[AI translation] Today, May Day, is famous all over the world, including here in our country, for being a celebration of work. And that is very good and right, because at least this day reminds us every year of the otherwise forgotten fact that work is a great blessing and a great good deed. That factor of our humanity, in which we all spend the greater part of our lives, in which we grow tired, under which we sigh so much, work, once a year becomes the focus of joyful celebration. That is why I am glad to take this opportunity to turn the light of God's Word on this eternally topical problem, work. How should a believer in God regard the work he does out in the world, from Monday to Saturday, often on Sundays, from morning till night, or from evening till morning, with the sweat of his brow (sometimes actually)? Is it only a necessary evil in this life, which he is forced to do, so that he may have something to eat, so that he may then have something to amuse himself with, so that he may have the most joyous part of his life? What does God say in His Word about daily work? How does this problem look from the perspective of eternity? This is what I want to talk about.First, a common misunderstanding needs to be cleared up. Even among church members, and sometimes even among those outside the church, there is a widespread belief that the Bible regards man's work as a curse. This misconception is the result of a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the biblical passage about God telling Adam to do this after the Fall: "Because thou hast obeyed the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree which I commanded thee not to eat of, cursed be the ground for thy sake, and thou shalt labour therein all the days of thy life. Thou shalt bring forth thorns and thistles, and eat the grass of the field. Thou shalt eat thy bread with the sweat of thy face, till thou return unto the ground: for thou hast sinned: for thou art dust, and shalt return to dust. (Genesis 3:17-19) From this verse it is usually inferred by the uninitiated that the Bible sees work as the consequence of man's sin, that is, that God has punished man for the sin he has committed by making him work. And he must live by toil, sweat and hard labour, whereas before he had everything in Paradise. Well, that's not so! For before the Fall, "God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Genesis 1:28) This is nothing less than a divine commandment to work.
So, however we understand the story of Adam and Eve, whether literally or figuratively, it is the case that the blessing, the command to work, was spoken from God's mouth to man first, and only then was the command "cursed be the earth because of you...". So this state of paradise of which the Bible speaks is not at all a state of prosperity in which man has only to open his mouth and all the good things will fly in of their own accord, without any effort or labour. Such a fairyland is only dreamed of by those who regard work as a curse and a punishment for themselves! The Bible does not say so. The Bible says that work is a characteristic of man's human nature. It is man's purpose in creation to work, to subdue the earth: that is, to work. The very fact that God created man with a thinking mind, with hands and muscles capable of creative work, is in itself a sign that God has called man to do some kind of work, that work is man's vocation, his task, from God! So, in no way is man cursed! It is not something that reminds man of his sin, but something that reminds man of his fellowship with God! Work, then, is something that man brought with him from Paradise. Work, like marriage, is something from Paradise lost!
What then is the curse that makes work so tedious, so sweaty, so bitter? I would like to talk about this question in a separate sermon. For now, let me just say that even work done with the best of intentions has its problems and difficulties. The most skilful physical worker as well as the most skilful intellectual worker often encounters in the course of his work "thorns and thistles" which thoroughly bog him down and make him sweat. For example, when a new planting is beaten away by ice or scorched by drought - and you can start all over again. But it was a lot of work! Or when, against all expectations, the cow suddenly dies, even though it was very much calculated into the family's whole life! Or when an inventor experiments for years, almost to the point of insanity, and the final solution slips through his fingers just when he thought he had it... Or when a linguist struggles for months to decipher an ancient script, and at some point, whatever he does, he gets stuck... There is no profession in which the work goes smoothly and seamlessly all the time! There is something here of what the Scripture says: "Cursed be the land of thy temiattad", that is, that this world is sick. Something is wrong, something is broken somewhere, that some disorganising force has entered the world - that sin is a reality.
But in spite of this, and even more so because of it, the great divine commandment of labour is still valid: 'fill the earth and subdue it under your kingdom...'! This Word, or command if you like, in today's language simply means that God calls man to work. For the believer, God is always ultimately the employer. He obeys God when he works at the machinery, or at the book, or in the kitchen, or in the field. When one does his work at God's call, it is no longer a drudgery, but a vocation. God calls me to do a work, and if I do that work in that way, I am fulfilling my highest calling. That is why the apostle Paul can say even to men forced to the lowest work, even to slaves, to do the work entrusted to them as men who know that they serve the Lord, not as men, as men who do not want to please the eye - let us say: no other - not to work for appearances, but to please Jesus, the all-seeing and all-knowing divine eye and standard!
So our daily work and our faith in God cannot be separated! They are not two separate areas of our lives! It is not as if the part we spend at work is the profane area of our life, and the other part we spend in the family and in the church is the holy, divine area of our life. Don't separate the two! If I say faith and good works, we all know immediately that the two are linked, because good works are the fruit of our faith. But if I say: faith and factory work; faith and washing up; faith and arithmetic, then there is a secret protest within us: what has my faith to do with my work in the factory? Well, it has a lot to do with it! Because what is a good deed? It is not something extra over and above the compulsory work, which draws a beautiful halo around our heads, but simply that what I do, I do well, what I work on, there should be no mistakes, it should be impeccable, I should not hate it, but love it, it should be good in every way! For God calls you to work, to do the work that He has entrusted to you. You are responsible to Him above all and beyond everything, that is, to do it well! So if a Christian believing woman has a messy home, or her children have dirty clothes, if a Christian believer has a low performance, a shoddy job, then there is a problem with his faith, a big problem! Even if he reads the Bible every day and sits in church every Sunday! In fact, the bigger the problem! So don't make your work independent of God, because God is the One who has commissioned you to work, to labor!
Yes, one might say, but there are many kinds of work. There can be a huge difference between work and work. For example, there is interesting work, which can really be done professionally, and there is boring work, which slowly becomes robotic. That's how most people imagine it, but it's not. Because so-called interesting work can also become a treadmill in which one gets burnt out, and work that is considered boring can also be loved as a vocation. An artist's work is usually considered interesting. But the amount of rehearsing that goes on behind the scenes of a musician's single performance, for example, for hours a day for months on end, is not interesting. The reverse is also true: a monotonous job behind a counter can be made very interesting by the fact that an open-eyed salesman, for example, can gain a huge knowledge of people, even if he has to say and do the same thing hundreds of times a day. Or a worker standing next to a machine, who seems to be doing a repetitive hand movement all day long, can become so attached to the machine that it is no longer a machine, but a living organism, a good friend! Boring or interesting, these are purely relative concepts, which do not depend on the work, but on the attitude of each person, on their attitude to the work.
What does God's first commandment say to man? "Fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over it". That is, God has entrusted to man something of his own creative and providential power and work. When a person receives a piece of land or cleans a room in the morning, he becomes a participant in God's work of order and care. We are most like God in that we do the work, just as He did. God created nature and entrusted us humans to create culture out of it. Work is man's activity by which nature becomes culture, by which man creates culture. How great and sublime it is to see how, in the hands of a good carpenter or potter, dead material is transformed into something beautiful, good, useful, artistic, into furniture, into a vase. Thus something of man's 'kinship' with God shines through in the work. Let your work rise, then, from the petty point of view that I must work in order to live! For so you may say: I work to make the world more beautiful!
Let me make one more point! A believer works not only to avoid starvation, but also so that his work may be a blessing to others, so that the fruits of his work may be a blessing to others. For from your work not only you and your family live, but the whole complex of a large society. For you to eat a scone with your tea in the morning, many people: boiler operators, bakers, vendors, delivery boys, drivers, and who knows how many other kinds of workers have had to get up much earlier and do a series of jobs. That's how your work becomes integrated into the interests and lives of others. God does not want to give people the things necessary for life in any other way than through the mutual service of people to one another. The true dignity of work, then, is to serve other people, humanity. And then the true value of my work never depends on how much I earn, but on how much I use it!
In this way, my daily work becomes service to God through service to people, or worship. The work of a believer is nothing more than "the worship of everyday life". The person of Jesus means precisely that God has come down into the ordinary world of people. Jesus was always seeking people in the midst of their everyday concerns. After his resurrection, he tells his disciples to go to Galilee and see him there. For the disciples, Galilee was the area of their everyday work. It was as if Jesus was telling them to just go about their business and there, while they were doing their work, they would meet Him. So cherish your work as an occasion where you can most surely meet Jesus! Where you can witness to Him in a tangible way! Where you can bring unmistakable glory to His name! Cherish your work as an opportunity for daily worship!
Amen
Date: 1 May 1960.
Lesson
Ef 6,1-10