by April Terry (personal blog http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

Every Labor Day weekend, some cable channel somewhere is running “The Sound of Music,” one of the favorites of my favorites.  Since I was a little girl, my favorite part in the movie is still the moment when the captain comes into the garden and tells Maria how he loves her and she sings, “I Must’ve Done Something Good.”  The words are: 

“Here you are standing here loving me, whether or not you should, but somewhere in my youth and childhood, I must’ve done something good.”   Another part, “Nothing comes from nothing.  Nothing ever could…”

Those words resonate with all of us because we all seem to have a sense of what we deserve in the world.  In Eastern religions, it’s expressed by Karma.   Whether or not we want to, we all have a sense of fairness that seems to be predefined inside of us.  This internal compass seems to infer that if we do good works in the world, we will receive good, but one needs only live life for a while before we learn that often bad things happen to good people and good things come to those who don’t necessarily deserve it and those are the instances that often become stumbling blocks to our faith. 

I am often confronted by those stumbling blocks and then have to remind myself that the faith that I have committed myself to requests that despite the circumstances that I am experiencing, I am still compelled to do good works in the world.   I’ve found, though, that stepping forward with good works and kindness despite my circumstances brings something unexpected.  It changes me and in that change is where the magic is.

Jesus railed against the church of His day when he spoke of those who would stand in the street and pray before the masses of people.  He said that they have their reward.  But there is a greater reward in the selfless giving of yourself to others without any expectation of return.   There is a return, however, and it is a return of spiritual value that can’t be measured or understood unless experienced first-hand.  This spiritual exchange is what goes beyond any circumstance, any malady, difficulty, or problem that we might be having. 

I know that there are life paths that lead you to live a lifestyle that will open you up to more distress in your life, but I also know that no matter what lifestyle you lead, if you live long enough, you will experience a change in your circumstances.  Some life experiences are particularly devastating and they cause us to look skyward and ask God, “Why?”  I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I know that I would rather go through the valleys with God than without Him.  Yet in the ministry that I am involved in, I see people who have lived their entire lives and now their circumstances have changed once again.  They look for answers about why this is happening to them and they seek the meaning.  Many of them have not earned these circumstances, but I know that there is one truth that I can’t deny.  Their circumstances afford me the opportunity to show my love and to be as much like Christ as I can be.  This is an opportunity, a gift, yes, even a blessing to me and to the rest of us in this ministry.   For that reason alone, I cannot deny that God is at work in their lives and mine through these works.

I know a lot of Christians and I know that a large number of them are not involved in any labor for their faith.  They are not feeding the poor, attending to the fatherless, or visiting the widows as is suggested in James 1:27.  That they don’t labor for their faith, is a lost opportunity for them to receive the blessings of a great reward.   In this sense then, ‘nothing is coming from nothing’ for they don’t receive the spiritual valuables wrought from the giving of themselves. 

I’m going to go out on a limb to say that I don’t think being an usher or an organist or the person who bakes the communion bread in your church is not enough.  It isn’t a bad thing and I am not trying to minimize the need for it, but it feeds the infrastructure of your church organization.  I don’t believe that throwing money into a charity is enough, either.  I believe that you have to get your hands dirty outside the church walls to really know what laboring for Christ means.  We don’t need to labor for Christ because it is an obligation, but because of what it will mean to us in our relationship to God and others.  That’s where the reward lies in the spiritual valuables that we get back tenfold.  That’s a Labor Day to celebrate that is a true labor of love.