Blessing God Through Work and Worship
“Man was placed in Paradise...that he would till the land not in servile labor but with a spiritual pleasure befitting his dignity.”[1]
“Monday work [is] an extension of Sunday worship. Sunday worship is not a “moment” of worship; it is the beginning of a whole week of worship.”[2]
To me the most amazing thing about worship is that through it we actually bless God. That is, God is not the Unmoved Mover of Greek philosophy but a Moveable Mover, one who is actually blessed, moved, through our words and deeds. And, secondly, the most amazing thing about our work in the marketplace is this: through it we can bless God. God is affected by our work as Jesus notes in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. In this passage Jesus receives our work (Matt 25:35-46), through our making a product, offering a service, whether that service is a meal or a deal, a voice or an invoice, an operation or a cooperation.
In this article we are considering just how our work can be worship, as well as how our worship in the gathered life of the church can make the connection between Sunday and Monday. We do this in the light of our definition of marketplace theology, adapting the pithy definition of William Perkins in the 18th century to read: “Marketplace theology is the science of working blessedly forever.” Previously we have considered what marketplace theology does and how it does it, through the head (thought), the heart (prayer) and the hand (practice), being together the ways that the Western church, Eastern church and Asian church, respectively, mainly do theology. So, Nicholas Wolterstorrf makes this seminal statement:
Theologies of work matter, but they need to be sung and prayed. We need to find ways for our theologies of work to inhabit more than our brains—they need to enter our bones…. An integrated life is not an intellectual achievement, an all-of-a-sudden eureka moment of theological discovery…. The fabric of faith and work needs to be slowly and intentionally woven back together over a lifetime of prayer and worship.[3]
But that is not all that is needed to gain a theology.
We have been insisting that a wholistic theology of the marketplace needs to be done “from above,” that is from the revealed truths about God and God’s purposes for life and applying them to work, worker and workplace. But it also needs to be done “from below,” starting with our concrete experiences of work, worker and workplaces. Previously we have explored “work” in Perkin’s definition. Work is energy expended purposively whether manual, mental or both, whether voluntary or remunerated. But in this article we are expounding one aspect of the “working blessedly” phrase, here specifically how we can bring blessing to God through our worship and work in the marketplace. This is in contrast with the situation where we “worship our work, work at our play, and play at our worship,” a nice turn of the phrase by Dahl.[4] We will see that through our work we bless God in the following ways:
• By being priests of creation
• By ruling as God’s sons and daughters
• By doing God’s work with God
• By doing our work God’s way
• By gathering for worship and mutual edification
Blessing God as Priests of Creation
God placed Adam and Eve in a sanctuary garden with the intent of continuous 24/7 communion through every life activity, including their work. They were priests of creation. So, Alexander Schmemann, the Orthodox theologian, has succinctly written:
“Homo sapiens,” “homo faber”… yes, but first of all, “homo adorans.” The first, the basic definition of man [sic] is that he is the priest. He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God—and by filling the world with this eucharist, he transforms his life, the one he receives from the world into life in God, into communion with Him. The world was created as the “matter,” the material of one all-embracing eucharist, and man was created as the priest of this cosmic sacrament.[5]
Priests are like two-way bridges between God and the world. They touch God (through intercession and worship) on behalf of people and places—the upward journey. And they touch people and places (through care, work, ministry and prayer) on behalf of God—the downward journey. I know a person in Montreal, Quebec, who runs a vacuum tube repair shop for high fidelity audio equipment and lovers of fine recorded music. His shop on Park Avenue is a place with the touch of God in it. He says, he speaks more about God in his shop than he does on Sunday when he serves as a tentmaking pastor.
Adam and Eve had three full-time jobs, the first being communion with God; the second is community-building, as he made them male and female in his image, built for community as God is a community of Father, Son and Spirit in a communion of love. But the third full-time job is co-creativity (or sub-creativity) because like God the worker the man and the woman were called to be workers. So, when God said to Adam and Eve, “fill the earth” (Gen 1:28) he did not mean merely to populate the earth—something we have manifestly already done. But he meant humankind to fill the earth with his glory, to take the sanctuary garden into the whole world. The sanctuary was a place of safety, beauty, prosperity and above all a place anointed with the presence of God. Adam and Eve were forced to leave the Garden by their expulsion—which was both judgment on their autonomous living and fulfillment of their calling. In the same way the people living on the plain of Shinar, building their Babel tower to reach the heavens were unwilling to fill the earth, hugging together as they did. Their confusion of language and their dispersion into the earth was, once again, both judgment and fulfilment. So, in Genesis the sanctuary Garden was in Eden, not as in Ezekiel where it is called “the Garden of Eden.” Eden was a larger reality, the home of humankind. But there is a still larger circle and it is the world, where there were other nations like Havilah where the gold is good (2:11). So, without saying these actual words Adam and Eve and their successors were to take the sanctuary into the world. And how were they to do it?
They were to accomplish this filling of the earth through their presence and their work. They were to lift up their whole lives as an offering to God, as Paul said in Romans 12:1-2 where he exhorts us to present our whole bodily life as an offering to God which is our spiritual worship. Yes, Adam and Eve sinned. Yes, they were thrust out of the Garden. But there is the beginning of redemption right there in the story in the provision of clothing to cover their nakedness with the blood-stained clothing from an animal, and the prophecy that the seed of woman would bruise the serpent’s head. And therefore those of us now living east of Eden, but having received substantial salvation through Christ, are offering ourselves in the totality of our lives in worship through unpacking the potential of creation, humanizing the earth and serving as priests of creation. It is important to note that the Hebrew word avodah means both “to work” and “to worship.” That word is used for both the horizontal (human work) and the vertical (worship of God). Human being are priests of creation, cultic officiants. Why and how?
Images (selamin) of the god were installed in the precincts in the Ancient Near East temples. The Garden was a temple sanctuary. But in this case the image of God was two living human beings, not merely a sacred object made of stone or precious metals.[6] Consequently as Alexander Schmemann cogently explains above humankind is not merely homo faber but homo adorans. But there is another dimension of humankind’s work-worship.
Blessing God by Ruling as Royal Sons and Daughters
Think of work as a way of ruling as we unpack the potential of creation, as we serve our neighbours near and far! Genesis 1-3 is critically important in this matter of work as worship. In the opening verse of these three chapters we find that God is a worker. Then we discover that God made human beings, male and female in his image (Gen 1:26). As John Bergsma shows the meaning of “in the image and likeness of God” is polyvalent, meaning it carries with it multiple meanings. It connotes kinship, kingship and cult.[7] In the previous section we dealt with the cult, how humankind is to function as priests of creation. Here we see how Adam and Eve were kins of God, that is sons of God, as Genesis 5:6 indicates. They were at the same time kings and queens as indicated by the use of the words “subdue” (kabas, 1:28) and “rule” (rada, 1:26,28). As royal sons and as vice-regents Adam and Eve were to imitate and even participate in the work of their Father God. As Bergsma says, “Human work is a royal work, not slavery to the gods [as in the mythology and religion of the Ancient Near East where the gods created human slaves to do their dirty work] or [slavery] to a divinized environment [as in Egyptian religion].”[8] It is often noted that in the text of Genesis chapter two where the creation story is restated, two words are used: to “work” (abad) the earth, and “guard” or “take care of” (samar) the earth (Gen 2:15). These are the exact words used of the Levites in Numbers 3:7 who were called to guard the congregation before the tent of meeting and to do the work of the tabernacle. In other words, there was to be no distinction between their work and worship. But the fall changed all that.
After Adam and Eve broke their covenant relationship with God[9] through disobedience Adam was told to “work the soil,” no longer guarding the sanctuary, a task that was given to the Cherubim. The first pair were driven out of the Garden. Adam’s mission was not secularized but desacralized. But a saviour figure emerges in the narrative in Noah who “experiences the flood as an act of re-creation”[10] and who offers an acceptable sacrifice after the flood (Gen 8:20-22). God is on the move to redeem humankind and humankind’s work. As Bergsma notes: The “central theme of Exodus [is] the restoration to Israel of the priestly status, whereby their labor will no longer be the profane slavery to Pharoah, but will be the divine service given to the Lord. The original unity of work and worship in the garden is restored to Israel along with the construction of the tabernacle as a portable Eden.”[11] In Leviticus the priestly duty, which was intended to be a whole people ministry is taken over by the Levites rather than the whole of Israel though the whole people was in view. That is, the Levites were to equip the people for their corporate ministry as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). Even in that, in Israel’s subsequent history the nation was “largely unsuccessful in in fulfilling a corporate priestly role.”[12] This brings us to the New Testament.
Christ reunited the royal and the priestly roles. Every work of Jesus is holy and “like that of the priests, he and his disciples may work on the Sabbath as the priesthood does (Matt 12:1-8).”[13] Christ’s Father is still working, as Jesus says in John 5:17 and Jesus says that he is still working. So Paul in writing to the Colossian slaves and masters says that “it is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col 3:24) thus commanding them to “reverence” (3:22) the Lord (read “worship”) while their do even menial work. They were to work for the audience of one, the Lord, with all their hearts.
So work in Christ is now a blessing of God, a priestly and royal act, which is pleasing to God and exalts God as the owner of creation and the proper object of all we do in this world. We are to extend, with Adam and Eve, the sanctuary in the world and we do this through our priestly and royal roles. We do this not only by worshipping God in the formal sanctuary but also in the sanctuary of the world, albeit mixed with deconstruction and defamation. So work is a sacrament and men and women in the workplace are offering their work-service to God and neighbour as a sweet and pleasing gift. There is no such thing as secular work for the Christian. They either view their work as a sacrament with themselves as royal priests offering up their work to God or they are defaming their work. For the Christian, secular work is impossible. So, dualism, namely that some work, such as the work of pastors and missionaries is holy and other work, such as we do in the marketplace or home, is secular is patently, indeed terribly wrong. It may be the worst heresy around in the global church today. Why? Because God’s people as a whole are doing the work of the Lord, not only as royal priests or priestly royalty because amazingly they work with God.
Blessing God by Doing God’s Work With God
Years ago Robert Banks crafted a book on God the Worker in which he shows that the work God does, as revealed in Scripture is all encompassing, from creating the world to bringing new creation into it. But in a recent book Banks expands his earlier treatment of the work of the Lord to show how human beings enter into God’s on-going work, not merely copying God, or using God as a model but actually participating in God’s ongoing work. Banks does this by outlining the characteristics of God’s work, the dimensions, descriptions and purposes of the divine worker.[14] This does not mean that the work God performed or work we do are exactly the same. God acts in ways that are both qualitatively and quantitatively larger, deeper, and more complex than anything we can do. However, our categories of work are built on what he does, restricted by our human imitations and flawed by our ingrained sinfulness. So, what we do is not simply an indirect reflection of what God does but one of the ways through which God actually accomplishes his work. He draws us in as participants in his ongoing creative, providential, judicial, revelatory, and redemptive work in the world. He makes us collaborators in fulfilling his everyday and ultimate purposes.[15]
For example, in Psalm 127 the Psalmist says, “unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain” (127:1). I built a few houses in my carpentry days. But, I confess, I only partly realized that I was building them with God, that God was showing us how to lay out the foundation, how to arrange the floor joists, how to erect the walls and the roof trusses? One of my students owns a business in Asia that is quite large. He writes his reflection for our Money Matters course at Regent in the following:
I have been contemplating selling my “worldly secular business” and going into more “sacred and holy” calling of ministry for years and have almost succeeded twice. By the intervention of God, it did not go through. I thank God for that, for now I understand my work is my ministry! I have thousands of direct and indirect employees to take care of, I have millions of customers to satisfy. I have so many problems when running the business that I need to come to God and pray for his power and guidance daily. God has put me into this position of relying on him to bring out blessings to so many lives and making changes to the industries that I have never thought of….
First of all, I am working with God and for his great pleasure and not for myself. Before I realized that, I had rarely come to God for his guidance for my work, for I have been relying on my own strength. I thought he is not really interested in what I do for a living, but more interested in my spiritual health. Now I learned to come to Him for guidance for all my decisions because he is the Lord of all aspects of my life!
Secondly, I need to work diligently and let my work glorify his name! I will continue to innovate and set the standards in the bento industry in Taiwan. I will continue to pay my employees with fair and decent salaries to honor their work and take care of their families. I will provide training and entrepreneurial opportunities for them to own their shops to further improve their living standards and personal dignity. I will use the highest standard ingredients possible and provide the best bento in Taiwan for my customers with reasonable price. I will set up shops in those places that are less well served in rural Taiwan to serve more customers.[16]
Frank is worshipping God through his work!
Scripture frequently speaks of working with God, not just in ministry situations but in daily work. In Genesis 4:1 Eve says, “with the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.” Take, for example, the situation with Bezalel, the craftsman who worked on the tabernacle. He was filled with the Spirit to work in metal and fabrics (Exod 31:1-11). Daniel, in his political career in Babylon, frequently spoke of how God gave him the answer for occupational riddles, such as the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 2) and the writing on the wall which left the later king Belshazzar pale and worried (Dan 5). Then there is Joseph in Egypt who interpreted Pharoah’s dreams and became vice regent for all of Egypt during the seven years of plenty to be followed by the seven years of famine (Gen 41). Jacob, his father, tells his wives that God gave him a dream that enabled him to breed multicoloured animals on his father-in-law’s ranch, and to do so in a big way (Gen 31:10-13). Yes, some of these were crisis situations, which believers in Jesus would face and for which Jesus said that, “when they arrest you, do not worry what you say or how you are to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matt 10:19-20). Then there was the crisis faced by the apostle Paul on his way to Rome to be tried by Caesar, when he was given a message from God in the middle of a life-threatening storm, that while the ship would be wrecked, not a life will be lost (Acts 27:23-5).[17] But what about the humdrum work of making tents, which Paul, Aquila and Priscilla did, or selling fabric in Europe which Lydia did, or making clothing as Dorcas did, or fishing as some of the disciples did?
God does chores. He keeps gravity running. He keeps the earth circling the sun. Therefore Jesus, in responding to the criticism that he had healed a man on the sabbath said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). Does God only work in spectacular healings? Does God only work in saving souls? Does not God work in creation, in sustaining people and systems, in transformation and consummation, as God tells Job when he finally speaks to him (Job 38-41)? As Leon Morris says in his commentary on the John passage, “Jesus repudiates the thought that the divine rest from Creation took the form of idleness.”[18] C.H. Dodd, quoting a Hermetic saying notes that “God is not idle, else all things would be idle, for all things are full of God.”[19] So the intertestamental book Ecclesiasticus says that we earth-bound workers “tend to the fabric of this world, and their prayer is the practice of their trade” (38:34). Yes, doing our work for God is a great thing. But doing our work with God is even greater for it affirms that bidden or not God is with us working with us. God as creator invites people to invent new things, start new businesses, design new computer programmes, and write new music with him! God the sustainer invites people to make meals with him, to sweep floors with him, to put out the garbage with him, to make a home with him, and to work in politics providing infrastructure so a nation or a city might thrive. God the redeemer invites us to fix things, transform things and people not just in imitation of what he does—as though we could—but with him, fixing cars, setting broken bones and preaching. And God the consummator invites educators, pastors and journalists to show where things are going. Working with God is a way of worshipping him. But the manner of our work is significant.
Blessing God by Doing the Work God’s Way
The kingdom of God is God’s rule in all of life here now, especially embodied in the person, teaching and work of Jesus and his followers, and to be coming fully at the Second Coming of Jesus.[20] So working with kingdom values modelled by Jesus pleases God and is part of our worship of him. The Gospels and the earthly story of Jesus reveal these values. On the practicality of these values Nicholas Wolterstorff asks a probing question "Can we entirely alter what we do, so that here and now we practice the occupations of heaven? Of course not. Can we somewhat alter what we do, so that our occupations come closer to becoming our God-issued vocation? Usually, yes."[21] Here are some of the values of the kingdom.
Grace and Generosity: Forgiveness and accountability means giving people a second chance, going the second mile (Matt 18:21-35). Jesus said in answer to Peter about the limits of forgiveness, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (18:21), meaning beyond calculation. “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well” (5:41); such is the generosity expected of followers of Jesus.
Integrity in Word and Deed: Letting your yes be yes. Your word is your bond. “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’,” says Jesus, “anything beyond this comes from the evil one” (Matt 5:37). This means the inner and outer life are in synch. Integrity with the kingdom of God means that one is not doubleminded, or hypocritical.
Fairness and Justice: Doing the right thing in employee relationships, compensation, purity of product, and the handling of money (Acts 5-6). This means employee justice, product justice, pay justice, and profit justice.[22]
Extraordinary Service: We are to go beyond mere duty (Col 4:1). In Luke 17:7-10 Jesus says, “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Boundary-Breaking Behavior: In Luke 5:27-31 we read, “A large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.” Jesus and the disciples were in the house of Levi. When Jesus was criticized for associating with such people he responded, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” This means inclusion, welcoming people who are different. Miroslav Volf, in his Exclusion and Embrace:
We need the grand vision of life filled with the Spirit of God. We need reminders that the impossible is possible: we can and we will communicate with one another while we each speak our own languages; submerged voices will prophesy boldly and closed eyes will be opened to see visions; the needs of all will be met because none of us will call our things only our own. But along with the grand visions we need stories of small successful steps of learning to live together even when we do not quite understand each other’s language, even when we suppress each other’s voices, and even when we still cling too much to our own possessions and rob the possessions of others.
The grand vision and the small steps will together keep us on a journey toward genuine justice between cultures. As we make space in ourselves for the perspectives of the other on this journey, in a sense we have already arrived at the place where the Spirit was poured out on all flesh. And as we desire to embrace the other while we remain true to ourselves and to the crucified Messiah, in a sense we already are where we will be when the home of God is established among mortals."[23]
Stewardship and Empowerment: This means treasuring the gifts of others, caring for creation, developing an empowering organizational culture (Matt 25:14-30), releasing other people’s gifts and talents, and helping others to thrive in service. This is the primary work of pastors, as stated in Ephesians 4:11-12: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastor and teachers, to equip his people for works of service [ministry].” In Luke 19:11-27 in the Parable of the Minas the servants of the king are told to be pragmatic, to put their money (and their talents) to work. They were rewarded with more work in the kingdom.
Shalom and Being Socially Responsible: This is neighbour love personally and socially (Matt 22:39). My pastor wrote this in the church newsletter:
From my reading of scripture, peace or shalom does not simply mean the absence of war. Susan Perlman of Jews for Jesus makes this observation, “The ancient Hebrew concept of peace, rooted in the word ‘shalom’, meant wholeness, completeness, soundness, health, safety and prosperity, carrying with it the implication of permanence. How is this possible with such a diverse group of people with ancient grievances that span generations?”[24]
In the same article, Susan Perlman quotes Rabbi Robert I. Kahn of Houston, Texas, who points out the difference between "Roman" peace and "Hebrew" shalom, he writes:
One can dictate a peace; shalom is a mutual agreement.
Peace is a temporary pact; shalom is a permanent agreement.
One can make a peace treaty; shalom is the condition of peace.
Peace can be negative, the absence of commotion. Shalom is positive, the presence of serenity.
Peace can be partial; shalom is whole.
Peace can be piecemeal; shalom is complete.”[25]
Joy: Experiencing a God-infusion of exuberance and well-being that is not dependent on circumstances—some have called this “fun” in the workplace (Phil 4:4).[26] There is the joy of working, the joy of working for love of one’s family, or for the love of our nation. But the ultimate joy is working in the joy of the Lord for the “joy of the Lord is your strength” said Nehemiah (Neh 8:10).
But I am left with a question having enumerated these challenging values: how do we get to live and work this way? This is where the gathered life of the people of God comes in.
Blessing God by Gathering for Worship and Mutual Edification
Why does Paul not mention that Christians are to gather specifically to worship? My friend, Robert Banks offers an answer:
One of the most puzzling features of Paul’s understanding of ekklesia for his contemporaries, whether Jews or Gentiles, must have been his failure to say that a person went to church primarily to ‘worship’. Not once in all his writings does he suggest that this is the case. Indeed it could not be, for he held a view of ‘worship’ that prevented him from doing so . . . . [27]
Banks continues note that, drawing on Romans 12:1-2,
the spiritual or rational ‘worship’ (latreia) that Christians are called upon to make requires them to offer (parastesai) their whole selves, bodies included, as a living sacrifice (thusia), dedicated (hagia) and acceptable to him…. Since all places and times have now become the venue for worship, Paul cannot speak of Christians assembling in church distinctively for this purpose. They are already worshipping God, acceptably or unacceptably, in whatever they are doing. While this means that when they are in church they are worshipping as well, it is not worship but something else that marks off their coming together from everything else that they are doing.[28]
So, offers Banks, what is the purpose of the gathered life? “The purpose of the [gathered] church is the growth and edification of its members into Christ and into a common life through their God-given ministry to one another (1 Cor 14:12,19,26)…. The most general form of meeting, however, centred around the eating of a meal and the exercise of ministry to each other’s benefit.”[29] So in First Thessalonians Paul says, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (5:11). This is mutual edification. And one important area with which we need to mutual edify one another is where and how we spend most of our waking hours. Sadly, I observe that most gathered-life worship has become abstracted from the dispersed life of the church. The actual service is often a performance from the front with actual mutual edification taking place, if at all, before the service starts in the narthex or foyer, as people talk, and sometimes afterwards, where people share their lives, pray for one another and encourage each other. Why not design the gathered life community around mutual edification in the context of worship? That is precisely the proposal made by a recent book by Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson, entitled, Work and Worship: Reconnecting our Work and Liturgy.
Their vision is the integration of faith and work through a lifetime of prayer and worship. Note the emphasis on “lifetime.” They envision awakening people to their integral role in the mission of God through their daily vocation. But they see Sunday as “worship starters,” launching people into a week of worship.[30] They unearth the real meaning of liturgy, which is the “work of service on half of the people” and, quoting another author, they note that “liturgy [is] work for the common good [and is thus] a form of participation in the mission of God.”[31] They note that the Israelites “did not think their way into an integrated life; they worshipped their way into it.”[32][33] But they offer that the well-meaning and increasingly popular phrase, “your work is worship” is “vulnerable to a dangerous misinterpretation.”
The misinterpretation goes something like this: if all my work is worship then why do I need to gather for corporate worship? Kaemingk and Willson offer a cogent response. What if in corporate worship, such as that provided by Psalm 73, “we are able to peer through he cluttered economy of the world to see the deeper—and truer—economy of God?”[34] Then , quoting Walter Brueggemann, they affirm that corporate “worship models an alternative world of sanity that prevents Israel from succumbing to the seductive insanities of a world raging against the holiness of Yahweh.”[35] So these two authors offer in closing a number of practices that connect the world of work with the world of worship.
One practice is the Lord’s Table where we bring the fruit of our hands and even the fruits of the industrial process to the Lord in an act of thanksgiving.[36] To this point Alexander Schmemann offers a salient remark: “Just as Christianity can—and must—be considered the end of religion, so the Christian liturgy in general, and the eucharist in particular are indeed the end of cult, of the ‘sacred’ religious act isolated from, and opposed to, the ‘profane’ life of the community.”[37] Schmemann continues: “We offered the bread in remembrance of Christ because we know that Christ is Life, and all food, therefore, must lead us to Him. And now when we receive this bread from His hands, we know that he has taken up all of life, filled it with Himself, and made it what it was meant to be: communion with God, sacrament of His presence and love.”[38]
Another integrating practice is preparing worship that gathers workers, through such things as worker’s testimonies.[39] But they also brilliantly propose corporate worship that scatters workers, through placing photos of members in their workplace setting, mapping where people work, asking where they will be and what they will be doing tomorrow at ten o’clock. Most controversially but strategically, they suggest commissioning workers for their scattered life occupations and not just pastors, missionaries and people going on short term mission trips.[40] The Institute for Marketplace Transformation offers free a “Pastor’s Toolbox” for developing the scattered life ministry of church members when they are gathered.[41]
So go to work to worship God. And join in the gathered life of the congregation to continue to worship, but also to be mutually edified in the integration of faith and work. I conclude with the summary of Kaemingk and Willson:
Through worship, these workers are reminded that profit, joy, and nourishment are part of God’s design for human work. Through worship, these workers are reminded that the purpose of work is to bless not simply themselves but all humanity and God as well. Through worship, these workers are reminded that God is intimately present with them in the fields and markets actively ‘perfecting’ their work with his ‘Word.’[42]
Or as Kaemingk and Willson say above, “Monday work [is] an extension of Sunday worship. Sunday worship is not a “moment” of worship; it is the beginning of a whole week of worship.”[43]
References:
[1] Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Vol 2, No. 42, Ancient Christian Writers, trans. John Hammond Taylor (New York: Newman Press, 46.
[2] Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson, Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 46.
[3][3] Quoted in Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, xi.
[4] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 3.
[5] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 15.
[6] John Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives and the Original Unity of Work and Worship in the Human Vocation,” in R. Keith Loftin and Trey Dimsdale, eds., Work: Theological Foundations and Practical Implications (London: SCM Press, 2018), 14.
[7] Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 14.
[8] Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 15.
[9] On the Adamic covenant see footnote 30 of Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 27.
[10] Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 19.
[11] Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 21.
[12] Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 22.
[13] Bergsma, “The Creation Narratives,” 23.
[14] Robert Banks, Transforming Daily Work into a Divine Vocation (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 10.
[15] Banks, Transforming Daily Work into a Divine Vocation, 14.
[16] Frank Lin, “Reflection Paper for Money Matters Course,” Regent College, Vancouver, BC, 2021.
[17] Other references in Scripture that suggest that God is involved in our work, or rather we are involved in his work include: Deut 28:12 (“The Lord…will bless the work of your hands”); Psa 90:17 (“May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.”); Eccl 11:5 (“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in the mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”); Isa 64:8 (“Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”); 1 Cor 12:11 (“All these [various Spirit services] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.”); 1 Cor 15:58 (“Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”); Col 1:28 (“To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.”); Col 3:23-4 (“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”); Heb 13:21 (“May [God] work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”).
[18] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 309.
[19] C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953), 20, quoted in Morris, The Gospel According to John, 309.
[20] For a fuller exposition of the kingdom of God see my The Kingdom in Working Clothes: The Marketplace and the Reign of God (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022).
[21] Nicholas Wolterstorrf, “More on Vocation”, Reformed Journal, Vol 29, No. 5, May 1979, 20-3, quoted in Gordon Preece, Changing Work Values: A Christian Response (Melborne: Acorn Press, 1995), 196-7.
[22] See Don Flow, “Profit,” in Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens, eds., The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 809-13.
[23] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 231.
[24] Susan Perlman, Jews for Jesus, August 27, 2018.
[25] Tom Mei, “Pastoral Letter,” May 23, 2021, West Point Grey Baptist Church, Vancouver, BC.
[26]See Dennis Bakke, Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job (Seattle: PVC, 2005).
[27] Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in their Historical Setting. Revised Edition (Peabody Mass.: Hendricksen, 1994), 88.
[28] Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, 89.
[29] Banks. Paul’s Idea of Community, 90.
[30] Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson, Work and Worship: Reconnecting our Labor and Liturgy (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 46.
[31] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 166-7.
[32] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 64.
[33] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 102.
[34] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 110.
[35] Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 665, quoted in Kaemingk and Wilkson, Work and Worship, 111.
[36] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 193-208.
[37] Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 25-6.
[38] Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 43.
[39] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 209-239.
[40] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 241-260. For commissioning people other than stated Christian workers, see also Jim Stockhard, “Commissioning Ministries of the Laity: How It Works and Why It Isn’t Being Done,” in George Peck and John F. Hoffman, eds., The Laity in Ministry: The Whole People of God in the Whole World (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1984), 71-9.
[41] https://imtglobal.org click on “Resources” and then “Pastor’s Toolbox” for tools to help pastors and church leaders equip their congregation in a lifegiving theology of work and to affirm that their Monday to Saturday work is valued by God.
[42] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 175, emphasis mine.
[43] Kaemingk and Willson, Work and Worship, 46.
