Dignity in Labour
Now, perhaps the greatest legacy Booker T Washington left in America was his insistence that labour is a good thing.
As a janitor at his school, he would arrive early at the start of each year to help set up. He said he would never forget seeing Miss Mackey, the principal, cleaning windows, dusting rooms, putting beds in order, and getting every windowpane perfectly spotless. He said she took genuine satisfaction in helping to clean them herself.
Booker said: "Since then I have had no patience with any school which didn't teach its students the dignity of labour." He said that at that school, he learned that it was not a disgrace to labour. And Booker T says that for many of the people that he grew up with, they wanted to get educated so that they then didn't have to work and do any labour. But he learned that it is not a disgrace to labour, but he learned to love labour - not alone for its financial value, but for labour's own sake, and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something well brings.
The Beauty and Purpose of Work
Later on when he became a teacher, this was one of his main hopes - for the students themselves to not only see utility in labour, but beauty and dignity! And he said he wanted to lift labour up from mere drudgery and toil so that the students would learn to love work for its own sake.
And I love what he said on page 138: "No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."
Working to the Glory of God
Dignity in labour! Now, we've been doing the Transforming Work course here at eMseni, learning how to work to the glory of God in our workplaces. One of the key things we're learning is that doing good work wherever you are is a way to honour God.
Remember, Jesus was a working-class man. Paul was a working-class man.
In Genesis 1, when God puts Adam and Eve in the garden, He puts them there to work - to look after the place.
Friends, there is dignity in labour. There is dignity in doing work, and in doing it well.
So whatever work you do, do it with all your heart, just as Paul says in Colossians 3:23 - "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord."
