The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. --John 10:10 NRSV
Maybe it’s because I’m passed the middle in middle age and have begun the second half of my life, but whether it's because of my age or something else, I’ve been thinking about “work” lately. I’ve worked in a variety of places and done a variety of work, and I’ve been thinking about what parts of my work have meant the most to me.
For many (most?) of humanity, work is a matter of survival and procuring the necessities of shelter, food, medical care, raising children, etc. For those of us who live in the middle class and above, work is more than just survival; it’s also about purpose and identity. If one is privileged enough to have a choice in where one works, then why one works becomes a significant question.
In our culture, just think about the words we use to describe our employment:
Earn a living/make a living--I assume this originated when most people needed to earn enough to survive, but if survival is not the only need, how one lives matters as much as that one lives.
Profession--One’s field of work is called the same word we use to mean a statement of belief, something central to one’s identity.
Vocation--It literally means calling, but is every job a calling? Can one’s calling be something other than a job? Can one’s job be a way of financially supporting one’s calling?
The words we use to talk about our jobs raise questions; such as, when we think about what we “do for a living” are we really talking about living?
Frederick Buechner expresses the question of “life” verses “doing something for a living” this way:
Jobs are what people do for a living, many of them for eight hours a day, five days a week, minus vacations, for most of their lives. It is tragic to think how few of them have their hearts in it. They work mainly for the purpose of making money enough to enjoy their moments of not working
If one must spend around 40-plus years of their life working at least five out of the seven days of the week for around fifty weeks a year--a huge chunk of their one and only life, shouldn’t that work be about really living instead of working for the weekend or the next vacation?
The great writer and interviewer Studs Terkel once wrote in his amazing book of interviews titled Working:
“Working is a lot more than economics. It's about a search for daily meaning as well as for daily bread, for recognition as well as cash; in short, for a sort of life, rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
Living instead of dying? I think I’ve heard something about that before.
Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” In context in the tenth chapter of John, Jesus describes himself as the gate to a sheep pen. Anyone that doesn’t enter the pen by the gate is a thief who comes only to destroy. In other words, the abundant life Jesus offers comes through him, or more precisely with God, the giver of life. Christians have spiritualized these words to make them only about getting to heaven or about believing proper doctrine, but especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus is talking about the sort of life one lives here and now. This abundant life is not about being right, as opposed to others who don’t share your beliefs, but about connection with God and being the one and only you, the one created in God’s image, the only you there ever will be.
I know a school secretary, a position that can be rather thankless, who cares deeply about the kids who enter the school office every day. She knows which kids don’t have enough food to eat. She knows which kids are homeless. She knows which kids have a rough home life. All these kids struggle in school. She watches over them all and is a rare adult in their lives who is invested in each of them.
I know a manager of housekeeping at a hospital. In the hierarchy of hospital management, housekeeping is not "sexy" like nurses, doctors or executives. Most of the workers are immigrants and many speak English as a second or third language. Yet the work they do in the hospital is essential--as we see during this pandemic. Their manager views his job not only as keeping the hospital sanitary but also as being an advocate for the employees he supervises. They are often invisible to the rest of the hospital staff but no less worthy of having a good boss.
I know a Human Resources Director who daily works through conflicts between employees. She views company policies as a way to protect the rights and dignity of all employees, not just the ones at the top. She sees her job as teaching people how to act, speak and communicate in ways that create respect and shared solutions to inevitable problems. For her, human resources isn’t about bureaucracy or filling out forms but rather improving the lives of the people with whom she works.
In each of these cases, the job is about more than punching a clock, earning money and surviving until the weekend. There is something more happening, something less tangible and more spiritual, something less temporal and more eternal. These examples illustrate people using their gifts given to them by God and living out of the image of God inside of them. They are offering their authentic selves to a world drowning in the inauthentic and superficial. They are earning a living while also living.
If you are starting out on your career, what is it that is holy about your chosen field? How do you make a difference in other people’s lives?
If you are in mid-life, what about your employment journey thus far has been the most meaningful, let the answers to that question guide your next steps along the way.
If you are retired, what did you learn from your years of working that can be shared with your kids, grandkids and younger people searching for living and not just earning a living? What was meaningful about the work you did that you can do now as a volunteer or mentor?
We only get one life, and if we are going to spend a big chunk of it working, shouldn’t earning a living involve really living?
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples
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