Men at Work-- a Biblical Approach

While you may be amazed at this,  it is nonetheless true that when you survey the works of Biblical theology available to us, very seldom does the subject of a theology of work come up.  You look in vain for it in dictionaries, or the glossaries of major theologies and monographs. This is stunning consdering how much of our lives are spent working.   In these sorts of economic times, the issue of Christians and work should be all the more important, and so I have written a little book on work which will come out next year sometime.  Here below is a sample of some of the discussion--- see what you think.
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I was leafing through a newspaper shortly before Thanksgiving and came across a great political cartoon.  It depicted two Indians carrying a dead turkey on a pole towards a table at which several New England Puritans were sitting, apparently waiting to eat their Thanksgiving dinner with the Natives.   The Indians were far enough out of earshot not to be heard when one said to the other "I don't care if they have a good work ethic, they are illegal aliens. They should go back to where they came from and enter the country legally and with our permission."  I laughed for a good while about that reversal of the common perspective we hear in America today about so many illegal aliens.  But the cartoon also alluded to something that it was assumed a broad audience would readily know all about--- the so call Puritan work ethic.

  

There is something about Christianity, and particularly Protestant Christianity that seems to raise to a peculiar degree the issue of how we as a Christians should view work.  Is it a blessing or a bane, is it a duty or a privilege, do we work to live, or live to work?   Inquiring minds want to know.   One thing is for sure--- modern Americans, including many Christians have little or no understanding of what the Bible actually says about work, and it hardly informs their views on work vs. play, or career vs. retirement or other related subjects, subjects we intend to explore in this little study.  And in one sense, they can hardly be blamed-- Christian theologians have seldom addressed the topic of work!

 

ON DEFINING WORK 

David Jensen in his recent study on work puts it this way--- "[The] topic--human labor--is rather foreign to most systematic theologies.  Not often have the codifiers of  Christian doctrine explored the topic of work as an explicitly theological theme."[1]  If you survey the topical indexes in works of Biblical and Systematic theology you will find the topic 'work' rarely in the index, because it is rarely discussed in the text!  How odd especially when the Bible has so much to say about work, past, present and future.   For example consider David Jensen's helpful summary: "Biblical narratives overflow with work.  Between the opening lines of Genesis, which portray God as a worker, and the closing chapter of Revelation, with a vision of new creation, God labors. One of the distinguishing characteristics of biblical faith is that God does not sit enthroned in heaven removed from work, willing things into existence by divine fiat. Unlike the gods of the Greco-Roman mythologies, who absolve themselves of work-- [or make work a punishment for troublesome persons, e.g. Sisyphus]--dining on nectar and ambrosia in heavenly rest and contemplation--the Biblical God works."[2]  But the Bible is by no means just about God working, it is also about God's people working and their participation in work that God sees as good, endorses, and indeed participates in.  

Perhaps part of the problem is, we have never bothered to ask and answer the question "what is work?'  from a Biblical point of view.  This is passing strange when we have so many workaholics in our culture, those who live to work, rather than work to live.  Many economists would reduce the definition of work to the lowest common denominator--whatever we do to live or survive.  The problem with this definition is not merely that it is too minimalist (after all, running from an oncoming attacker, or swerving to avoid a car accident is something you do to survive, but that is hardly what one would call work), but that it has no theological component.  Furthermore, eating and sleeping are not 'work' though we do them to survive and thrive.      

I like Fredrick Buechner's definition of work--"the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need".[3]   The problem with this definition is that one may take delight in making something that the world hardly needs, like the man who made the world's largest ball of tinfoil, collecting, combining and toiling over many years on his pet project.  But to be fair, Buechner stresses that work comes at the intersection of delight and need. 

It is always rewarding to know you are doing something that helps others, and very rewarding if you know you are doing something that is so purposeful it saves lives.  But whether you take delight in it or not, if it meets genuine and crucial needs in the world, it is good work and should be done.   Buechner is suggesting however that deep inside we are made for work, and when we find our calling, purpose, vocation, ministry it will bring deep satisfaction when we do it.  I can attest to this truth myself.  I love preaching, teaching, and writing.  It's hard for me to imagine my adult life without doing one or more of these things.  These tasks bring me great joy and hopefully bring others some considerable benefit.   But at the end of the day Buechner's definition is not fully adequate.

David Jensen settles for a definition of work that has a theological component--any activity undertaken with a sense of obligation to self, others, one's community or to one's God.[4]   The problem I have with this definition is that all activities that a Christian undertakes should fall under that last rubric, as well as others.  By this I mean all work should be done as part of one's obligations placed on us by God, whatever else may also be the case, and all work must be doable as something that glorifies God and edifies others.  This is precisely why I would say it is entirely debatable whether war can be called 'legitimate work' from a Christian point of view--  not if the Sermon on the Mount is supposed to describe how the disciple of Jesus is to live, work, and behave.

A second attempt at defining work is made by Miroslav Wolf.  He suggests:  "Work is honest, purposeful, and methodologically specified social activity whose primary goal is the creation of products or states of affairs that can satisfy the needs of working individuals or their co-creatures, or (if primarily an end in itself) activity that is necessary in order for acting individuals to satisfy their needs apart from the need for the activity itself."[5]   In this definition, leisure is contrasted with work, but of course that still leaves a host of activities that do not seem to naturally fall into either the category of leisure or work--- eating and sleeping for example, or even just breathing.  Notice however the close connection between work and its purpose--to satisfy human needs (what sort is not specified). 

What I find especially unsatisfactory about this definition is its basic a-theological character.  Volf's real stress is on work as a means to an end, namely meeting human needs.  In this way he can distinguish work from a hobby.  But in fact the activity undertaken as work can also be undertaken as hobby, and in both cases be a means to an end of meeting an end which is extrinsic to the workers need to do it.  If I love building computers and I make one for my son as a birthday present, knowing that he needs a computer for work, I have made it as a gift for his birthday. I could have gone out and bought one with the same result.  My labor was not compulsory to meet the need.   And yet, just because I exercise my skills in something I love to do, (and do not do as part of my 'job'), this does not prevent what I am doing from being classified as either a hobby activity or work, or both!

It will perhaps surprise you to discover how little theologians have actually discussed work, and in fact the first modern full dress theology of work does not seem to have been written until the 1950s, which I find astounding considering how much of our waking hours are consumed by work.[6]   But Volf is absolutely on the right track when he stresses that coming up with a theology of work as vocation based almost entirely on the creation theology of the OT will not do, if we are looking to have a Christian theology of work. 

The coming of Christ has changed the eschatological situation. Volf puts it this way: "Christian life is life in the Spirit of the new creation or it is not Christian life at all. And the Spirit of God should determine the whole life, spiritual as well as secular, of a Christian.  Christian work must, therefore, be done under the inspiration of the Spirit and in the light of the coming new creation."[7]   Now we are getting somewhere!   And right away there seems to be a clear implication--work that the Holy Spirit would never inspire, should never be done by a Christian, say for example, creating pornography, to take an easy example. 

The Holy Spirit's inspiration of work comes automatically with an ethical component.  The works of the flesh are not the works of the Spirit. We will say more on this.   But it is not just that Christian work is Spirit inspired and enabled, it is that Christian work looks forward to the coming Kingdom on earth, the new creation, it does not merely live out of the old creation and its applicable rules.  Thus one could offer as a Christian definition of work any necessary and meaningful task that God calls and gifts a person to do and which can be undertaken to the glory of God and for the edification and aid of human beings, being inspired by the Spirit and foreshadowing the realities of the new creation.  To this we may add that any such work is worthy of fair remuneration for "a workman is worthy of his hire".   

 

A great deal of the problem we have in America in discussing our work is that our approach and attitudes about work are grounded in unbiblical myths of various kinds. Take for example the myth that our lives should involve a period of work, which if done well then entitles us to retirement, maybe even early retirement!  Where exactly is the notion of retirement found in the Bible?   Nowhere!  Not even in the eschaton envisioned by the prophets do we have images of a workless paradise. 

Work was part of the original creation design, and it appears to be in the works for the new creation as well.  Work should be neither demonized nor divinized.[8]    If we were to contrast for a moment however, the creation vs. the eschatological vision of work in the Bible we could say that in the creation accounts work is what the human was fitted and commanded to do, whereas in the eschatological accounts it is what the Spirit inspires and gifts them to do, and in which they find joy.  Work is inherent to being in God's image for Gen. 1.26 says that we were created in God's image 'in order that' we might have dominion over creation.

 Consider for a moment a famous, and famously misused and misquoted passage from Isaiah's vision of the final future: "In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.  Many peoples will come and say 'Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.'   The Law shall go out from Zion, the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord." (Isaiah 2.2-5).

Our concern is particularly with the end of that quote.  When Isaiah envisions the eschatological age, or the last days, he does not envision a massive work stoppage. What he envisions is a massive war stoppage, if we may put it that way.   The point of beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks is so that the weapons of war may be turned into the tools of work.   When Isaiah envisages the final or eschatological state of affairs his vision of shalom, well being, peace, is not of a workless paradise, but of a world at peace worshipping the one true God and working together rather than warring with each other.   We see this very same sort of vision of the final future in Isaiah 65.20-25: 

No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the young man shall die a hundred years old,
and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy  the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain
or bear children for calamity, 
for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,
and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
and dust shall be the serpent's food.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain,"
says the Lord.

We could compare these two Isaianic passages to Zech. 8.10-12 where again paradise involves a war stoppage not a work stoppage, so the crops can be sown, and their fruit enjoyed in peace.  Work apparently isn't the human dilemma, war and other sorts of fallen human behavior is.  

It is no accident that Jesus in his inaugural sermon in Nazareth (Lk. 4) quotes the prophetic vision of Jubilee and suggests that his bringing of such prophecies to pass, his bringing in of the Kingdom involves work--including the work of healing people.  I quite agree with Miroslav Volf when he says that a Christian definition of work must take into account where history is going in God's hands and thus "a theological interpretation of work is only valid if it facilitates transformation of work toward ever-greater correspondence with the coming new creation."[9]  

Thus we must be constantly asking, is this work that foreshadows the Kingdom and its ends and aims and character?   The goal of human history, or at least its end, according to Rev. 21-22 is that God, humankind and creation will finally be brought back into harmony, shalom, positive ongoing relationship.  Our eschatology must shape our vision of our tasks.[10]  These same passages envisage work continuing in the Kingdom. Thus we must not over-emphasize the discontinuity between this age and the age to come, when it comes to work.   

Presumably, whatever is true, and good, and beautiful in life and human culture will be cleansed of sin's taint and remain in the new creation.   Nothing good will be wasted, we will not be laboring in vain.  The inherent value and goodness of work will be upheld in the Kingdom, just as the inherent goodness and value of all creation will be upheld---"Creation itself...will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom. 8.21).  

As many commentators have noticed the vision of our final future in such prophetic passages as  the ones we have cited or alluded to, seems to be largely a reprise of the vision found in Genesis 2--once a gardener always a gardener.  The Endzeit is like the intended the original Urzeit in that there is no fallenness any more, no shadow over the land, no laboring in vain, no winter without Christmas, as C.S. Lewis once put it.  But there is laboring even in Paradise that came, and is to come! [11]

This raises some very serious questions about the whole notion of retirement either in this life or the life to come.  Is it even a Biblical idea, or does it even comport with Biblical ideas about our future whether individually or collectively when the Kingdom comes in full measure on earth?   These are the sort of things we need to explore in this little book in some depth.   But one more story first.

It was January 2009 and I was on sabbatical from Asbury Seminary, up in Vermont writing.  I decided to take a morning and go to Weston Priory and spend some time in prayer.  Most people's vision of monasteries is that it is a place where there is a lot of prayer and worship and singing but otherwise not much goes on and not much gets accomplished.   This could hardly be more false of most monasteries. 

The monks at Weston priory followed the Benedictine rule of 'Ora et Labora", prayer and labor, or prayer and work, which includes making some wonderful maple syrup and cheese and engaging in all sorts of charitable activities.  These monks are hardly resting on their laurels late in life nor are they so heavenly minded that they have become no earthly good.   Indeed, I would say they have the right perspective on things for they knew that the 'work' of worship is the most important activity that transpires on earth, the activity which most foreshadows both the nature of heaven and the future of the Kingdom on earth.[12]

As I was leaving the monastery I noticed a banner hanging just outside the little chapel. It quoted that great sage and prophet Jimi Hendrix who once said "when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."   Well, the monks were working on the basis of that belief and so was Jesus.  Notice I used the word 'working'.  It's high time for us to begin contemplating the meaning of work from a more Biblical, a more Kingdom point of view.   Let this preface serve as our call to wake up, and get to work on rethinking work.