Work and Its Meaning
Happy Labor Day! As you get ready to celebrate with a barbecue, a short vacation, an inordinate amount of effort so your nine-year-old can play in a baseball tournament (anyone else?), or working so someone else can do some of the above, take some time to think about your labor this weekend.
Work is a challenging subject for Christians for at least three reasons:
Work serves multiple purposes, which creates complexity.
Secular voices dominate, and the Church is either quiet or acquiescent.
When the church does speak about work, it can often sound ambiguous or a bit outdated
Complexity
Why do we go to work? To provide for our necessities and fulfill our obligations? To support our families, the church, and other things we hold dear? To invest in our own personal and professional development? To set something aside for a vacation or occasional recreation? To help those in need? Make the world a better place? Create community? Practice hospitality?
You may answer “yes” to some of these—or even “C: All of the above.” But none of these are prerequisite reasons for work. A stay-at-home parent, an unpaid volunteer, someone in a job that sucks some of the life out of them each day, and even an employee of an organization that makes the world a worse place, are still working. Labor Day became a federal holiday 130 years ago to recognize how labor organizations limited the power of employers to exploit their employees as productivity machines rather than value them as dedicated humans who, when led well, have enormous potential to flourish.
Balancing the varied motivations for work with the priorities of life can be challenging—especially given the influence of cultural mindsets.
Secular Voices
Many people view work as a necessary evil that pays the bills and funds our hobbies. They feel that true life is found primarily outside of work. Every time we say TGIF, we acknowledge that many are in careers—often by their own choosing—that provide little satisfaction. The Financially Independent Retire Early (FIRE) movement reinforces this view by advocating for austerity during your working years so you can retire and do “what really matters.”
Before judging this view too harshly, the Christian version is alive and well. For those of you with secular careers, have you ever felt like your work only mattered because it allowed you to eat, support the church, and witness to your coworkers? I believe my work as a portfolio strategist contributed more to the Kingdom than the time I spent leading a small group or teaching in the kids’ ministry. Those two hours in a small group and the one hour teaching kids each week were great ministry. But I spent 50–55 hours a week helping people plan their retirements. If portfolio strategy work were only one-tenth as valuable per hour, the overall impact would still be greater.
An alternative secular view emphasizes one aspect of work and elevates it to a key benchmark. Put differently, it sees work as a way to keep score. A bigger salary, a more prestigious position, or leading a nonprofit that creates some heart-tugging social good are often elevated as benchmarks by which all work is measured. Yet Jesus, in the Parable of the Talents (Mt. 25:14-30), undercuts this view by giving the same praise to the faithful stewards who started with a smaller balance.
When the Church Speaks
The church’s theology of work hasn’t kept pace with the changing nature of work. Martin Luther’s writings on vocation dignified the value of secular work and helped to correct the view that religious work was infinitely more valuable. But some of Luther’s ideas haven’t aged well in our current cultural context. 1 Corinthians 7:20 says, “Each one should remain in the condition in which he is called.” This made sense in a preindustrial society where many people worked on farms or took over the family business. Luther's thoughts aren’t as helpful as the industrial and information revolutions that have reshaped work. In his book, “Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work,” Miroslav Volf, offers a more redemptive alternative by proposing that we treat our work as a place to exercise our gifts. As our gifting changes, how we exercise our gifts through our work changes as well.
Final Thoughts
On second thought, you may need more than just Labor Day to sort this out. Take a longer time with God to prayerfully evaluate some of these questions:
What does my current reality require work to look like, and how might that change in the future?
Which aspects of my work are fulfilling, and which aspects undercut my growth?
Does my work help people and contribute to a better world?
How could I shape my current employment to increase my Kingdom impact through purposeful contribution and personal growth?
Has God gifted and blessed me in new ways that suggest I should prayerfully consider switching careers?
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. –Colossians 3:23-24
