Finding Balance (Labor Day Weekend)

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 

Greg does what many of us do - he divides his time between several projects.  He teaches during the week and he leads our choir and our worship here at First Presbyterian.  My own work requires that I face in several different directions – I serve this congregation, of course; but I also have responsibilities to the Presbytery and Synod; and I serve the Presbyterian Church by grading ordination exams and in a teaching role at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. 

 

A number of you are in a similar situation.  Your work may take you in multiple directions.  Or you may have several different jobs.  Or your life may be split between paid work, volunteer work, and the work of raising and caring for a family.  It would be rare that our lives would only have one, singular, focus.

And so for my reflections on Labor Day, I want to encourage you toward balance between the many different parts of life that need your attention.  Maybe we need a richer notion of “labor” on labor day – a notion of “work” more flexible than just what we do for money.

You might imagine your life as a four-burner stove.  The four “burners” are family, friends, health, and work.  And one of the tricky things for us to do is to find some kind of balance between those four areas of life.  Now “work” here doesn’t have to mean “paid work.”  If you’re a student your “work” will involve your education.  If you’re retired, your “work” will involve engagement and service to others.  But all of us have the ongoing task of finding some kind of workable balance between these various responsibilities. 

So take a minute to reflect on your own life.  Which of these four areas is a strength for you (in other words, it’s always easy for you)?  Which of these four areas tends to get the least attention?  Now keep in mind, this “four burner” metaphor is not helpful at the daily level.  It’s only helpful for a wide-angle look at your life.  You don’t have to balance every day or every week.  But if in long stretches of your life you are neglecting one of the four areas, your life will be unbalanced. 

The truth is that God has created us as finite creatures.  We don’t have infinite resources of time and energy and ability.  We get tired.  We wear out.  What that means is that we can’t always give each part of life our full focus.  You’ll probably have to make some hard choices.  At certain times of life, you’ll have to choose to neglect one area so that you can give yourself to another.  In times of stress or illness, it will be necessary to focus more on our own health.  In busy seasons of life, especially if you are raising small children, it will be necessary to focus more on family responsibilities.  But the balancing and re-balancing will be different for all of us, depending on our stage of life and our own personal wiring.    

Or you might think with the help of the Japanese "Ikigai" diagram.  The concept of “ikigai” refers to your reason for being.  It describes what motivates you to get out of bed each day.  Now of course this Japanese tradition is not the gospel; it’s not Scripture; it’s simply a tool or a resource that might lend some wisdom to our attempts to live our lives in ways that reflect the good news of God’s love for us and for all others. 

So the diagram distills a way of imagining a worthwhile life.  It’s not an exact recipe that tells you what you should do.  It’s a very general map to help us pay attention to the component parts of a meaningful life.  In Christian terms, we might think of our “ikigai” as our “calling”: that life to which the Holy Spirits calls us.  Our “ikigai” might be, in terms of our reading from Hebrews today, the particular form that our “sharing” and “doing good” might take.

So ask yourself four basic questions:

1.     What do I love?

2.     What am I good at?

3.     What does the world need?

4.     How can I get paid (earn a living, sustain myself financially)?

That last question is less important when you’re young or when you’re retired.  But it’s a very important question in the middle part of your life.  But even then, it’s only one of four questions.  And finding your “ikigai,” your reason for being, your calling, your own sweet spot for a meaningful life of doing good – requires that you keep asking yourself all four of the questions.

Our reading reminds us that responding to God in a life of faith, hope, and love calls us to take responsibility for how we use our gifts, how we steward our resources, and where we aim our attention.  A life that focuses too much on the “how can I get paid” question will be a small life indeed.  A life in which we gather up our strengths and offer them to others in helpful forms of service will be much more satisfying.

So friends, on this Labor Day weekend, remember that our “work” is a rich and complex thing, including all the different ways we use our gifts.  Some of our work is paid work, but much of it is not.  Remember that work is only part of a life that includes rest and play and delight and pleasure.  May God bless our work and our play.  May God fan into flame our various abilities and strengths.  And may God give each of us a path of service, so that our lives can be filled with opportunities to share and to be of help.