doing
the dishes to
to going off to your uh uh office in
a high-rise building to caring for your
family
to intellectual work i don't care what
it is
but think of this now as collaborating
with the purposes of god
see it as a spiritual act a moral act
an act that brings you into union with
the purpose of god
and god bless you
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