Today I shall depart from my usual method of following the Common Lectionary. In the 41 years that I have resided in Central Nebraska, I have never heard a sermon on this text which may be found in Matthew, Luke and Paul’s first letter to Timothy. It is high time the church recognize the value of Labor.
10 μὴ πήραν εἰς ὁδὸν μηδὲ δύο χιτῶνας μηδὲ ὑποδήματα μηδὲ ράβδον· ἄξιος γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ἐργάτης τῆς τροφῆς αὐτοῦ. Matthew 10:10
7 ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ οἰκίᾳ μένετε ἐσθίοντες καὶ πίνοντες τὰ παρ᾿ αὐτῶν· ἄξιος γὰρ ὁ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐστι· μὴ μεταβαίνετε ἐξ οἰκίας εἰς οἰκίαν. Luke 10:7
18 λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή· βοῦν ἀλοῶντα οὐ φιμώσεις· καί· ἄξιος ὁ ἐργάτης τοῦ μισθοῦ αὐτοῦ.1 Timothy 5:18
Despite the obvious difference between τῆς τροφῆς of Matthew and τοῦ μισθοῦ of Luke and Paul, the meaning is crystal clear. The workman (ὁ ἐργάτης) is worthy of that which he receives, either his food or his wage. To be worthy of something is to be of a certain value, and that value may be instrumental and extrinsic, or intrinsic. What is of intrinsic value is what is worthwhile in itself, like education or respect. What is of extrinsic value is worthwhile for some end, like pleasure or profit. The value is said to be instrumental in achieving that end. In today’s almost demented thinking, all value is thought of in terms of its extrinsic instrumental worth.
We tend, in our contemporary way of thinking, to believe that since wages have a negative effect on the bottom line (the profit), it is extrinsic in value. But I would like to suggest that for the workman, it is more than instrumental in regard to his/her ability to live, eat and pay his/her bills. In some sense the wages of the workman is a sign of the employers respect or regard of him/her. The good workman, who has the skill and takes special care in his/her work, is certainly worth more than the workman who merely puts in his time and receives a paycheck for it. It is the care that the workman does in performing his work that earns him a higher wage. So in some sense there is an intrinsic aspect to the value of a workman also.
Factory workers and Office workers seldom experience being fed at the expense of their employers, perhaps only once a year at the Christmas or New Year’s party. But in the agricultural community it was, and often is custom, to not only pay the workers for their help, but to feed them also. The nights following my eldest daughter’s birth, I and some fellow graduate students helped some orange growers protect their trees from the killing frost that occurred those nights. Anyone who has done this will realize that those trees were the livelihood of the grower and represented a long term investment, which might be lost in one single night. We had two such nights successively. It was hard work for many of us, but we were in some sense used to working into the wee hours of the morning as students, so we were perfect for the job to work through the night and set the groves afire to keep the frost from killing the trees. After dawn and the danger of frost had passed, the grower’s wife and daughters set up planks on saw horses in the yard and covered them with table cloths, got out the China Plates, cups and saucers and crystal goblets and fed us the most magnificent breakfast I have ever eaten. It was their way of showing their appreciation for a hard nights work. When I read the passage from Matthew, I think on those nights. Yes, we were worthy of our food, and our employer was glad to serve it to us.
Too often we think only of the extrinsic when thinking of the workman, but we need to realize that without the labor of the workman the employer has nothing, just like the grower would have lost everything, if not for the labor of setting the groves ablaze to protect the trees from the killing frost. The workman is worthy not only for his wage and food, but also worthy for doing the work. You cannot get more intrinsic than that.
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