Spirituality at Work
From the Series—Influence: The Power of One
February 25, 2002Warning! By the end of this page you’ll never view your job the same way again.
According to Stephen Graves and Thomas Addington, the average person will spend 100,000 hours at work. 50% of your waking hours will be spent on the job.
And yet, as Graves and Addington observe in their book The Fourth Frontier, “What sermons have we heard lately about the inherent value and beauty of work? Mysteriously, an aura of silence surrounds the God ordained institution of work.” It’s time to break the silence and develop a theology of work. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary you’ll find seventy-three definitions of work. Let me add a few more to the mix.
Work ‘werk n 1: a form of stewardship
2: a form of worship 3: a God-ordained calling
4: a strategic mission field
1: a form of stewardship
Let me dispel a myth right at the outset. Work is not a result of the curse. In fact, the first thing God does after creating Adam is put him to work. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Like a little child who pleads to “help” a parent with a project, Adam finds joy in working God’s garden. Work is a source of fulfillment and fruitfulness. It’s not that God needs our “help.” But God designed us to be co-workers in the co-mission.
According to psychologists, our two most compelling needs are the need for love and the need to work. Studies have shown that mortality rates escalate right after retirement. It’s called “Early Retirement Death.” If people feel like they aren’t useful anymore, if people feel like they are no longer contributing, if people feel like their work is done, they die! We start dying when we have nothing to live for and we start living when we find something worth dying for.
Have you ever heard this popular saying? No one on his deathbed ever says, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.” Tim Downs says, “It’s not true. In point of fact, many people on their deathbeds do regret not having spent more time at the office. Albert Einstein’s last words to his son were: ‘If only I had more mathematics!’ The French composer Ravel’s last utterance was: ‘I still had so much music to write.’ American Inventor James Eads said, “I cannot die! I have not finished my work!”
According to Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them.” Not David. Acts 13:36 is his epitaph. “When David has served God’s purpose in his generation, he fell asleep.” Jesus set an example for us to follow. On the cross, he said, “It is finished.” He had accomplished the work the Father had sent him to do. May that be true of us!
2: a form of worship
In his best-selling book, What Color is Your Parachute?, author Richard Bolles says, “The story in the Gospels of Jesus going up on the mount and being transfigured before the disciples is to me a picture of what calling is all about: taking mundane tasks and figuring out how to transfigure them.” Transfiguring mundane tasks! That’s the message of I Corinthians 10:31 in a nutshell.
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”
We’re called to transfigure the mundane. What could be more mundane than eating and drinking? But the message of I Corinthians 10:31 is that even the most mundane tasks can be transfigured into an act of worship! In the words of Oswald Chambers, “It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God: but we have not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things.”
Barbara Glanz is a corporate trainer who does workshops for Fortune 500 companies. During one workshop with a supermarket chain, she talked about adding a personal signature to one’s work. She gave some examples and encouraged employees to come up with their own. About three weeks later she got a telephone call from Johnny, a grocery bagger in one of the stores who had Down syndrome. He told Barbara that he’d gone home from the conference and learned to use the computer. Each night he comes up with a “thought for the day,” prints out multiple copies, and drop them into customer’s grocery bags as they check out.
One month later, the manager of Johnny’s store called and said, “You won’t believe what happened today. When I went out on the floor this morning, the line at Johnny’s checkout was three times longer than any other line! I went ballistic yelling, ‘Get more lanes open!’ But the customers said, “No! We want to be in Johnny’s lane-we want the thought for the day.” The manager said, “One woman approached me and said, “I used to shop once a week, now I come here every time I go by because I want the thought for the day.” The manager ended the conversation by saying, “Who do you think is the most important person in our store? Johnny, of course!”
Three months later he called again and said, “Johnny has transformed the store. Now in the floral department, when they have a broken flower or an unused corsage they go out on the floor and find an elderly woman or little girl and pin it on them. We are having so much fun and so are our customers!”
What difference can a grocery bagger with Down Syndrome make? The answer is all the difference in the world.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven will pause to say, ‘There lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.”
3: a God-ordained calling
According to Dorothy Sayers, the church has allowed “religion and work to become separate departments.” She said, “Christian people must get it firmly in their heads that when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work, that is as true a vocation as though he or she was called to specifically religious work.” We must not forget that the secular vocation is sacred!
Read the Old Testament. Sure, you’ll find prophets and priests. But most of the heroes are worked in the political arena. Joseph and Daniel were Prime Ministers. Esther was a Queen. Nehemiah was a Governor. David was a King. God miraculously expanded their circles of influence.
The distinction between “sacred” and “secular” is a false dichotomy. Colossians 3:23 applies to every occupation. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”
Work is more than a job. It ought to be a God-given calling.
4: a strategic mission field
In his book, Roaring Lambs, Bob Briner reflects on missionary conventions he went to as a kid where children were challenged to commit themselves to missions. And that’s an awesome thing! Missionaries are heroes! But I agree with Briner when he says the same spirit needs to prevail in sending our children into culture-shaping professions like the entertainment industry, journalism, education, and politics. He says, “I envision a whole generation who will lay claim to these careers with the same vigor and commitment that sent men like Hudson Taylor to China.” It’s all about seeing the workplace as a strategic mission field. Briner says, “The church needs writers, performers, artists, speakers, politicians, businessmen, and workers in every craft and trade.”
Fully devoted followers of Christ, living out their faith Monday to Friday, are the evangelists of the 21st century.
“Why not believe that one day the most critically acclaimed director in Hollywood could be an active Christian? Why not hope that the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting could go to a Christian journalist on staff at a major daily newspaper? It is really too much of a stretch to think that a major exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art could feature the works of an artist on staff at one of our Christian colleges? Am I out of my mind to suggest that your son or daughter could be the principle dancer for the Joffrey Ballet Company, leading a weekly Bible study for other dancers in what was once considered a profession that was morally bankrupt?”
Bob Briner says, “I don’t think so.” And neither do I!
The church needs to be more “work-centered” and less “church-centered.” Our focus ought to be on helping people live out their faith in the workplace Monday through Friday. Tim Downs says, “Work is where life is played out. Our co-workers come to the office each day with struggling marriages, rebelling children, financial worries, health scares, and a thousand other cares and concerns that can’t be left in the driveway when they leave for work each morning.”
Final Thought
Luke 19 records the story of a tax collector named Zacchaeus who decided to take God to work. “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” What is Zacchaeus saying? He’s saying, “I’m going to change the way I work. I’m going to redeem the workplace. I’m going to transfigure the way I do mundane tasks. I’m going to worship God at work.” In a nutshell, “I’m taking God to work.” And Jesus response? “Today salvation has come to this house.”
“The single best instrument of influence for a follower of Jesus in the marketplace,” say Graves and Addington, “is individual ethical behavior, day in and day out, in decisions large and small.”