Introduction: The following is number 4 of 6 blog postings entitled Our faith @ work that are part of the keynote address given at the CH Leaders conference in Nov 2009 in Orillia.
“It is Good” The idea that work is to be good is a powerful revelation of God’s intention for His people. God took pleasure in His work. God himself took time to step back and look at His work as a whole and proclaim that it was good. God wants us to take pleasure in our work. One of the reasons work becomes discouraging, stressful and life taking, rather than life giving, is that the labour of our hand appears, in fact becomes, fruitless because our work is tilling against, not cultivating with, God. We need to honestly face that this can be the result of two factors;
1) A limited or lost vision of our work. This is us personally. We have a personal responsibility that is firstly rooted in our vertical relationship and responsibility and obedience to God.
2) The environment that has been created in which we work. That is a system that has been created that doesn’t bring meaning, purpose and community, but isolation, frustration and wasted energy. A major part of our task as leaders in Christian Horizons is to:
i. Firstly, make sure that our personal lives are on track with God.
ii. And, secondly, make sure that the environments that we are creating, organizationally and corporately, and in the districts, and at the local level, are removing the barriers that frustrate the true calling of work.
1) A limited or lost vision of our work. This is us personally. We have a personal responsibility that is firstly rooted in our vertical relationship and responsibility and obedience to God.
2) The environment that has been created in which we work. That is a system that has been created that doesn’t bring meaning, purpose and community, but isolation, frustration and wasted energy. A major part of our task as leaders in Christian Horizons is to:
i. Firstly, make sure that our personal lives are on track with God.
ii. And, secondly, make sure that the environments that we are creating, organizationally and corporately, and in the districts, and at the local level, are removing the barriers that frustrate the true calling of work.
Max Depree in his book ‘Leadership is an Art’ says:
“The art of leadership is liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible, thus the leader is the servant of his followers, in that he/she removes the obstacles that prevent them from doing their jobs. In short, the true leader enables his or her followers to realize their full potential.” (Depree xxii)
There is no question this kind of leadership is an art. Work is not the result of the fall, but labour is. Sin is when we allow work to become labour. What images come to mind when we think of ‘labour’. I grew up with song in my house by Tennessee Ernie Ford – the song was called “Sixteen Tons.” This song had a habit of being played when my Dad had a really, really bad day and everything seemed to be crashing in.
Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"
If you see me comin', better step aside
A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't a-get you
Then the left one will
We need re-cover God’s intention for our work, both as leaders and as followers. Work is not to be the use and abuse of people so that they feel they have lost their soul. Rather than destroying a person, our work itself needs to experience a salvation of sorts. You see God’s activity is concerned more than with just saving our individual soul, but in the redemption of Creation itself, which will remove the curse of futile labour from our work. Work is not the curse, but the toil and labour to gain fruit of our work is. Genesis 3:17-18:
17Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18"Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;
Work existed before creation; toil, thorns and thistles didn’t. It’s not that work is not sometimes hard and even back breaking. And doing ‘Good Work’ doesn’t guarantee that all will go well either. Consider the work of God – we’d say ‘it is good’. However, look at the effect of sin on God’s good work. There is a season in which God is looking at the work of hands and seeing how it was been distorted and misused. He is looking at the realities of poverty and war, of disease, death and destruction – of the greed and selfishness that drives sectarian violence and genocide and He is not saying “it is good”, because it is not good. But He knows that this is not the end of the story, good is being restored. Consider the story of Job, the work of His hands was good, and it made him target of the enemy. For a season, Job sat on the ashes of a garbage heap and wrestled with the question where is God? David wrote those Psalms in the early years of his life and asks the question “why is it that the wicked seem to prosper, and that the good man constantly loses”
Work existed before creation; toil, thorns and thistles didn’t. It’s not that work is not sometimes hard and even back breaking. And doing ‘Good Work’ doesn’t guarantee that all will go well either. Consider the work of God – we’d say ‘it is good’. However, look at the effect of sin on God’s good work. There is a season in which God is looking at the work of hands and seeing how it was been distorted and misused. He is looking at the realities of poverty and war, of disease, death and destruction – of the greed and selfishness that drives sectarian violence and genocide and He is not saying “it is good”, because it is not good. But He knows that this is not the end of the story, good is being restored. Consider the story of Job, the work of His hands was good, and it made him target of the enemy. For a season, Job sat on the ashes of a garbage heap and wrestled with the question where is God? David wrote those Psalms in the early years of his life and asks the question “why is it that the wicked seem to prosper, and that the good man constantly loses”
1Surely God is good to Israel, To those who are pure in heart! 2But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, My steps had almost slipped. 3For I was envious of the arrogant
As I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4For there are no pains in their death, And their body is fat. 5They are not in trouble as other men, Nor are they plagued like mankind. 6Therefore pride is their necklace; The garment of violence covers them. 7Their eye bulges from fatness;
The imaginations of their heart run riot.
He laments later in verse 13: surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence. Here is a guy that believes all his work has become useless. He pulls it around by the end and states,
He laments later in verse 13: surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence. Here is a guy that believes all his work has become useless. He pulls it around by the end and states,
25-28 whom have I in heaven but Thee? And besides, I desire nothing on earth, my flesh and heart my fail, but God is my strength and my portion… the nearness of God is my good.
We must have, and continue to seek, a high view of our work, because sometimes, the earthly evidence seems to deny its meaning and value. When work has Godly purpose, it has the potential of even transforming the simplest job of ditch digging to the position of participation with God. It is transformative because I know how I am connected with the rest of my community, that my work is valued beyond a hole that is dug in the ground, because of this hole, my community benefits. God is concerned with the restoration of healing communities in which all members are valued and participate.
Rom 8:18-24 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?
God wants our work to be redeemed and saved. In the salvation of our work, we get our lives back – we are participating in something far greater than our jobs. Our work is for something, it brings us toward God. Out of that relationship with Him, and each other, we create a sacred space in which we invite each other, and persons with disabilities, to join in the dance toward God. Our work has divine meaning, purpose and life, and makes an eternal difference.
John Vanier had a significant impact on John Paul II, so much so that he wrote in On Human Work:
They too are fully human subjects with corresponding innate, sacred and inviolable rights, and, in spite of the limitations and sufferings affecting their bodies and facilities, they point up more clearly the dignity and greatness of man. Since disabled people are subjects with all their rights, they should be helped to participate in the life of society in all its aspects and at all the levels accessible to their capacities. The disabled person is one of us and participates fully in the same humanity that we possess. It would be radically unworthy of man, and a denial of our common humanity, to admit to the life of the community, and thus admit to work, only those who are fully functional. To do so would be to practice a serious form of discrimination, that of the strong and healthy against the weak and sick...Each community will be able to set up suitable structures for finding creating jobs for such people both in the usual public and private enterprises by offering them ordinary or suitably adapted jobs…( On Human Work p 52)
I think the hope and desire of most people is to be able to stop, and look at what they have created and say “it is good”. What I find insightful here is that God did not look at His work and say “Wow, I am good”, which He certainly had a right to do; He says ‘it is good’. We lose sight of the meaning and value of work when we look to the fruits of work for our own benefit only. Or we believe that it is because of our own brilliance and ability, both of which are highly fleeting. Earthly riches and fame is like trying to capture mist in a bottle, they disappear and, though for a moment appear to satisfy, leave the person feeling empty and worthless. Work must be, and is more.
What any of us want is to be able look at our work and say “it is good”. Rather than a frustrating realization that although we are busy and tired from doing ‘stuff’ we haven’t actually accomplished, contributed or gain much through all our labour. Isa 65:23 tells us of a time when the hope of fruitful work will be restored; "They will not labor in vain.”
Quick recap, so far we discover that work is creative, empowering, enabling, it is good. Work is not the ‘stuff’ we do, but how we participate with God in the purposes of Creation itself. But there something else that we need to uncover about work, it is to be redemptive.
Neil Cudney
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