What is our Christian response to lives of ceaseless toil and seemingly endless hardship?
In our first reading today from the Book of Job, Job is lamenting what has become of his life. He once was prosperous and content. Through a series of calamities, Job lost everything that mattered to him. As a result, he now felt that his life had been stripped of all meaning, all purpose, all pleasure and of all value. There was nothing left for him but death and for that he had to wait while his life unfolded in unending drudgery.
In our City, there are too many persons who share the sentiments of Job. There are immigrants who want to work but because of their status find it difficult to obtain work and when they do they are easily exploited. They work long, hard days and do so under the shadow of the threat of deportation. Others who are citizens work in low-wage jobs that pay too little to give them sufficient income to satisfy the essentials of life and yet even their meager wages often denies them the government assistance that they need to live in dignity.
Two points. First, God wants all of God’s children to have what they need to live in dignity so that no one has to experience life as no more than endless toil. Those of us who are comfortable in life must work to build a more just social order so that all share equitably in the gifts with which God blessed this world for the benefit of us all. This is our fundamental duty as Christians. Second, those who are now trapped in lives that are hard and in which there are few pleasures, should have confidence in God’s presence with them in their suffering. Having shared fully in our humanity in Jesus, God knows the hard realities of the human condition. God, therefore, is always with those for whom life is especially difficult. Draw strength, therefore, in God’s presence with you, find comfort in the knowledge that others are working to change the world that now oppresses you, and find peace in the knowledge that in God your life has meaning, purpose and splendid value.