In this season of Labor Day and “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday, our nation and the ELCA focuses on the nature of work. As the pandemic and natural disasters continue, our call to do God’s work becomes clearer, louder, and more urgent.

While the phrase “essential workers” has dominated our language in the last year, those hard-working people have been there our entire lives. The vast majority of us work in jobs that can be described as “behind the scenes,” doing work that is repetitive or dirty or inglorious, yet crucial to the health of our nation and world.

One of my first employment experiences was to own and operate a residential and commercial cleaning business. The job was well done if everything was the way the owner left it, but cleaner. Many occupations are designed this way. Small acts that make a big difference to lift our spirits and make life easier.

Labor Day is set aside to see and give thanks for those workers. Our churches have custodians, office employees, kitchen staff and other people whose vital work often goes unrecognized. I invite congregations to lift them up in prayer and name them in the coming weeks.

And then there is the work that truly makes the world go round, which is often unpaid, undefined, and unrecognized. The daily making of breakfast for our children. Caring for the parent who is now living in your house. Honoring that weekly lunch with a friend. Helping a neighbor pack boxes and make a move. Working at a food pantry once a month. Truly listening to someone and letting them know they are heard.

I am sure you are reading that list and adding your own items to it. While we often see these things as mundane or a struggle, I feel this is where we truly get to do God’s work. 

Take a moment to consider yourself as a beloved child of God. Look at your hands and your feet and behold the gift you’ve received in the unique form of your physical body and brain. The lifeblood coursing through your heart is a miracle.

We do not feed our neighbor with just food, but with our presence. In every interaction, we get the opportunity to amplify God’s love which lives within all of us. And the world is so hungry for that love.

There are some urgent situations in which we can’t show up. Many of us are concerned about recent refugee crises and natural disasters. We are blessed to have many opportunities to answer these calls in our church and synod: Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Lutheran Disaster Response, Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest and Nevada, and Cruzando Fronteras. These organizations and so many others represent our church physically when we ourselves cannot be there.

We are not called to solve all the world’s problems, but we are called to do something. What is it you are good at? What is it you care about? The intersection of those two answers may be your call and your way to nourish God’s hungry world.

I invite you to take the time to discern your call and how you can move forward in it. And I invite you to pray with me…

The Rev. Deborah K. Hutterer
Bishop
Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA