Ignace Paderewski, the famous Polish pianist, made his first tour of the U.S. in 1891. He soon won over American audiences with his powerful playing. In one concert in New York, Paderewski severely injured his hand. The injury, which caused him to lose the use of one of his fingers, left him in constant pain, but he insisted on continuing his tour. In all, he played 107 concerts on that tour.
In 1892, Paderewski returned to the States for a second successful concert tour. At one point on this tour, he injured a finger and it became infected. The wound opened up during one of his concerts, but Paderewski continued playing with just as much force and passion as ever. At the end of the concert, the piano keyboard was covered in blood. (1)
I thought of Paderewski's blood-stained piano when I read our text from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. He writes: "Now here is a command, dear brothers, given in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by his authority: Stay away from any Christian who spends his days in laziness and does not follow the ideal of hard work we set up for you. For you well know that you ought to follow our example: you never saw us loafing; we never accepted food from anyone without buying it; we worked hard day and night for the money we needed to live on, in order that we would not be a burden to any of you. It wasn't that we didn't have the right to ask you to feed us, but we wanted to show you, firsthand, how you should work for your living. Even while we were still there with you we gave you this rule: "˜He who does not work shall not eat.'" (LB) It would be difficult to state the matter more clearly than Paul does: we may be saved by grace, but we are to earn our keep!
This is not a matter I need to dwell on with this congregation. Many of you are stressed out by too much work rather than too little. That's the price of responsibility. We've got bills to pay and families to support. This does not mean, of course, that all of us are happy in our work.
The Washington Post sponsored a contest for excuses to give your boss for not coming into work:
- If it is all the same to you, I won't be coming in to work. The voices told me to clean all the guns today.
- I can't come in to work today because I'll be stalking my previous boss, who fired me for not showing up for work. OK?
- I am stuck in the blood pressure machine down at the Wal-Mart.
- I just found out that I was switched at birth. Legally, I shouldn't come to work knowing my employee records may now contain false information.
- The dog ate my car keys. We're going to hitchhike to the vet.
Most of us are dedicated to our jobs. That doesn't mean we are always happy with our jobs. An unknown poet has written:
If you keep your nose to the grindstone rough,
And keep it down there long enough,
Three things will your world compose,
You--the grindstone--and your blistered nose.
One man prayed, "Lord, help me to always give 100% at work . . . 12% on Monday, 23% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday, 5% on Fridays." I was going to check his numbers for accuracy, but it seemed like too much work.
We may complain about our work, but most of us believe that it is our moral duty that whatever we do, we are to do it well.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "If a [person] is called to be a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "˜Here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well.'"
That reminds me of the Mercedes-Benz motto: "Das Beste oder Nichts" which means "the best or nothing." That ought to be every Christian's motto: "the best or nothing."
Joseph J. Melone, president of The Prudential Insurance Company of America, speaking at the American College Annual forum in Orlando, Florida, put it like this:
"Everything I've ever read suggests that those individuals who are most successful in this world--the ones people really look up to--all say the same thing: the greatest joy in life doesn't come from wealth or praise or high honors. It comes from achieving something worthwhile--something of lasting value.
"The ancient Romans were noted for their achievements in construction. Many Roman arches are still standing. They've survived for 2,000 years. The Romans had an interesting practice. When they finished building an arch, the engineer in charge was expected to stand beneath it when the scaffolding was removed. If the arch didn't hold, he was the first to know.
"Whatever you choose to build with your life," said Melone, "build it so you--and someday your children's children--can stand beneath it with confidence and pride." (2) Regardless of our job, most of us believe that we have a moral duty to do it well.
Habitat for Humanity, the group that builds houses for the poor, built twenty-seven low-cost houses in Dade County, Florida. Some of these houses--built entirely by hand by volunteers--were right in the path of Hurricane Andrew, which devastated South Florida in the late summer of 1992. Yet almost every house built by the Habitat for Humanity volunteers survived the destructive forces of the hurricane's winds and rains. On one street, the only houses whose roofs remained were the houses built by Habitat. The leader of the Greater Miami chapter said simply, "We didn't cut corners when we built them." (3)
You and I appreciate people who don't cut corners, don't we? It's a matter of character. It's a matter of values. We appreciate people who go out of their way to do things right.
Some of you are familiar with the name, Roone Arledge. Arledge is a television legend. He made ABC Sports a TV powerhouse. He later was the brains behind ABC News. Arledge once told how he got his start in television.
As a young man he got an interview at the old Dumont television network. He worked his way through several interviews, until finally he was to meet with the head of programming. But before I tell you what happened in that interview, I need to flash back several years before that. During the summers Arledge was in college, he worked at an inn in Chatham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, as a waiter.
One night a certain family drove from Brockton to Chatham, but when they got to the inn, the dining room was closed. The hostess said, "I'm sorry--we can't handle you." But young Roone Arledge, who was the headwaiter, intervened and said, "I can't let you be disappointed. Come in, and I'll wait on you." So the family sat down for their meal. The dining room was deserted, so the family began rushing through their meal. Arledge kept saying, "Take your time. I want you to enjoy your dinner." They were very grateful, and before they left they took his name.
The day Roone Arledge walked into the office at Dumont television, the guy in charge of programming looked up and said, "How's everything at the Wayside Inn in Chatham?" And Arledge said, "What do you mean?" And it turned out the chief of programming was the person who had driven down for dinner that night and had never forgotten that Arledge stayed to wait on him. Roone Arledge got the job. (4)
You never know, do you, when you are exercising simple courtesy and kindness, who might be the recipient of your dedication to your job? I wish every one of our young people who are just getting started in a job or a profession understood that it pays to give your very best. It's really not that much harder to be consistently excellent than to be consistently mediocre, but the satisfaction of a job well done far exceeds the reward of laziness. It fact, what reward can you possibly hope for in doing a job half-way? "Laziness may appear attractive," wrote Anne Frank, "but work gives more satisfaction."
Now you might be thinking all this is well and good, but what has it got to do with the Gospel? It has to do with excellence in living. Paul was concerned not only that there was work to be done by the church at Thessalonica. He undoubtedly was also concerned that those who were slacking off misunderstood their call to be followers of Jesus. Christian faith is an activist faith. It is not about sitting in a corner meditating--though prayer and meditation have their place. Christian faith is about witnessing and winning, confronting and converting, feeding the hungry, and visiting the sick and those in prison. We are an army on the move. We need people who are ready and willing to do their part. You see, Paul was not counseling people in business to get busy, or people in government, or people in the armed forces. He was counseling people in the church. This is who we are, Paul was saying to them. We are followers of Jesus. We are those called to redeem the world. We are those walking in the footsteps of the Master. The way we live witnesses to our faith. Christ has called us to live excellent lives--lives of mercy and of majesty, just as Christ lived a life of mercy and majesty. And that means giving our best at all times, in everything we do.
And Paul himself set the example for others to follow. He reminds the church at Thessalonica: "You never saw us loafing; we never accepted food from anyone without buying it; we worked hard day and night for the money we needed to live on, in order that we would not be a burden to any of you. It wasn't that we didn't have the right to ask you to feed us, but we wanted to show you, firsthand, how you should work for your living."
Even if we didn't have this written record to Paul's tireless efforts in behalf of the Gospel, we could judge by his many travels how much the Gospel meant to him.
Paul Rogers of Centerville, Tennessee, has done some calculating of just how far the Apostle Paul walked in his efforts to spread the gospel.
According to Acts, he took three missionary journeys. The second of these alone amounted to three thousand miles, two thousand of which would have been on foot. The average daily distance of a traveler of that time was about twenty miles, with a Roman Inn being located every 20 to 25 miles along the road. These inns were unbelievably filthy and bug-infested. Paul traveled through snowy mountain passes and spring floods. He walked through areas famous for harboring robbers and criminals. He braved wild beasts which imperiled every traveler. And to think, says Paul Rogers, he was walking not for his own health, but for the spiritual well-being of others! (5)
St. Paul would have appreciated Paderewski's blood-stained piano. He knew about hard work and a dedication to excellence. Of course, it was a blood-stained cross that gave St. Paul his passion in life--the blood-stained cross of one who was willing to give up everything for your sins and mine. "Were the whole realm of nature mine," goes the old Gospel hymn, "That were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my love, my all."
"Even while we were still there with you," St. Paul writes, "we gave you this rule: "˜He who does not work shall not eat.'" St. Paul isn't talking to people on welfare. He's talking to people in the church who have been bought with the very blood of Christ and yet are willing to settle for second-rate lives. It's not enough, he's telling us. "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my love, my all."
1. "Paderewski's Piano" by David Taylor Smithsonian Magazine Mar. 1999 pp. 30-34.
2. Cited in Roger Ailes, You Are the Message (New York: Doubleday/Currency, 1988).
3. The Business Bible--Ten Commandments for Creating an Ethical Workplace by Rabbi Wayne Dosick, William Morrow and Co., Inc., New York, 1993, p. 55.
4. Nancy Collins, Hard to Get (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 259.
5. A Treasury of Bible Illustrations compiled by Ted Kyle and John Todd, AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, TN., 1995, p. 91.