WORK: A Wholistic Approach—Head, Heart and Hands
“Even their seemingly secular works are a worship of God and an obedience well pleasing to God.”
Martin Luther[1]
“Every [believer] in his occupation or handicraft ought to be useful to his fellows, and serve them in such a way that the various trades are all directed to the best advantage of the community, and promote the well-being of body and soul, just as the organs of the body serve each other.”
Martin Luther[2]
“There is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a souter [cobbler], or an apostle, all are one, as touching the deed, to please God.”
William Tyndale[3]
Why compose another essay on work when the shelves (thankfully) fairly groan with new works every year on work, unlike my early years when there was very little? Here is the reason. We are concerned with a marketplace theology of work. And that means we are trying to gain an insight into the meaning of work and how work fits into the whole marketplace, that amazing system of give and take through exchange built into human life as I believe by the Creator. And more, as we have said in the opening article on “An Introduction to Marketplace Theology” that work can only be understood and lived when one approaches it wholistically, with head, heart and hands, like the Great Commandment itself (Matt 22:37). Most attempts at a theology of work are either theoretical—appealing to the mind—or descriptively practical. But here we mean to bring head, heart and hands together. But a word needs to be said about the larger project, the marketplace theology project, that we are attempting to provide, with its theology from above—starting with the revealed truths of God—and, unusually, theology from below—starting with concrete experiences of work and wrestling with them until we have found, in the light of God’s word, a God-sized perspective and spiritual and practical joy.
In this series of articles we are using a definition adapted from the seventh century Puritan, William Perkins: “theology is the science of living blessedly forever“.[4] Thus, Marketplace theology (involving thought, prayer and practice), is the science (involving investigation, inquiry and study), of working (the energy whether manual, mental or both expressed with the purpose of accomplishing something), blessedly (in the light of God’s purpose and his presence in our work, blessing neighbour, God and self), forever (taking the long view which extends to the new heaven and new earth).”
Our first article was an “Introduction to Marketplace Theology: Toward a Wholistic Science of Work, Worker and Workplace.” In it we affirmed that an integral Biblical marketplace theology involved thought (theoria), prayer (ora) and practice (praxis). It is hard to imagine how radical this view is because we have become acculturated to an applied theology as a discipline taught in seminaries to prepare people for their clerical duties in the church: apologetics, preaching, pastoral care, equipping, counselling and evangelism. But, as we have already seen (in article 1) if people ponder (think), pray and act reflectively on their life in the marketplace, not just in a linear way, but in a spiral of learning and growth (acting and reflecting, reflecting and acting, praying and acting, acting and praying) they are marketplace theologians—perhaps without knowing it! In the second article, “Toward a Theology of Doing” we expounded doing theology from below, starting with concrete experiences of work and workplace. But in these three articles we are doing marketplace theology in the three arenas of the marketplace: work, worker and workplace. But first we must clarify what we mean by our terms.
Work is energy expended, whether manual or mental, purposively—unlike play which simply has the enjoyment of the activity itself as the end goal. Work has as its goal an accomplishment. But actually the distinction between work and play is not that absolute and, as we shall see, later, it is possible to play at work just as we work at play.[5] In this essay we are dealing with work and approaching it from head, heart and hands. In the next we deal with the worker. The worker is just about everyone on the planet, it includes people who produce goods and services in factories and high tech workplaces, homes and daycares, churches and farms, whether for remuneration or voluntarily. The homemaker is a worker, just as is the CEO of a large corporation or a carpenter hammering nails. But the worker comes to work as a whole person, body and soul, a matter we will be exploring. Henry Ford, acknowledged to be the person who was responsible for the mass-produced automobile, complained that he was getting the whole person when all he wanted was a pair of hands. In a third essay we deal with the workplace. The workplace can be a home, factory, a village marketplace in rural Africa, office, field and farm, government office, medical clinic, and may also exist in cyberspace. But the workplace is influenced by systems of economics, governments, globalization and what Paul calls the principalities and powers including mammon. So, a marketplace theology must deal with work, worker and workplace, and to do so both from “top down” perspective—starting with the truth of God’s purpose for enterprise from Scripture—and also “bottom up” starting from concrete situations faced in daily work, or in the worker herself. And we will address the marketplace from the three perspectives of head, heart and hand—but beginning with work.
Most attempts at gaining a theology of work concentrate on one of the doctrines taught in systematic theology, such as Trinity, creation, fall, the Spirit, and the kingdom of God. These theologies are extracted from the categories of systematic theology and are outlined in the Introduction to my book, Work Matters with representative authors noted in the foot notes of that introduction.[6] But let us try the wholistic triad of head, heart and hands on for size.
Head: Toward a Thoughtful Theology of Work
A Brief History of Work
Over the last two centuries work has become a job. Australian ethicist Gordon Preece outlines the seismic shift that the job has caused in our understanding of ourselves, our world and even our God.[7] Whereas earlier generations did not usually “go to work” or “have a job” their work was mostly related to their household economy, whether as farmers or tradespeople. Even the apostle Paul, a tentmaking apostle, did not have a job. He was a self-employed tradesman who did not report to anyone. Indeed, in rural East Africa today I have seen a ninety-year-old grandmother carrying a few stalks of corn from the field to assist in the domestic (household) economy. She has not retired. This was not her job but she was working. Today the vast majority of people work for someone else and their work takes them away from home. And when they retire they no longer work (or think so). In the modern and post-modern world the hardest hit by the job-concept of work are the overworked, the unemployed, housewives, the forcibly retired and “the attention-deprived children.”[8] Until the job came along work was simply part of life. So, it is not surprising that the concept of a theology of work is a fairly recent development, coming into the Western world after the Second World War largely as a result of Roman Catholic theologians.[9] But how do we define work?
John Stott’s definition of work is as follows: “the expenditure of energy (manual, mental or both) in the service of others, which brings fulfilment to the worker, benefit to the community and glory to God.”[10] This is, in my view, a definition of good work, kingdom work, holy work. But, by this definition people working in a cigarette factory or making a product that is harmful to people or to the environment, might not be working at all. They are, I argue, doing bad work or are they simply engaging in a destructive activity, whereas a recycling dumpster dipper, a street cleaner, a volunteer helper in school are actually doing good work. But there is a further problem with work today, especially in the Western world: the disintegration of faith and work.
The sources for this disintegration are manifold. One source is the Greek cultural world that like a totally enveloping fog to the early Christians. In the Greek world work was called “unleisure” and reserved mostly for slaves. The article posted on our website by Dale Barkman on “Dualism and Work: The Greek Contribution” expands on this. The Greek city of Thebes apparently issued a decree that its citizens were forbidden to work. Who kept the city running? Slaves did the work and made the city thrive. Freed persons gave themselves to politics and friendship. So, the apocryphal wisdom of Ecclesiasticus, influenced by Greek thinking, exalted the scribe over the tradesperson, the contemplative over the person engaging in material action. The merchant or business person “can hardly remain without fault” (26:29) for “between buying and selling sin is wedged” (27:2). Sadly, this view is cherished by many Christians who exalt the pastor or missionary at the top of the holiness hierarchy, to be followed by people in the helping professions, with business people and politicians at the bottom. If people, it is thought are really serious about following Jesus they should quit their job, go to seminary and become a pastor. In the Middle Ages in the Western world Mary, the contemplative, is exalted over Martha, the active person. There was a temporary recovery of the dignity of ordinary work in the Protestant Reformation.
It is well known that Martin Luther, is reacting to medieval monasticism as a salvation machine, exalted the God-given dignity of ordinary work. What you do in your work in your own house, he would say, is just as if you did it to the Lord God in heaven. Whereas medieval Europe viewed only the priest, nun and monk as having a vocation, a calling from God, Luther insisted that everyone is called to their station in life. “Therefore,” said Luther, “I advise no one to enter any religious order or the priesthood, indeed, I advise everyone against it – unless he is forearmed with this knowledge and understands that the works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one wit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about.”[11] Imagine putting that quotation over the entrance to a Christian theological seminary today! Unfortunately, by the time of the later English Puritans work got reduced to a job and became largely secularized as typified by the Deist Benjamin Franklin with his famous lines, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” and “time is money.” The Industrial Revolution put the finishing touches on the separation of faith and work with the reduction of work to a job. In spite of the economic gains of the Revolution, it took people away from the home, mainly the men, and today it is both men and women who are taken away from children and from each other. Now we live, mostly in the developed world, in the information or the creativity revolution. And the old hierarchy of occupations has been reinstated.
A fascinating story emerged from post-communist Eastern Europe. A PhD in cybernetics known to me was working at a Soviet research station in Bratislava, Slovakia. While he was paid for eight hours of work a day he had lots of time on the government payroll to study the Bible, to engage people in telephone counseling and other church-related work. In the evening, he had another four hours for spiritual and Christian enterprise. Then, when the Berlin wall came down, he and millions of others lost their cushy government jobs and found themselves weaving together three jobs to make ends meet. This produced a fascinating rewrite of the integration of faith and work. If, they said, we cannot see our work as a ministry, as something pleasing to God and upbuilding to our neighbour, then we have no discretionary time left to serve God and neighbour—the very thing a good theology of work does. And just what does a good theology of work do for you? We start with Scripture and find many evocative discoveries.
God the Worker
God not only authored work but he himself was a worker (Gen 1, 2; John 5:17; Rev 21:5). Throughout the Bible, we see different images of God as a worker namely, shepherd (Psa 23), potter (Jer 18:6), physician (Matt 8: 16), teacher (Psa 143:10), vineyard-dresser (Isa 5:1-7) and so on.[12] God is as active and creative today – creating, sustaining, redeeming and consummating – as God was when this five billion light year universe was begun.
Human Beings – Godlike in Relating and Working
Human being are “like” God in being relational like the Father, Son and Spirit (“male and female he made them in his image”) and by working (Gen 1:26-8). As creatures in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27), humans are workers by design. We are also commanded to work (Gen 1:28). The Bible makes it clear that we are vice-regents over creation and therefore are commanded to act as stewards of God’s created world. As workers, human beings are called to extend the sanctuary (the Garden) into the world, to “fill” it not only by populating the earth, but to fill it with the glory of God by humanizing the earth. As God delighted in his creation (Gen 1:31), humans too find fulfilment when they do good work. Hence we acknowledge that our enjoyment of work is also a gift from God (Eccl 3:13, 5:18).
No Distinction Between Sacred and Secular
The two words used by God in his command (Gen 2:15) to Adam to work are abad (work) and shamar (take care); interestingly, these words are also used to mean ‘service to God’ and ‘keeping of his commandments’ respectively. This implies that no distinction between sacred and secular work is to be made. Likewise the word diakonia is used both for the ministry of the word and service at tables in Acts 6:2,4. It is important to note that the command to work was given before the Fall and hence, work is meant to be a blessing and not a curse. Toil and, conversely, the idolatry of work, are the result of the Fall. The suspicion with which many Christians regard vocations in the marketplace may be because they think such work is often driven by selfish ambition for wealth and power as was the case with the Tower of Babel (Gen 11).
Redemption of Work and the Cosmic Scope of Salvation
Despite the pervasiveness of the effects of sin, God in Christ has redeemed the entire created order (note the repeated use of the words ‘all things’ in Colossians 1:15-20 in regard to both creation and redemption). Apart from humans, creation also waits for the day when it will be set free from bondage (Rom 8:19-23). The cosmic scope of God’s redemption means that everything affected by sin and the curse can be redeemed including human work. God redeems work through his church when by the power of the Holy Spirit, his people bring God’s presence (Matt 5:16-17) and godly values (Prov 16:11; Matt 5:13-17; Prov 20:10; Amos 5:10-12) into the workplace. Obviously, unethical, immoral and exploitative practices have no place in God’s kingdom and purposes.
Jesus’ Kingdom Work and Our Kingdom Work
We can also derive an idea of the holistic nature of God’s mission from Jesus’ ministry on earth. He not only met people’s spiritual needs but also ministered to their emotional, psychological and physical needs: he worked at his carpentry (Mark 6:3), fed the 5000 (Matt 14:15-21), healed the sick and cast out demons (Matt 8:16), raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:43-44) and washed his disciples’ feet (13:4-5). The kingdom of God is not just spiritual: it is personal, social, political, economic and cosmic. Most good work in this world is a way to extend the kingdom of God and to bring shalom and flourishing to people and creation. The distinction often made between spiritual work (expressed as Kingdom work) and so-called “secular” work is both unbiblical and harmful. Gospel work and societal work are interdependent and together are ways of praying and acting “thy kingdom come.” This would imply that all human work that embodies kingdom values and serves the kingdom goal can be regarded as kingdom work. Likewise, the diverse gifting of the church also testifies to the multi-faceted nature of God’s mission (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12, Eph 4).
Why We Are to Work
According to New Testament teaching, Christians should stay in their professions and witness to Christ in those situations unless God calls them to do otherwise (1 Cor 7:20). Furthermore, we are told to work “to the glory of God” (Col 3:13; 3:23-24). Christians are also urged to work in order to provide for themselves, to share with others and as an example to other believers (2 Thes 3:10, Eph 4:28). There are many fine examples in the Bible of God’s people who worked serving God and others in the marketplace: Daniel, Joseph, Nehemiah, Esther, Priscilla and Aquila, and Lydia.
Final Judgment of Our Work
At the culmination of God’s purposes when Jesus comes again, Christians will be judged not only for their work that is directly related to evangelism and the church but also for their faithfulness as stewards with the resources and responsibilities that God has given them: material resources, gifts, training and skills (Matt 25:31-36). The judgment criteria, that is when put into the perspective of God’s expectations, happens on a broad scale and thus validates our present human work in various capacities. The eschatological vision in the Old Testament is that of a humanity at work (Amos 9:13, Mic 4:3ff, Isa 11:1-9, Hos 2:18-23). This picture is completed for us in the New Testament.
Work that Lasts and Work in the New Heaven and New Earth
Our final destination as Christians is a glorified material destination described as a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21-22, Isa 65). We will not be “saved souls” in “heaven” but fully resurrected persons in the new heaven and new earth. The redeemed community will inhabit this new creation in their glorified bodies (1 Cor 15; Phil 3:21). They will bring their cultures (Rev 21:24,26) and their ethnic and linguistic diversities (Rev 5:9). All of this strongly suggests that there will be continuity with our present existence which will undergo a dramatic, transformative and cathartic renewal. In some ways which we do not fully understand, some of our human work and labour will surely find a way into the new creation (Rev 14:13). It is not just our spiritual work and our spiritual life that will endure and that matters to God, but all work and life undertaken with faith, hope and love (1 Cor 13:13; 15:58; 1 Thes 1:2-3). The kings of the earth bring their glories into the holy city (Rev 21:24) and that transfigured creation will be embellished by the deeds of Christians, deeds that “follow them” (Rev 14:13). So, our labour in the lord is “not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58).
That’s the head; now for the heart and hands of work.
Heart: Toward a Prayerful Theology of Work
A prayed theology of work can only be accomplished if we pray before, during and after work, and especially that we pray about and during the work we are actually doing. So to do this we need to consider some of the contours of work and prayer.
Prayer inhibiting work
While it is not common there are people, not just monks and nuns, who are so occupied with prayer that they do not attend to the work they need to do to survive. A minister once asked an Indian Christian mystic Sadhu Sundar Singh, “Do we need to pray more, or work more, or to divide our time in doing both?” Singh replied: “Both are equally necessary. Prayer without work is as bad as work without prayer. As a clucking hen to satisfy its instinct continues to sit in some dark corner even after its eggs have been removed, so the life of those who remove themselves from the busy life in the world and spend their time wholly in prayer is as fruitless as is the hen’s.”[13]
Prayer versus work
This most common practice keeps Mary and Martha separated, Mary the listener to Jesus, and Martha the busy sister preparing a meal for Jesus and His friends (Luke 10:38-42). Work occupies most of our day. Prayer, in this view, is what we can do in discretionary time either before or after the workday is complete. Cardinal Wyszynski in his volume All You Who Labor comments on this tendency, “Conscientiousness in work and the turning of our attention to God are at odds. When we are fully absorbed in our work, we forget about everything, about the external world, and all the more about prayer.”[14]
Prayer enabling work
This is prayer before you start to work, either at the beginning of the day or when we commence a new task. We seek God’s energy and wisdom for the work. It also can be, as it was for Brother Lawrence, a cry for help in the middle of work: “Lord, I cannot do this unless you enable me.” For brother Lawrence, the monastic chef working in the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen, his “greatest business did not divert him from God.”[15]
Prayer inspiring work
Paul spoke in Colossians 1.29 that he is working to present each person mature in Christ “with all the energy which Christ so powerfully works within me.” Many new projects have been conceived in prayer. The Institute for Marketplace Transformation, for which I now work, is such an entrepreneurial initiative formed in prayer.
Prayer through work
Work is self-revelatory. Wyszynski says that the “sweat of our brows lays bare the image of our soul and unveils its real expression.” Without active work, this onetime mentor of the late Pope John Paul II, says, “it is usually hard to know yourself, for there is a lot of hidden evil in us, covered over with apparent calm.”[16] When I worked in carpentry my business partner uses to say, “I have never met anyone who can work in the mess that you work in.” This comment made me ask about myself, what is it, Lord, that makes me this way and what can be done about it.
Prayer as work
Prayer can be a form of energy expended purposively which we have used as our definition of work. But in this case the work is not manual or mental but the work of the whole person body, soul and mind. The soul is not a spiritual organ inserted in an evil body, but is rather the longingness of the whole person, especially longing for God and eternal life. When I was a young pastor I had an unusual experience. It was Friday and I had no sermon for Sunday. In the context of meeting regularly with another young French-speaking pastor he revealed that he did not have his sermon for Sunday prepared either. So, this young French pastor said to me, “You are a good preacher, but not very good at praying. I am good at praying but not a very good preacher. Why don’t I go downstairs and pray while you stay upstairs and write. And we can both preach the same sermon in different churches.” We discussed what we had in common besides our need. It was Christ, and we agreed on the text: “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). He went downstairs and prayed fervently, passionately, and continuously. I stayed upstairs and wrote furiously, noting that I had never had a sermon come so easily. After two hours he knocked on the door of my study. He was dishevelled, his tie undone, his hair wildly askew. “Are you done? he asked. “Almost, but not quite,” I replied to this worn-out prayer warrior. “Please go down again and we will finish very soon.” Which is what happened. We were both working and he was working at prayer.
But let us reverse the order and consider how work and prayer can be considered.
Work inhibiting prayer
Some work is so demanding, what is sometimes called “extreme work” through which one’s attention is so engaged that one cannot think of their need for God. Karl Barth once defined good work as work that does allow us to reflect on the meaning of the work. Bad work does not do this. And there is a lot of bad work out there. Some jobs are so demanding, so idolatrous, that they cannot be sustained for more than a few years. When the Three Island nuclear reactor melted down in the USA the workers, who used to go into the reactor and work for 40 hours a week could only go in for 40 minutes each week and then their Geiger counters told them they had all the radioactivity they could take for the week. I see this as an analogy on the larger scale for lifetime employment. Some work cannot be sustained more than a couple of years. Many executives say things like, “I don’t have time to think or pray.” Some work inhibits prayer.
Work and prayer
The Benedictines live in a rhythm of 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work and 8 hours of prayer. The prayer time includes the liturgy, “the work of the people” literally, but it also includes reading the Bible spiritually, lecto divina, and time for private and personal meditation. The manual and mental work period of their life together does not exclude prayer but to the extent that it is manual work, not requiring the full attention of the mind—the kind they prefer—even the work can be reflective and contemplative. But the work needs to be done and it too is a discipline. Indeed their motto is ora et labora or prayer and work.
Work inciting prayer
The exigencies of work, fellow workers, and the workplace, the pressures and the problems, the resistance we face from the world, the flesh and the devil all get wrapped up in the apostle Paul’s phrase “principalities and powers.” These powers which range from structures to invisible spiritual beings that are opposed to the kingdom of God, dog our steps, and require spiritual warfare the primarily vehicle of which is prayer (Eph 6:12).
Work informing prayer
Sometimes work becomes the vehicle for the upward journey. Eugene Peterson wrote in his five volume work on spiritual theology that “I’m prepared to contend that the primary location for spiritual formation is the workplace”[17] So when I became the academic dean at Regent College my president, Dr. Walter Wright, said to me, in “this job you will have to deal with yourself. You love to teach because you get positive feedback from your students. It feeds something inside you. But in this job you are not going to get positive feedback. You will have to deal with yourself.” Then he said something beautiful, something that made my work an occasion for spiritual formation. He said, “I will help you.” In this case work informed prayer.
Work as prayer
Earlier I mentioned how prayer can be work. But now we are considering how work can be a prayer. Eugene Peterson tells in his biography how as a teenage boy he had a question about prayer and asked his mother, a Pentecostal preacher, what to do. She directed him to talk to John Wright Follette, a Pentecostal teacher visiting with the Petersons. Eugene tramped off to ask this esteemed person, “Dr. Follette, how do you pray?” He replied, “I haven’t prayed in forty years!” What he was really saying is that he did not have a “prayer life,” as something separate and holy. Rather he lived “a life of prayer.”[18] Here is a pregnant suggestion: that even our work can be a prayer. How can this be? First, when we do good work we are actually doing God’s work, entering into God’s ongoing work. After all, Jesus said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). Second, we are actually working in the presence of God and prayer is attending to God, being present to the one who is always present, “bidden or not bidden,” as the plaque in Carl Jung’s study said. Surely this is part of the meaning of praying without ceasing or “continually” (1 Thes 5:17). Third, in work we are actually acting as priests of creation, bringing God and God’s purpose into this world and the people of the world. But priesthood is a two-way bridge between God and Humankind. So, we also are presenting our work to God and the people around us, as a thank offering, as well as interceding for the world situation and the people with whom we work.
So, as Cardinal Wyszynski notes, “the prime virtue gained through our daily work is patience—a necessary virtue (Heb 10:6; Rom 5:3-5). Here is a ladder, as it were, by which we go ever higher in all our ordinary, daily work. The oppressive nature of our work, when understand correctly, gives rise to patience, and with patience does extraordinary wisdom….”[19] But what do we learn about the meaning of work through action, our actual work. That too must be discovered by the marketplace theologian.
Hands: Toward a Practical Theology of Work
In the article on “Toward a Theology of Doing” we mentioned that Jesus frequently told people who wanted to enter the kingdom of God to do something: “Do this and you will live,” “Come and see” or “Go and do likewise.” Applied theology, and especially an applied theology of work is much more than the application of Biblical truth to the field of work, as important as that is. It is also the truth that is revealed in practice.
Case studies are obvious ways of developing a marketplace theology through reflection on a concrete situation. While we are developing a reflection matrix for case studies in a separate article we can consider an actual situation faced by someone I know. She is doing work in a complicated situation in the majority world.
The Sweater Factory
The offer of a promotion that came to Roberta after two years of service would normally be uncomplicated except for unique role Roberta played as manager of one production department in a sweater factory in Manila that employed 400 workers. Since orders were booked seasonally and varied from year to year, the company would accept orders that required extensive overtime hours for workers. For five months each year the production schedule would involve work from Monday to Sunday eight to thirteen hours a day. Salaries were paid on a piece-rate basis. During the lean periods, workers were forced to take vacation leaves of two to four weeks. Some workers were laid off but hired again the following year during the busy months.
Elseleina, the general manager and owner said, "Roberta, I like your work. You are completely dependable. And I want you to become my personal assistant. I also think it will be better for you not to be so close to the women in the factory."
In her present job she already worked in the office and had the privilege of a regular monthly salary irrespective of the seasonal workload and better working conditions. An air-conditioned office was a pleasant contrast to the sweat shop out back. She seldom was required to work more than eight hours each day. However, during the busy months, Roberta felt obligated to stay longer working alongside the factory workers in menial tasks though she was not involved in the production end of things. Sometimes she would help the women fill the cartons with sweaters enjoying conversation with them as they worked together. Roberta was very bothered by the disproportionality of workload and benefits. The owner and general manager drove a Mercedes and owned a fabulous wardrobe which she used to entertain international buyers. The proposed new position for Roberta would involve entertaining buyers from all over the world and being of direct assistance to the general manager in planning production and overseeing staff. Roberta could not help comparing the affluence of the office with the grinding poverty of the women who worked out back. She wondered if the company was exploiting the workers and whether she was indirectly participating in the exploitation. But there was another kind of exploitation that bothered Roberta even more.
Almost all of the workers in the factory were women. Most were away from their home and family for long periods of time. Lesbian relationships developed among the workers living in the factory dorms. Some of the supervisors in Roberta's department gave extra work and therefore more income to the women with whom they had relationships. Suzanna, one of the supervisors explained it this way, "Everything in this world is based on give and take. I get benefits from some of the women and they get employment benefits from me. That is how the world runs." The offer of advancement meant that Roberta would not be directly responsible for the oversight of the supervisors or have regular contact with the women in the factory. Roberta felt a mixture of relief and sadness as she considered a "move up".
Reflecting on her situation we can ask some questions: What do you think Roberta is learning about the meaning of her work? What does Roberta learn about working in the majority world? What are the ethical issues she faces? What are the spiritual challenges she faces in his daily work? Are there any Scriptures taken in context that deal directly with her situation? If not, are the great themes of biblical theology: creation, fall, redemption and final consummation informing her experience of work in the sweater factory. What are the resources she might have to decide whether to make the “move up”? What options could she have? What should she do and why? (Please note that a full theological reflection on a similar case is offered in a separate chapter)
An alternative is to review your own work history as I have in a later article on the worker. So that is work, thought-about work, prayed-about work and worked-work. If you ponder (think), pray and practice your own work you are doing theology and you are a marketplace theologian!
Note: Copies of this article may be made for research purposes but they may not be published.
Copyright, R. Paul Stevens 2022
References:
[1] Martin Luther, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, and Daniel E. Poellet, Luther’s Works. Genesis Vol. 2 (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 2000), 348.
[2] Cited by Cyril Eastwood, in The Priesthood of all Believers: an Examination of the Doctrine from the Reformation to the Present Day (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1962), 12.
[3] William Tyndale, ‘A Parable of the Wicked Mammon’, (1527) in Treatises and Portions of Holy Scripture (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1848), 98, 104.
[4] William Perkins, A Golden Chain (1592), in Ian Breward, ed. The Work of William Perkins (Appleford, England: The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1970), 177.
[5] Margaret Diddams, “Good Work, Done Well for the Right Reasons and with an End in Mind: Playing at Work” in Christian Scholar’s Review, (Summer 2021), L4, 423-33.
[6] This survey is found in the Introduction of R. Paul Stevens, Work Matters: Lessons from Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).
[7] Gordon Preece, “Work,” in Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens, The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 1124.
[8] Preece, “Work,” in Banks and Stevens, The Complete Book, 1124.
[9] Darrell Cosden, A Theology of Work: Work and the New Creation (Carlisle, UK.: Paternoster Press, 2004), 4-5.
[10] John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today (Basingstoke, UK: Marshalls, 1984), 162.
[11] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works. American Edition, 55 vols., eds. Pelikan and Lehman (St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955ff), 36:78.
[12] See Robert Banks, God the Worker: Journeys into the Mind, Heart and Imagination of God (Sutherland, Australia: Albatross Books, 1992).
[13] Sadhu Sundar Singh, With and Without Christ (London: Cassell & Co., 1929), 74.
[14] Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, All you Who Labor: Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1995), 69.
[15] Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Grand Rapids: Spire, 1967), 22.
[16] Wyszynski, All You Who Labor, 113.
[17] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), 127.
[18] Wynn Collier, A Burning in my Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene Peterson (WaterBrook: Penguin Books, 2021), 38-9.
[19] Wyszynski, All You Who Labor, 133.
