Towards a theology of work (2)

I suggested in my first post on this topic that work is good and work is spiritual. What do I mean ?

1. Work is good

We live in a culture that lives for the weekend! At the weekend we get to PLAY! And for some, work has become play. They live to work. Work has so consumed them that they don’t have time for other things, even on the weekend. This ultimately results in people who only have work, and not other things in place in their life. For most others, work is something you have to do so you can play. They work to truly live.

This is based on a flawed understanding of work that derives ultimately from Greco-Roman thought that has pervaded Western culture for 2000 years. Greco-Roman thought sees work as degrading. The ideal is to escape the need to work so that you can enjoy yourself. This pervading belief is the source of our sacred-secular divide.

In contrast to this, the Biblical perspective sees work, not as something bad to escape from, but something good that we were created for.

Archbishop William Temple puts it like this:

“Look at the Bible story – creation, consummation, incarnation, resurrection – God gets His hands dirty – God is physical and creating. God creates the physical, cleans the physical, becomes physical, restores the physical. God works. Work is good”.

Work is part of God’s creation. All that God created was good. Work is good. Work is part of God’s original plan for human beings. We were created to work. Work isn’t an oppressive burden to escape, but what we were created for. Adam and Eve are given work to do – work with and in creation until it fills the whole earth.

2. Work is spiritual

So work is good. It’s part of creation and what we were created for. This means that work is fundamentally a spiritual thing. God designed it. When we work, we are being spiritual.

And although we now live within a broken creation… we are still called to work with God. Adam and Eve were created to help God create creation. We are invited to help God restore creation. Any work that helps God do this is spiritual.

The myth of the sacred-secular divide rears its ugly head most on this issue. A weird disconnect has formed in the church which sees church work as spiritual and secular work as less or even non-spiritual. For too long we have battled with a flawed theology of work which tells us that it is the full-time “pastors” who do the really spiritual work. In this view, ministry ends up being done by the professionals in the church. The church leader’s role is to enlist our help to grow the local church, rather than equip people for their ministry wherever that might be.

The idea that certain work is spiritual or more spiritual has resulted in disempowered and disconnected Christians who don’t see their work as of value to God or important to the church. Your job is no less holy than mine. Your work is as important to God as mine. All of us are called to work for God and with God.

The Biblical truth is that we are all priests engaging in spiritual work wherever we find ourselves. Ministry is done by ministers. We are all ministers, engaged in ministry all the time. We all work at spiritual things all the time.

Next time, we’ll look at how we are to work.