What Is Your Labor?

2025-37
sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org
by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Rector
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 11C-Tr1), July 6, 2025
2 Kings 5:1-14 ; Psalm 30 ; Galatians 6:7-16 ; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

I planted new grass this spring. I did my best, but I fear it may all have died. I won’t know for sure until fall, because of course in the summer the grass all turns brown anyway. If it comes up again, that’s all to the good. If it doesn’t, then I’ll try again. More grass seed, more compost … more labor.

But hold up a moment. Friday was the 249^th birthday of the United States. Do you know this poem?

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")[1]

That’s only the first few stanzas. It was written by Langston Hughes in 1935—ninety years ago. Does it resonate with you today?

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into [the] harvest.”

What is your labor? What are you harvesting?

At the site of an abandoned airport deep in Florida’s Everglades, in just a matter of days, a huge facility has been constructed and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” It is a tent city full of cages, built in the middle of a hot, humid hurricane zone, surrounded by swamp-dwelling wildlife. The plan is to put 5,000 people there at a time. The cost of running it will be $450 million per year.

Who are the people who built Alligator Alcatraz, and how did they do it so quickly? Why didn’t they build actual homes instead?

Right-wing activist Laura Loomer tweeted this week: “The good news is, alligators are guaranteed at least 65 million meals if we get started now.”[2] The total number of Latinos living in the United States is 65 million. That’s 20% of the population. So I wonder … does Laura Loomer believe she is doing helpful work for her country?

Did you know that the Nazis built their first concentration camps in 1933—six years before World War II actually began? Nobody died there in 1933. Not yet.

Meanwhile, here’s a quote from a new federal court filing in Los Angeles:

Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody. In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.[3]

Who are these thugs who do the illegal labor of apprehending American residents without cause? Are they proud of their work? How do they justify judging people not by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin?

Meanwhile … what is your labor? What are you harvesting?

Friends, it’s so easy not to try—to sit here in all our privilege and pray that this chapter of U.S. history will just pass us by. It will not. And that means we all need to decide what our labor will be.

I know that most of you are older than I am—you’ve seen more U.S. history with your own eyes. Some of you have served in the military, offering your very bodies in defense of our nation. You have voted. You have marched in protest, either in the 1960s or recently, and maybe you were arrested for civil disobedience. You have canvassed or lobbied or called your senators and representatives.

Some of you wish you could do more these days, but you feel your body is no longer up to it. You can still make phone calls, and pray, and speak encouraging words. We all have our labor.

“Bear one another’s burdens,” Paul writes, “and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” What is the law of Christ? To love one another … as Christ has loved us. Yet Paul also writes, in the same passage, “all must carry their own loads.” It sounds like a contradiction. But Paul is not calling us to rugged self-reliance. He’s simply pointing out that each of us has a responsibility to live with integrity.

This puts me in mind of another early 20^th-century poet, Woody Guthrie:

You gotta walk that lonesome valley,

You gotta walk it by yourself,

Nobody here can walk it for you,

You gotta walk it by yourself.

There's a road that leads to glory

Through a valley far away,

Nobody else can walk it for you,

They can only point the way.[4]

I recently spent a week serving as chaplain to a summer choir camp. Only eleven kids signed up this year, compared to 24 last year. That was disappointing at first, though we knew that certain choirs had scheduling conflicts, and they’ll return next year. So eleven kids and seven adults spent the week rehearsing, and then we sang Evensong at St. Mark’s Cathedral that Friday night and Eucharist at Christ Church, Tacoma last Sunday morning.

Each night of the camp we sang Evensong together as both rehearsal and worship, and I preached a homily at each service. One night I gave the kids a challenge:

Who are the people in your life … who never feel like they fit in? Who are the ones who can never get a break … who live in constant fear of messing up … who get picked on and victimized by others? … Can you choose those people as friends?

Maybe sometimes you’re the one on the bottom of the heap. Maybe you desperately need a friend … Here’s my tip: do the same thing. Look around and figure out who most needs a friend, and go be a friend to that person. Because that’s where the real joys are to be found: in being there for others. Not in gathering all the safety and power for yourself.

Afterward, one girl approached me and thanked me for my words (that is, for my labor). She told me about an adult in her life who really needs a friend right now: a longsuffering parent who always does his best. The girl’s love for her dad was clear and stark, formed in a crucible of impossible challenges. In that moment, I deeply loved her and her dad and her siblings. And the labor she had expended, by approaching me in great vulnerability, built the trust we needed so she could tell me about her own difficult life later in the week.

What good did it do for your priest to spend a week preaching to eleven kids? Well, I planted some seeds. God allowed me to be present in the lives of these young people. So we’ll see. Or maybe we won’t see, but others will.

And so we hear Paul again, writing to the Galatians and echoing down the centuries: “Let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” His call is not to prioritize Christians above non-Christians, but to proceed from where you are. Who has God placed right in front of you? You have energy to give. Give it to them.

I’ve often heard it said that it doesn’t take much to make a positive change in the world. The example frequently given is that simply smiling at strangers will brighten their day, and that this might be enough. Now, it’s true that neither you nor I can fly to the Everglades and tear down Alligator Auschwitz with our bare hands. But these times call us to new forms of labor nonetheless. If we content ourselves with merely smiling at strangers, how will we look back on this period in our lives? Most of us have far more energy than that—if we don’t insist on hoarding it.

“See,” Jesus tells his laboring disciples, “I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

I do rejoice that my own name is written in heaven, not because I have worked hard, but because God loves me. The same goes for all of you. I do not fear for the ultimate fate of anyone’s soul, save those who are, in this moment, embracing cruelty as a way of life. Will they ever be held to account? I can pray about this if I like, but I feel no desire to walk their lonesome valley for them. God will show them how much they must suffer for the sake of the gospel.

Instead, I’ll focus on my own labor, and I encourage you to focus on yours. May it necessarily involve those who are more in danger in this moment than you are. Since DOGE unconstitutionally destroyed USAID, tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children, have already died of AIDS for lack of the life-savings drugs our country would have provided. Back at home, millions are at risk of losing Medicare, or losing their homes, or losing their freedom, or all of the above. Others are in danger of sinking into depression, anxiety, or rage. A lot of people just need someone to invest energy in them right now—to know that somebody chose to be inconvenienced for their sake.

Begin by acknowledging the work you are already doing. God does not call you to be successful, but faithful. You are already using the gifts God has given you. Make sure you’re using them to benefit not just yourself, but also others.

Then, before and after directing your energy outward, make time to direct your prayers to God, and to sit and wait in silence for God’s instruction and God’s action. There is always work to do, and it needs to be steeped in fervent prayer.

What is your work? What seeds are you planting? None of it is futile, even if all the seeds die. Plant again. And again. And love with all the love you have to give. Amen.

[1] https://allpoetry.com/Let-America-Be-America-Again. Retrieved 3 July 2025.

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/DLn37S9yRaw/. Retrieved 3 July 2025.

[3] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25988190/clean-vasquez-perdomo-v-noem-first-amended-petition-and-complaint-1.pdf. Retrieved 3 July 2025.

[4] https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Lonesome_Valley.htm. Retrieved 3 July 2025.