Covid-19 and the Kingdom of God
“A billion people will lose their jobs over the next 10 years due to AI, and if anything COVID has accelerated that by about nine years.”
- Gabe Dalporto, CEO of Udacity [i]
“I really think this is the new normal—the pandemic accelerated what was going to happen anyway.”
- Rob Thomas, Senior Vice-President of Cloud and Data Platform at IBM [ii]
I write this in the middle of a pandemic, the most serious health hazard that has happened in the eight decades of my lifetime. Nobody knows whether we are in the late beginning, the middle, or a lull before the virus has a chance to infect many more of the earth’s billions. Epidemiologists say it may take three or more years to eradicate it from the planet even with a vaccine. Meanwhile for seasons at least churches meet online or in small groups like “kingdom companions” (Rev. 1:9), hidden like yeast folded into the dough or like salt seasoning the meat of society. Jesus himself said, “The coming of the kingdom is not something that can be observed” (Luke 17:20)—a fascinating text in the light of empty and largely unused church buildings. Alongside churches meeting online today there is work. And the effect on work, workers and the workplace is enormous. It may lead to a paradigm shift. Possibly it has already.
Workers are Impacted in a Pandemic
For workers there is massive unemployment with some governments offering subsidies to people and businesses which may require decades of taxation to repay, passing the debt down to the next generation. The hardest hit are the marginally employed, the hospitality and travel industries, those in the gig economy, and the poor. For many in the world it means no food and no shelter.
Work is Impacted in a Pandemic
For work the changes are enormous and perhaps not temporary. Meanwhile the front-line health and safety workers continue. They and other “essential” workers are wearing masks and sophisticated protective gear. During the height of the pandemic, plumbers invaded our Vancouver apartment for an entire month to replace the worn out plastic pipes. These workers struggled to get enough oxygen for their vigorous manual work as they breathed through their masks.
Some jobs will never be recovered. But new ones will be invented. Working alone will be very common. Higher order skills, like those of technicians, will be demanded. Flexibility will be an essential job requirement. Many will experience periods of unemployment or underemployment. In place of long-term reliable positions there will be the scramble of short-term employment. [iii] Retraining and upskilling will be more in demand creating more opportunities in the training and education industry, and much of it will be online. But most of all entrepreneurial and creative skills will be needed.
In his ground-breaking book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink notes, “Last century, machines proved they could replace human backs. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains… Any job that depends on routines… is at risk.” [iv] Noting the emergence of 5G technology, AI and big data, Andre Chen, the CEO of Denham Jeans, recently asked a group of young adults in China, “How can you be better than a robot?” [v] It is a very good and important question to which we will return. [vi]
Workplaces are Impacted in a Pandemic
Then there is the workplace. All but essential workers are working at home amidst the clutter of family and domestic realities. But many will never come back to the office, or if they do, they will meet occasionally in shared office spaces or in “phone booth offices” which provide noiseless privacy for meetings. Some massive office buildings may become ghost workplaces and may be repurposed. For millions of people, the workplace is currently their delivery van. Factories will be retooled, many with more robots. But can restaurants and pubs be profitable if social distancing is enforced? A local restaurant owner whose establishment has remained open advised me last month that he was, at the height of the “first wave,” down to 20% income and a month ago is back to 50%. [vii] With the “second wave” it will be down again. And might there be a third wave?
Is this a good time to think about the theology of work and the emergence of the kingdom of God when there are so many unemployed or underemployed, and so many wondering whether work itself has a future? [viii]
5 Reasons This is the Best Time for Christians to Work
Why work anyways? Now, in the middle of a pandemic, is the best time ever to work. Why? Here are five reasons:
We were created to work
First, we are forced to think about work. Work is an essential part of our God-given, image-of-God laden humanity (Gen. 1:27-28). We were created God-like to work and whether we work for money or as a volunteer we are designed to work. I would also argue that we are designed to work even until we die.
We love our neighbour through our work
Second, we now see that work is a practical way of loving our neighbour (and loving God). Our life purpose, if Jesus is to be believed, is to love God and love our neighbour. Our neighbour needs to be loved, even today, especially today when we maintain social distancing.
Work brings us meaning
Third, while many people are now short of money, we are also experiencing a loss of meaning that comes from daily work. Daniel Pink says, that “meaning is the new money.” [ix] To be denied work is to be robbed of part of our life’s meaning. And finding meaning in our work seems more important than being remunerated—well, at least in much of the world. The well documented move at midlife from seeking success to seeking significance is witness to this. [x]
Spiritual formation happens as we work
There are spiritual reasons for the critical role of work in human flourishing and this our fourth point. Work is, as Eugene Peterson famously said, “the primary location for our spiritual formation.” [xi] It is where we grow in faith and spirit. [xii]
Our ability to bring innovation to work is desperately needed during this season
Fifth, especially in times of massive social disruption what is needed is innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. This may be especially true in the continuing and post-COVID gig economy as well as in the large, and possibly government controlled enterprises. We must find new ways of producing products and rendering service. Human beings will continue to have need to be served by human beings, possibly more extremely as robots and AI replace so many contemporary service functions. Formal and informal neighbouring, friendship and counselling will become critically important.
And this innovation of new work is something which the Christian way is uniquely capable of inspiring. The Christian faith inspires creativity and design. This is based on a great promise of God (leading to human flourishing), based on the revelation that the will of God is not merely a divine fiat but is an empowering purpose inspiring initiative, and, finally, based on the fact that humankind, in the light of God’s grace, is encouraged to embrace risk. [xiii]
Surveying the social achievements of the Christian church a Canadian pastor, decades ago, noted that we have done our best work in history not as an ambulance for the victimized, though that is needed. We have done that well, especially today, [xiv] but our best work was done as pioneers. Writing in 1930 E.H. Oliver said:
The church must be a pioneer, and never cease to be pastor. It must seek out fields of helpfulness and have the courage to tread a new path of service. It must inaugurate and initiate. By all means it must avoid rigidity…. And it ought never to withdraw from any service whatever, without first making sure that it has left its spirit there to those who carry on the work. [xv]
Where Is the Kingdom Now?
So where is the kingdom of God in the midst of a pandemic? Right here, and yet still coming. The kingdom is the rule of the sovereign (God) and the response of people. It’s like iron filings lining up with the pull of a magnet. So, on one hand Jesus through his death, resurrection and ascension has been enthroned as the heavenly king. But on the other hand, he has not yet returned to bring his kingdom to complete consummation. [xvi]
Living with the tension of "here and not yet here" and "now and but also coming" is indispensable to healthy faith. We must never live and serve as though the kingdom were a dream of utopia in some distant day. But neither must we live and serve as though the complete kingdom can be realized in our present experience. We live in the overlap of the ages, the old and the new world. Until Christ comes again we will experience the reality of both ages, but we must choose to live in the light of new age. The thin wedge of God's rule has been driven into this age as we wait for, and "speed" the consummation of the kingdom when Christ will introduce a new heaven and a new earth.
The kingdom is in people, situations, workplaces and even nations, but usually hidden. Nevertheless the kingdom is bringing human flourishing, renewal and hope. So in the middle of a pandemic we can actually work in the kingdom, even in our homes, whether it not we are remunerated. We can be a sign, servant and sacrament of the kingdom even as we deal with the effects of the pandemic. And not just “even as” we deal with a pandemic but “in the way” we deal with the pandemic. And we can find ways of loving our neighbour as ourselves even while keeping a safe distance from them.
References:
[i] Quoted in Alana Semuels, “Fewer Jobs, More Machines: In the Pandemic Economy, Humans are Being Left Behind,” Time, August 17-24, 2020, 71.
[ii] Semuels, “Fewer Jobs,” Time, 66.
[iii] “The most thoughtful consumer companies say, ‘Employee for now, customers for life.’” Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild,quoted in, Semuels, “Fewer Jobs,” Time, 71.
[iv] Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future(New York: Riverhead Books, 2005/6), 44.
[v] Reported in a Zoom interview August 13, 2020.
[vi] The Canadian Broadcasting System (CBC) has posted on the web several articles on work during the pandemic including “Working from home: How COVID-19 could cause a new digital divide,” “Teens struggle to balance school, family, work amid COVID-19,”“Pandemic threatens to wipe out decades of progress for working mothers,” and Post-COVID-19 economy will put people back to work, but it won’t be in all the same jobs.”
[vii] Only U Café, Vancouver.
[viii] Earlier Jeremy Rifkin wrote on this theme about the displacement of human labour in The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era (1995). More recently Daniel Susskind of Oxford University has penned, A World Without Work: Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond (2020).
[ix] Pink, A Whole New Mind, 61.
[x] Bob Buford, Half Time: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
[xi] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), 127.
[xii] See R. Paul Stevens and Alvin Ung, Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Work Sins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2010), available in Chinese, Korean, German and Mongolian.
[xiii] This is implicit in the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30) and the Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:11-27) and magnificently explained in Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk(New York: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 1996/8).
[xiv] The Asian Theological School in Manila organized staff, faculty and students to take essentials (food, masks, soap and disinfectants)to people in the local prisons where these essentials were missing.
[xv] Edmund H. Oliver, The Social Achievements of the Christian Church(Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 1930/2004), 176. Oliver in the final section on “The Present Trend and the Present Issue” outlines (1)[The Church] must exercise its age-long prophetic vocation and serve as conscience to Society. (2) It must educate and inspire. (3) The Church must be pioneer, and never cease to be pastor. (4) The Church must study, and it must seek rather to prevent than to cure. (5) The Church must transform the helped into helpers. 176-177.
[xvi] France masterfully analyses Jesus' use of the "son of man" language in the gospel of Mark and concludes that while there is not a complete divorce of enthronement and parousia language in relation to Daniel 7, the primary meaning of Jesus' statement about the coming of the Son of Man is to his own enthronement at the inauguration of his kingdom rather than its completion at the time of his second coming. Thus France proposes we view the coming of kingdom as a process rather than a simple event. R.T. France, Divine Government: God’s Kingship in the Gospel of Mark (London: SPCK, 1990), 75-84.
