What Does Our Labor Build? - Mit épít a munkánk?

Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:1–16

Text: Ephesians 4:15–16

Labor Day weekend brings changes. Summer is coming to an end, children are returning to school, church programs start again. Calendars become fuller, and September reminds us that there is work waiting for us.

When we hear the word “work,” we usually think about jobs. But work is much more than a job. Raising children is work, or caring for someone. Preparing meals, studying, volunteering and serving the church are all work. And somehow even retirement comes with an amazing number of things that need to be done.

The Bible teaches us that ordinary work can become part of our service to God.

Paul says in Colossians:

Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord.” Notice that he says whatever you do.

Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century Christian, spent many years working in the kitchen of a monastery. His days were filled with ordinary tasks—cooking meals, scrubbing pots and doing chores. Yet he learned to see those simple tasks as opportunities to live in the presence of God. His experiences eventually became the basis for the Christian classic The Practice of the Presence of God.

There is something beautiful about that. You do not have to stand behind a pulpit to serve God. Serving God can take place in the simplest things.

Much of the most important work in life happens quietly. Nobody gives an award for mowing the lawn, fixing something around the church, preparing Sunday School material, or calling someone who is lonely. But God sees it.

And in Ephesians, Paul speaks about another kind of work. He says that the church “builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” The purpose of our work in the church is not simply to keep an organization running. Our work is to build up the body of Christ.

Paul tells us what that looks like: humility, gentleness, patience, and “bearing with one another in love.” These are not instructions for programs, but for relationships. Our faith becomes visible in how we treat each another.

We are certainly not all the same. We have different backgrounds, languages, personalities and gifts. But a choir would not be very interesting if everyone sang exactly the same note. Harmony is beautiful because different notes belong together. Christ takes different people and makes us one body.

Former President Jimmy Carter gave us a wonderful example through his work with Habitat for Humanity. Beginning in 1984, Carter and his wife Rosalynn spent decades working alongside volunteers building and repairing homes. Carter actually did the physical work—hammering, fitting boards, installing doors and working beside homeowners.

But Carter understood that they were building much more than houses. He described Habitat volunteers as becoming builders not only of houses, but of “families, lives and hope.”

That sounds very much like what Paul is talking about.

Sometimes we think, “We have a job to do.” But while we are doing the job, God may be doing something greater. We may be preparing a meal while God is building friendships around the table. We may be teaching children while God is connecting generations. We may be repairing a building while God is teaching people to work together.

While we are building the church, God is also building us.

Perhaps one of the best questions we can ask about anything we do in church is not simply, “Did we get it done?” but “What did it build?” Did it build relationships? Did someone feel cared for? Did it help us grow together in Christ?

Sometimes building the church family begins with something very simple. Ask another question. Listen to another story. Spend a few extra minutes with someone.

Next Sunday, our Church Family Picnic gives us an opportunity to practice this. Enjoy the food, games and people we already know and love, but perhaps also talk with someone you do not know as well. Spend time with another generation. Hear someone's story. If there is a new face among us, help that person discover that there is room for them too.

We do not have to break the circle to make it larger. We simply pull up another chair. Perhaps the greatest thing we can offer is not simply what is on the table, but a place at the table.

Labor Day weekend reminds us that there is always work to be done. At home, at our jobs, in our families, and here in the church, there will always be another task waiting for us. But perhaps today God's Word invites us to look beyond the task itself and ask a deeper question: What are we building through the work of our hands?

Paul tells us that when each of us does our part, the whole body of Christ “grows and builds itself up in love.”

Perhaps that is the one thought we can carry with us from this Labor Day weekend: the work God gives us is not only about getting things done. It is about building something that matters.

Here in the church, we certainly have plenty to do. There are services to prepare, children to teach, meals to serve, buildings to care for, meetings to attend, and programs to organize. All of those things are important. But they are not the

final goal. The deeper purpose is what God can build through them: friendships, faith, trust, belonging, and a stronger church family.

And perhaps that is the work of our hands that matters most.