I have a terrifying childhood memory of some big gatherings with a lot of strangers — a wedding, perhaps, or a dinner party of some sort — and the adults are all asking me what I want to be when I “grow up.”
I was in elementary school, so at around ten years old, that question stopped me mid-bite into a pig-in-a-blanket. I’d never thought about it before. You mean I’m supposed to be something? When? How? Why? Can’t I just enjoy this delicious pastry-wrapped piggie?
There is a pernicious “your work defines you” mindset underlying the question of what we aspire to do with our lives. Children of the 60s who were hanging out at parties with our parents panicked about what we were supposed to be when we grew up.
The last thing I want to think about, even now, 50 years later, is growing up. And in elementary school I think I knew of exactly five careers:
Teacher, Doctor, Lawyer, a guy who does things with cars, and President. When asked what I wanted to be, well, I wantedto play the piano, but every time I answered that people said I couldn’t make a living that way. “What’s a living?” I asked.
When I pointed to Elton John and Ray Charles, I was told their success was a “one-in-a-million” event, as if our happiness in a chosen career was dependent on the spin of a cosmic roulette wheel or that only superstardom could insure one “makes a living” instead of, say, playing the piano at a Sake bar in Hong Kong.
Many people feel worthless because of the way society perceives their work, which is unfortunate because work — labor — is perhaps humankind’s most universally shared experience. Regardless of skin color, social standing, physical or mental ability, religion, or even economic status, we all labor in some way.
In the 21st Century, our concept of labor is perhaps too synonymous with daily work, which for many of us is not soul-filling but an unfortunate drudgery or worse, soul-enslaving, back-breaking, Coltan-mine-punishing torture. But labor is not supposed to be torture. None of us should be forced into jobs we despise. The Bible makes it clear laborers should be revered because work — all work — is God’s work.
And every one of us is a God worker.
The people of the First Testament, the Bible Jesus knew, understood the divine aspect of the workforce, and made sure the community learned to treat all laborers with dignity and respect. Our ancestors were cognizant of their divine covenant, a concept modern secular society ignores, unfortunately, because covenant might be the singular concept around which people of every faith can gather. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and most other religious systems and philosophies have some idea of a covenantal relationship with God and through God with one another.
Covenant is the foundation of Jesus’ ministry. He wants us to understand that covenant with God doesn’t mean we are all helpless underlings in a one-sided contract with a cosmic boss like Michael Scott or Mr. Burns.
God is not Tony Soprano, and covenant is not that kind of contract.
Covenant is a mutually beneficial responsibility based on and in divine love. When our work and concept of labor are based on covenants instead of contracts, our relationship with both transforms.
Covenantal work inspired our Jewish ancestors to write Deuteronomy and lay out the importance of equitable, respectful treatment of the labor force. Now, keep in mind Deuteronomy was likely written by Levites, an upper-echelon group of priests and civic officials, which I think, in this case, speaks to the true power of divine covenant. Thousands of years ago, a wealthier class of people understood there were moral and social limits to the amount of wealth they could — and had a right to — keep. They understood, apparently better than we, that a healthy, well-paid, happy worker is a healthier, happier human being and, therefore, a better, more involved citizen.
Deuteronomy 24:14–15 (NIV)
Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
The authors (plural, not Moses) intended Deuteronomy as a sort of guidebook about how Israel was to live as the covenant people of God and describes itself as “instruction, directive, and guidance.” It’s often considered (and derided as) a book of law, and it is, but it is also so much more.
Deuteronomy shows deep respect for society’s labor force by acknowledging all human beings as laborers for God. Even more revolutionary, the authors ask us to consider that, in true covenantal fashion, not only are we working for God, but God is also working for us. Because covenant is not a one-sided Tony Soprano contract. It’s a divine promise.
That God is working for us is, of course, the foundation of almost every religion on the planet. However, where most religions treat God’s work for us as something requiring sacrifices, rituals, and special incantations, the Jewish authors of Deuteronomy recognized that God works for us by working in and through us, so we can serve each other.
The idea that our work is God’s work for the common good was so entrenched in ancient Jewish thinking that it became a pillar of Jewish thought by Paul’s era and deeply influenced his interpretation of Jesus and the crucifixion.
Paul thinks of God working three ways in our lives (and he writes about this more than once, including in Eph. 2:8–10 and Romans 3): for us, in us, and through us. His language uses words like “salvation” and “grace,” which may be off-putting to some of us because they sound “religious” or because we’ve correctly rejected the literalism of ideas like Jesus dying for our sins. But Paul speaks cosmically using the language available to him at the time:
Ephesians 2:8–10 (CEB)
You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith. This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of. Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.
Paul is almost always speaking metaphysically and metaphorically. He’s had at least one vision of Jesus. Encounters with multidimensional beings change your understanding of reality. It is nearly impossible to find human words to describe the truly bizarre, reality-fluid nature of “reality.” Paul does his best to help us see the world less dimly, more completely.
Paul calls the work God does for us salvation, a problematic word for postmodern progressive spiritual people who believe God loves unconditionally, so nobody needs to be “saved.” But Paul thinks of salvation as liberation from literalist interpretations of Mosaic law, from the grind of Empire, from subservience to any human master. Paul says Jesus reveals this liberation on the cross by dying to the difficult ways of the world to be resurrected into the Realm of God making life no longer laborious but now a labor of love.
Question: What is your God work?
