Prairie Pastoral

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March 15, 2025 | Leave a Comment

Work and (sometimes) jobs in the Kingdom of God

It was May 1991. I had graduated from college but still making application to grad school. I had a boyfriend who’d soon be a fiance, and I simply didn’t know what I was doing with my life. I needed a job, and Bookmans hired me as a cashier. 

Bookmans was a local phenomenon in Tucson. It was a bookstore/music store/news stand/hangout. The wildest cast of characters shopped there. I sold a Sunday edition of Le Monde to Faye Dunaway’s driver and a rare edition of some title I can’t remember to Larry McMurtry. Barbara Kingsolver shopped every now and then. She was a terrible customer, so we all ducked when she came in the door. 

I worked my way up from cashier to bookbuyer. I was promoted to assistant manager. Eventually I got a few shifts in the rare book room. I loved it. I mean, I really loved it. I made the dearest of friends, met the most amazing people, and read every book I could consume. Had my new husband not moved us to St. Louis, I suspect I would have worked there for years to come.

The last time I was in Tucson, I decided to drive by the store for old times’ sake. It wasn’t there. There was just an empty lot and a Starbucks. It fell victim to a street widening project in the late 2010s.

It turns out that jobs come and go, even the good ones.

Over the last few weeks, I have found myself in multiple conversations with men and women who have lost their jobs or fear such a loss. The loss of a job is a terrifying limbo for most of us, wondering if we’ll be able to pay our bills and support our families. More than that, there’s a sense of shock and a questioning. Why is this happening? Could I–should I–have acted differently? Why did God let this happen?

The parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) is just that: a parable. Jesus told parables to make a point. A single point. It was John Chrysostom who wrote of parables, “wherefore neither is it right to inquire curiously into all things in parables word by word but when we have learned the object for which it was composed, to reap this and not to busy one’s self about anything further” (quoted in Frederick Dale Bruner, The Church: Matthew 13-28, Rev. and Expanded Edition, 318). In other words, keep it simple when interpreting parables and stick to the point. 

The point of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard is the sovereignty of God in dispensing God’s grace upon His people. Still, along the way, this parable draws the contours of a Christian understanding of work that could serve us well when the security of our jobs is in question.

The basic narrative of the parable is straightforward. A landowner goes out early in the morning to hire day laborers. He hires the first crew of workers for a denarius, which is generous pay for a day’s work. He goes out four more times throughout the day to hire more laborers, promising a fair wage each time. When it comes time to pay them, he gives them all the same wage. 

Not a preacher past or present hasn’t commented on how seemingly unjust the wage is for the day laborer hired at 5 p.m. Of course, the workers who’d been there all day grumbled! And, of course, the landowner defends his freedom to pay whatever he wants to pay. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ (Matthew 20:15).

Appropriately, the message is a simple one. God is free to lavish his grace–even salvation–on whomever he chooses. Comparing ourselves to the disciple down the pew does no good for anyone. Our only appropriate response is gratitude to the sovereign God who bestows it. John Chrysostom would be pleased.

Yet, the setting for this message too is significant. It’s about laborers who’ve come to the marketplace in search of work. We call it a job hunt for a reason. We are hunters, looking for the right work, the right pay, the right location, the right future. When we get the call back, when we pass the performance tests and hear, “You’re hired,” there’s relief and joy and hope. When the call doesn’t come back quickly or at all, though, when we’re waiting for the call, checking our email hourly, and wondering, there’s fear and worry and self-doubt. It was as true for those laborers as it is for us today.

The context of the parable speaks volumes about our relationship to our work. 

Work is a gift from God for the sake of His kingdom.

Work, paid and unpaid, like all of life, is a gift from God. The laborers in that vineyard worked the land, and the land provided for the community. The work that matters never ends with us. God gives us work to use our gifts, and the gifts bless others. “The Christian disciple is, by definition, called to be a Christian worker” (Bruner, 319). Even back when I was working the cash register at Bookmans, I used to say that the work I did that really mattered was work I’d do even if I wasn’t getting paid. Sure, I took the money and ran the credit cards because it was my job, but I would have helped the teenager find the book he needed for school or sold the auto repair manual to the single mom for free. I was serving them. That’s discipleship. 

We are called to work, not a job.

God provides work, but He doesn’t guarantee a particular job. Some of the laborers had a job for a day, others for an hour. There’s no mention of work the next day. Businesses, enterprises, and workplaces come and go. Some last longer than others, but none of them are permanent. “ And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God abide forever” (1 John 2:17). Jobs go away, even dream jobs. New jobs emerge. If we’re doing the will of God by loving both Him and neighbor, it matters little where and how it’s happening.

I suppose that’s easier to say than to endure when a job ends unexpectedly and the new job hasn’t been found. When we’re wondering how to pay the mortgage. When the bills are overdue. When our sense of identity is uncertain. Here’s when the simple point–God’s sovereign grace–matters.

Finally, God provides extravagantly.

This is the promise that makes the call to work and the uncertainty of our jobs bearable. We can trust that God will provide for us, somehow, some way. We trust and He gives so His name can be praised.

In my first church where I served as an associate pastor, money was often thin. Several Decembers in a row, when the elders sat down to make a budget, my salary was a topic of debate. Reduce it? Eliminate it? Keep it and hope for the best? I spent the weeks of Advent wondering if I’d have a job in January, and I hated it. One day I complained to a friend about the lousy timing of my job uncertainty during the season of shopping. She sympathized but then commented that maybe December was the most appropriate time for such uncertainty. After all, she said, isn’t Advent all about hope and God’s love?

Fair enough. I didn’t stop complaining, mind you, but I did it with humility.

My friend’s observation is as true in Lent as it is in Advent and all year round. Work is a gift. Jobs come and go. God provides always. And He makes it all possible for the sake of hope and His love.

God, Hope, Spiritual gifts, Uncategorized, Work Tagged: Bookmans, Job Loss, Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, work


September 17, 2024 | Leave a Comment

The PWDL

Let’s talk about the People We Don’t Like. Let’s call them the PWDL for short. 

I’m not talking about enemies, i.e. people who have actually done harm to us or to people we love or to projects or work that matters to us. I’m talking about the PWDL. We just don’t like them. They don’t share our faith, or our politics, or our lifestyles, or our commitment to the Broncos. They’ve made decisions we don’t like: sending their kids out of district or consistently mowing their lawn on Saturday at 6 a.m. They innocently annoy us. They just are not our cup of tea.

“Not my cup of tea” is actually my favorite way to describe these folks. It goes light. It casts no judgment. It declares definitively that the “not liking” part of the situation is my responsibility only. The other cup of tea has done nothing wrong.

Instead of PWDL, perhaps I should call these folks about whom I’m writing today the NMCOTs. Or maybe not. Let’s stick to the PWDL.

The first thing worth noting about thy PWDL is that we can’t avoid them. Oh, we can try. The larger the community in which we live, the easier time we may have segregating ourselves. Here in our small town, though, it’s almost impossible. It’s tough to hide from someone when there are only two grocery stores in town and one post office. We work with them. We sit next to them in the bleachers during the JV volleyball game. We (gulp) go to church with them. [Read more…]

Bible, Discipleship, God, Jesus Christ, Small town, Spiritual maturity Tagged: Hate, Love, Ninevites, Small town


September 1, 2024 | Leave a Comment

Names matter

We have two major party candidates for President of the United States: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. 

Donald Trump’s name is easy enough to pronounce. I’ve been watching Donald Duck cartoons since I was a kid, and who hasn’t wanted to play the trump card? 

But Kamala Harris? Well, her name is a little tougher. Fair enough if we stumble, but too often I’m hearing people (a) not even try or (b) mispronounce her name intentionally in ways that are unintentionally racist. Friends, “I just call her ‘Caramel’ since she’s brown” is not okay. 

Making a joke of someone’s racial and ethnic background or skin color is not okay in the community, and it’s really not okay in the body of Christ where we know ourselves–all of ourselves–made precious in the image of God.

Besides, names matter. Names mean something.

All throughout our scriptures, God gets particular about names.

Abram became Abraham, meaning “father of many” (Genesis 17:5). Pharaoh’s daughter gave Moses his name, meaning “draw out,” after drawing him out of the water (Exodus 2:10). Poor Naomi, whose name means “pleasant,” changes her name to “Mara,” meaning “bitter” (Ruth 1:20). 

Jesus, name above all names, means “God saves” (Luke 1:31). 

Behind every name is a story, and every story is of people who love and care about the child they are naming. I don’t know Kamala Harris’ mom, but I suspect she and her husband chose the name with all the excitement and joy of all expectant parents.

So, I get it. Names are hard to remember sometimes and even harder to pronounce and spell. I’m a pastor, and I struggle all the time with names. Do you know how many ways there are to spell Hailey, Hayley, Haylee, Hayleigh…you get the idea?

And I get that there are really valid reasons not to vote for Ms. Harris, but there’s no excuse for mockery. As an American, I want to respect the Office of the Presidency. As a citizen of the Kingdom, I want to respect the image of God in her.

Here’s the easiest way I’ve found to remember how to pronounce Ms. Harris’ first name: 

“Comma-la.” It’s the punctuation mark, plus a la. Or, as Fraulein Maria would say, the punctuation mark plus “a note to follow so.” 

Kamala. Comma-la. It’s her name, and it’s not that hard. For the sake of God-Saves, we can try.

God, Jesus Christ, Love, Prejudice Tagged: imago dei, Names, Presidential election


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This is the day that
the Lord has made;
let us rejoice
and be glad in it.

– Psalm 118:24
Rev. Dr. MJ Romano

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