Surviving Hard Times When You No Longer Have A Job

These are hard times. Many folks despair of ever finding meaningful work again – and have given up looking.

These are extraordinary times for most people.
These are hard times.
Unemployment is up to over 10% of the available workforce.
Over 8 million of our neighbors have lost their jobs in the last year.
Many folks despair of ever finding meaningful work again – and have given up looking.

In recent weeks, I have been embarked on this quest to bring our faith’s scriptures to bear on some of the aspects of the hard times so many of us are experiencing these days.
We looked at surviving hard times when bad things happen,
when the economy sours,
when dealing with stress,
when health fails,
when you just can’t get out of bed,
and, today, I am trying to address what our faith has to say about surviving hard times when we no longer have a job.


Underlying my approach is the prevailing implicit notion that runs throughout our sacred writings in both the old and new testaments – and what is made explicit in 1 John 5:4 – it is our faith that enables us to overcome hard times.

Although few people actually ever found long-term employment in their first job, most of us took on an identity from our workplace.
We became known – and defined by – what we did.

(In September I attended the 50th reunion of my high school class.
And someone – I never found who – decided my name tag would identify me as Reverend.
Now, the odd thing was that no one else was identified that way.
No doctors or dentists or lawyers or professors were identified on their name tags.
And I felt a little odd at being the only one present that was identified by what they did.)
And, yet, that is what we all do, isn’t it?

Everyone who retires goes through feelings like this.
A retiree goes from being known according to what they did for a living to having nothing to do – therefore no identity.
Parents – women, particularly – who dedicate themselves to the task of raising children and are known for their parenting task, face new reality when the children leave home and the nest is empty. Now what? Now who am I?
A widow who for so long was defined as the spouse of . . . faces the future with new definitions of who they are.
(Much to my chagrin, we have people on our church rolls who joined our church in years past identified only as Mrs. John Smith – is this really who they were in life?)

So much of our identity –
so much of who we think we are –
so much of our self-esteem –
is tied to what we do for a living, isn’t it?
And, when that is taken from us, there is somewhat of a crisis: now what?
Now who am I?

People who study this remind us that how we see ourselves, our self image, our sense of self-worth, is shaped by forces we have little do with, really – certainly forces which we do not control.

They tell us that our self-image is really shaped by what we think the most important persons in our life think of us.

When I was growing up I remember trying out all kinds of things to be the kind of kid I thought my Dad wanted me to be.
I tried playing softball.
I went out for high school football – (yes, football!)
I went out for wrestling in high school – there I found something I could do that very few others could.
But, I remember one particularly traumatic experience early on when I came home from a neighborhood softball game.
I came home threw by glove on the floor and was on the verge of bawling my eyes out.
My mother asked, “what in the world is the matter?”
I said, “I got traded.”
She said, “well, that happens all the time doesn’t it? That’s part of the game, isn’t it? Even the very best baseball players get traded.
Why should being traded upset you so?"
And, that’s when I finally lost it.
Through the tears, I shouted out: “because I was traded for Dougie’s six year old sister.”
(It’s a wonder I ever grew up at all, isn’t it?)

So, if much of who we think we are is formed by what we perceive the most important persons in our life think, much of our identity – our self image – is shaped by our family: our mothers, our fathers, our siblings and our closest friends.

What others said "you are" when we were children, to a marked degree becomes the "I am" as we grow older and claim our identity.
The message is given by their overall personalities, their inner and outer bearing and demeanor, by the radar they send out.

You know what I’m talking about.
You know some of the "You are's" which easily become "I am's."

You've no right to feel that way.

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything.

Why do you always do things like that?

If there's a wrong way to do it, you'll find it.

What makes you so stupid? clumsy? dumb? slow? silly?

All you gotta' do is use your head once in a while.

I can't believe you did such a thing.

Do you see it?
The "you are's" become the "I am's" of persons because we accept the image imposed on us by the people who mean the most to us.

This kind of shaping another person's self-image becomes a "pain that never goes away."

However it happens, if we think we are nothing,
we will live and act as though we were nothing.

I once heard Jack Parr say a very insightful thing on a T.V. show. He said, " My life seems like one long obstacle course, with me as the chief obstacle."

Many of feel that way sometimes – that life is an obstacle course and that we are the chief obstacle, in living life to the fullest, as God would have it, and as Christ offers it.

The Bible is right.
As we think in our hearts so we are.
Paul uses a remarkable phrase in Ephesians 1:18. "The eyes of your heart."
You see, our hearts do have eyes by which we see ourselves from the very depths of our personality. "And when we see ourselves from the perspective of destructive I am's, then our self-esteem is affected from the very center of our being."

If we think we are nothing then we will live and act as though we were nothing.

Our scripture proclaims that it is our faith that helps us get through hard times.

Many of us remember a time when to be a member of a Presbyterian church, you were required to memorize and recite a Catechism – usually, what was called the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The catechism is a series of questions and answers which when learned gives basic answers to basic questions about Christian belief and living a Christian life.

The catechism was meant to be memorized like the multiplication table, so that at least some of life's questions might have answers as quickly as we know 2x2=4.

The first question of the Shorter Catechism –
the first question many of us memorized and still remember to this day –
is "What is the chief end of man?"
(What's the point – the main purpose – of my life.)
And the answer is:
“to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever."

Before all else in life,
what life is all about, now and forever,
for you and for me is glorifying and enjoying the God who made us.

Give Glory to God and be joyful;
that's what life is all about.

And as Saint Irenaeus put it in the 2nd century: "The Glory of God is a human being who is fully alive."
Simply put, the purpose of life is living – joyfully!

When there are no kids,
when you no longer have a job,
when you are left alone,
it is good to remember that in the end we are not defined in relation to our work or our marriage.
In the end, what is important,

Our chief end,
the main point of our life,
the purpose for our life,
is not to bring home the bacon,
is not to keep a nice home,
is not to perpetuate the species,
is not to turn out good citizens for society,
no, our main purpose,
the main point of it all,
is to glorify God and enjoy the life God gives us.

And, really, that is what we are about in this church.
Our sacred scriptures contain many examples as to how this is to be done.
There are no secret formulas.
It is there in black and white for all to see and to study and to figure out how it applies to the way we lead our lives.

The question is asked openly in Micah:
What must I do to worship the Lord, the God of all there is?
And the answer is given:
What God requires of us is this:
to do what is just,
to show constant love,
and to live in humble fellowship with our God.
This is where our true identity lies.
This is what we will be known for.
This is who we really are.

And Jesus, himself, was very clear that every one of us will be judged on how we treat others.
Feeding the hungry,
comforting the afflicted,
tending the ill,
sharing our wealth –
this is what defines us,
this is what makes us who we are.
For sure, this is what sets us apart from others –
even those who have been most important to us.

Our faith has always been about living in a way that is counter to the prevailing culture in which we live.
Our faith still is about living in a way that is counter to the prevailing culture in which we live.

To be sure it is traumatic to no longer have a job.
And there are economic realities that come to play.
And it is not my intention to downplay that at all.

But, facing the situation with the proper attitude about what is really important in life,
there are specific things that your church may help with.

A year ago, I asked the local ministerium to begin thinking about how the faith community might respond to the economic situation that was coming into being.

Today, I ask you:
are there some things you can think of that your church can do?
Is there a need for a support group for people who no longer have a job?
Or folks who are retired and are asking what now?
Or, perhaps start an employment agency.
Or, teach skills for a new workforce.
Or, provide counseling on how to maximize a person’s hunt for a new job.
Or, should we provide emergency services of some kind.

Let all of us know – let us recite it to others at every chance we get –
it is our faith that helps us get through hard times.

In our sacred text Jesus tells us to never become discouraged.
We are in the hope business.
We are in the hope business – not because we are blind idealists, but because we are realists –
there is another way to live – although it may run counter to the prevailing culture around us.

This is our faith.
This is our faith that empowers and propels us into the future.
This is our faith that we promulgate and promote here.
Let it be known.
Amen.