February 11, 2024

2 King 2:6-12

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”

Elisha asked for a double share of Elijah’s spirit. What does this mean? What does a double share give you? And what does that double share require of you?

A double share was a term that would have been well known to the people of Elijah’s time, not so much for those living today. Elisha wishes to inherit twice as much, which was the formula used for the eldest son inheriting from the father. Unlike the European mindset of the eldest son inheriting everything, the Ancient Near East had everyone inherit a share, but with a double portion going to the eldest. Two brothers, and the eldest gets two thirds and so forth. Not an even system, but better than some historic alternatives.

Being the eldest in this situation meant becoming the highest among the prophets, which was essentially an occupational classification in Ancient Israel. Elisha would be in charge at a time when prophets were hunted down and killed when they sought to interfere with the way the king wanted to run things. For example, Elijah spent months in hiding from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, who wanted him dead. This was to be for Elisha twice the responsibility, twice the burden.

And that is a hard life.

This Sunday I am again talking about something we do not talk about, but this time you may not recognize what it is—not talked about and unknown. The term for was only coined in 2019. But it is nothing new, certainly nothing new in American society. What is this mysterious topic. It is known as workism.

Workism is the belief that employment is not only necessary for economic production but is also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life purpose. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Workism is a script that gets played out in someone’s life, and not just their working life. Work comes to define the way that someone lives. You live to work rather than work to live.

And our work culture takes that dedication into account. In many industries, you are expected to sacrifice time to become successful. You do not go home until well after the sun goes down. You do not check out from work in any real sense because work follows you everywhere. And, if you take time off to, say have children, well you were not sufficiently dedicated to a professional life.

And, by the way, I believe not a word of that.

I received my first email address when I was young lawyer. My in-box has never been empty. I was trained in how to do research and writing on the computer, and there has been hardly a day since when I did not work on a computer. Each of these technological steps made my job more efficient in the mind of someone, and therefore I could do more and more work.

When I was practicing law, we were expected to put in at least 2,000 billable hours per year, meaning hours we were able to charge to a client. There are 8,760 hours in a year, so 2,000 hours makes up about 22 percent of the year. Not so bad.

And yet it takes a lot more than 2,000 hours to do that. For example, I commuted 2 or 3 hours per day from a town I could afford to live in back then. I also did paperwork, served professional groups, and spent hours networking. What about family? What about friends? What about sleep? What about sleep?

But I had a profession. And as a professional, I needed to put in the time to climb the ladder, to gain seniority, to become…to become…to become what? To become a partner in a law firm so I could put in even more hours? [Note to readers: lawyers in the congregation laughed knowingly.]

There is a stereotype about my generation, Generation X. We are those born between 1965 and 1980. We are a small generation, nestled between the bigger cohorts of the Baby Boomers and the Millennials. We are known for being extremely hard-working and cynical. Hard working because we grew up in the working world of our parents, who were often never home because they were always working. And cynical because our parents were never home for us because they were always working.

We are also cynical because we quickly came to realize that the nature of work was changing. Our parents wanted us to get good jobs with pensions, which meant being loyal and staying someplace for many years. But we came to understand that even though our employers expected us to be loyal, there was no evidence that our employers would be loyal in return.

This has led to an economy in which fewer people have professions as such or who have careers spent at just one or two companies. You bounce around, you do projects, you do gig work. And that shift has made it even more likely that you define yourself by your work because it has become that much more difficult to pay the bills. So, just work more.

Why am I telling you any of this? Particularly why am I telling this to those of you who are beyond your full-time working years. Those who are easing out of work or those who are fully retired? Why should you care about this?

Well, think of it this way. Imagine there is a toll bridge across a river. Everyone is going across it. You paid your toll and crossed it and now you are on this side. But the tolls keep going up. They keep getting more and more expensive. And the people on the bridge are complaining. The people on this side, the retired side, they are wondering what the fuss is. They paid their way and made it across. Can’t everyone else do the same?

The problem is that the bridge has changed. The tolls are higher and it takes longer to get across. In many ways, it is not the same bridge. But those on this side seem to think it looks the same. And the people on the other side are wondering if it is even worth crossing. Crossing it in the same way at least, with the same goals and priorities.

Because it does not seem worth paying the toll.

In the past decade, the number of people pursuing a college education in the U.S. has declined. In particular, the number of young men going to college has decreased by 5 percent, or about 1 million men. The number of women in college has declined slightly, only a few hundred thousand. Why these changes?

It is expensive to go to college, much more so than even when I was in school. And it is not as clear to those currently of college age that it is worth the time, money, and effort. That opinion does not match the economic value of a college degree, which is significant. But other factors like the pandemic have made going to college less attractive. I spent the last three years in a graduate program via Zoom and I can assure you that it is not a pleasant experience. This is not sitting on the dorm room floor trading stories. It is not a Saturday night spent out on the town.

And, yes, I am skipping over the seemingly important part, the academics. Because, in many ways, I do not think the academics were the most important part of college. It was learning to think and it was learning to deal with people. And those are not really the strong suit of 90 minute video conferences with everyone dozing after the first half hour. Honestly, I crave those moments when someone’s cat or dog crosses the screen. Because that is how you get to know someone, not spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides.

The other more existential question is what is this effort for? What is the goal, the ultimate purpose? To live. The purpose is to live. But what if you are spending a lot of time being alive but not a lot of time living?

The average life expectancy for an American male has dropped to 73 years, a major change. Women tend to live 6 years longer. Now, of course, that is an average. It factors in people across the economic and healthcare spectrums. But notice that it is men who live less long and it is men who have grown less interested in going to college. I imagine there are many factors involved with this change, but what if one of those factors is that they want to live more? They want to live more and work less.

The typical child goes to school for 12 years, plus kindergarten and maybe some preschool. Then for some, they have four years of college. Let’s say that gets us to age 22. You then are expected to work for 45 years before you can retire, meaning that you can collect Social Security benefits. That retirement age applies to those born after 1960. Whether that is a practical timeframe in which to retire is another story. The current average retirement savings for someone in their 60s is about $180,000. Maybe that is enough to get you six more years, the average retirement age for an American man.

Elisha wanted a double share of inheritance from Elijah. He wanted, in effect, a double dose of the responsibility of Elijah. And Elijah was worried for Elisha because he knew this was not an easy road to travel. When kings and queens have been after you for a lifetime, it may seem a bad idea to pass along that burden to anyone else, even when they are asking for it.

Many years ago, my son was in kindergarten. He came home with a note about an upcoming school play for Thanksgiving. It was at 11:00 in the morning. I worked an hour away. So, I got in the car at 6:00, drove an hour to Boston, worked for three hours, drove back to see the play. The play was fifteen minutes long. I then stayed for a few minutes, had coffee and some cookies, and kissed my son. Then I drove back to Boston and finished my day sometime around 8:00.

I remember calling his mom about the play. She could not make it—she also worked in Boston. His grandparents were there as well. My son was dressed as a Pilgrim with a construction paper tube on his head for a hat with a paper buckle. And I remember him smiling when he saw me and when he saw his grandparents. I remember that quite well.

Do you know what I do not remember? Anything else I did that day. Who my clients were that day. Who my clients were that year. But I remember him smiling. I remember him like it was yesterday. And I remember driving back and forth like a fool, but it was still worth it.

Sometimes I hear people talking about these kids today. How they do not want to work anymore. How they just do not have it in them like us, like generations past. And do you know what my response to that is? Good. It is about time. It is about time that people focused more on living than on working in this country. Because, honestly, who exactly are we working for?

There is this relatively new phrase, the one percent. The one percent are the wealthiest people at the top of the economic pyramid of our society. The one percent get richer, while the 99 percent keep struggling along to make them richer. I am fully aware that this is a cartoonishly simple way of understanding our economic system. But it also represents an ancient pattern, one that typifies not only our modern world but every stage of human social advancement.

In the time of Elijah, there was a king. Scattered around the region, there were other kings and princes, pharaohs and emperors. And then there were the ones just below the royalty strata, the warlords and the priests, the aristocrats of their time, the one percent of the ancient world. Then there were the skilled folks, though many fewer the further back you go. And then there was the rest, the regular people, the average schlubs. They were not the 99 percent, but they were probably the 80-90 percent.

And they did everything. They did all the work. And little has changed over the centuries. We have added layers of complexity over time, like the Industrial Revolution, but that simply changed the tasks and the technology, not the hierarchy. Then came the Information Age, again with very few people making big money while everyone else does the work.

And not only do they do the work, but doing the work has for many years been seen as virtuous. It is noble to do a day’s work, to go into the office or down to the plant. Work becomes the defining characteristic of your life. And that is one way of making it all seem that much more palatable, working to make a small portion at the top wealthy enough to remain at the top.

Now I am not a socialist by any stretch of the imagination. Remember, as a member of Generation X, I am a dyed in the wool cynic. My generation fully understands that, pardon the expression, it is getting screwed. But understanding is not the same as thinking it is a good thing.

So, when I hear about Millennials and Gen Z kids not buckling under that system, I cannot help but feel a little pride. Yes, they have a lot less money. Yes, many of them are still living in their parents’ houses. And yes, many of them are not happy about either of those prospects. And yet, there is something to be said for stepping back from those expectations from past generations and trying to find a meaningful way to live.

I think going to college was a great choice for me. Honestly, I keep going back to school even at my age—maybe I have a problem. But I do not know that college would have been the right choice for someone else.

I do not know if I would recommend that every high school student be on the pathway to college without spending some time considering what they really want to do with their life. More than a summer travelling from college to college to see if there are enough or too many trees. Kids often get counselled about which college is right for them, not always about whether college is right for them.

In that survey about the decline in the number of men going to college, there was almost no reduction in the number of students going to 2-year colleges. That means people getting specific training in some area, like computer technology or some other industry specific task. I also know that there are fewer people going into the building trades, like electricians and plumbers. There are still opportunities for people to get good jobs. When and whether they can afford to move out of their parents’ basements is another question entirely.

In this neighbor, in this congregation, we do not always have a perspective on the wider society. There are people obviously who struggle in any community, but by the percentages we are most blessed. I am sure more than a few of you thought that a 73-year life expectancy for men was surprisingly low.

And that is because, in this neighborhood, it is surprisingly low. Factor out poverty and lack of access to healthcare. Factor in generational wealth and educational success. Suddenly, that number goes up. For example, if you compare Norfolk County to the national average, you live 5 years long. Better education and economics, better hospitals and healthcare, better housing and neighborhoods all make a difference.

And yet we cannot simply replicate this area onto the rest of the country. Why? Because more than a few of the one percent live here. And many more of the ten percent live here. By the way, being in the ten percent means a household with income in excess of $200,000. That places someone in the top ten percent of the U.S. I realize that one of the traditional topics that one does not talk about is money. And workism has a lot to do with money.

Work, work, work and you will be a success. And then, if you are fortunate, you can retire for an active decade or two. Travel a bit. Enjoy a bit of pickle ball. That is a plan for this neighborhood. It is not necessarily a plan for those a few miles to the east or south or north. To the west, it is probably about the same.

If we step back and consider what it means to work, we should also consider what it means to live. What it means to live meaningfully and with a sense of fulfillment. I think back to my son’s Thanksgiving play that I remember in all of its fifteen minutes of glory. And yet I do not remember the day-to-day of my work as a lawyer with the same level of detail or honestly interest. I remember more about being a minister, but still it is hard to top construction paper Pilgrim hats. Some work makes for better living and that does not always require 4 years of college.

When the people around us, the people in our lives, are making choices about who they want to be when they grow up, it is worth pausing for a moment. Do we want them to grow up to be us? To follow the paths we have taken and to make the sacrifices we have made? Looking back over those years, did we make any mistakes that we might warn them about? And, when they say they are taking a different path, will we rejoice with them or will we try to nudge them onto some more professional, more seemingly successful path that we can feel proud of, more than they will feel good about?

Because, as the saying goes, no one on their death bed every said they wished they had spent more time in meetings. For me, I could spend quite a bit more time watching my son’s kindergarten play or, maybe someday not too long off, my granddaughter’s kindergarten play. That might be nice.

Work to live and to live a good life. That is the take home message for today—for you and for those you love. Amen.