I write this the day after the 2011 Emmy awards. I didn’t watch it—didn’t know it was on television last night and wouldn’t have watched it anyway. But you know the award shows: Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, Doves, Espys, CMAs, VMAs, and other less prominent venues. (I like the annual Golden Raspberry Awards, or “Razzies,” in recognition of the worst in movies.) These galas can be preening and self-congratulatory, of course, and there is something a tad oxymoronic in effusive “critical acclaim.” But most award programs emerge from the premise that it is fitting to honorably distinguish those who have particularly excelled in their labors.
In this vein, we recently created the “Evanies” for our staff. The Evanie is a simple certificate with some kind of “happy” attached like a paid lunch or gift card. It would be fitting to hand recipients a bronzed cauliflower resting on a Bible in the pattern of our now erstwhile church logo. But we haven’t the budget for that.
Our Evanies are peer-promoted and given to any First Evan staff member (pastoral or support) who excelled in his or her work. I even got nominated for one! Evanies aren’t categorized and only one winner is awarded per week by random draw. It is simply a fun way for us to regularly commend work well-done, and from the theological premise that our work matters to God.
Many Christians assume “church work” is intrinsically more important to God than “secular work.” But biblically considered this is a non sequitur. Consider how, tucked away in all the begats and begottens of 1 Chronicles, there is an interesting little listing of David’s employees. After noting what each employee’s work was the section concludes, “These were stewards of King David’s property” (1 Chron. 27:31). Go back in time to David’s day and ask Azmaveth what he does. He replies, “I am a steward of the king’s treasuries” (a banker or broker, essentially). And you, Ezri? “I’m a steward of the king’s soil” (a land manager or farmer). Obil? “I’m a steward of all the king’s camels” (animal husbandry, including veterinary care). There it is: white-collar, blue-collar, and no collar. But each one’s work benefitted both king and kingdom.
Our work, whatever it is we do and however it is remunerated, takes up the majority of our time and energy every week. Our work so dominates our years in fact that we tend to fuse what it is we do for a living with who we are or perceive ourselves to be. But the Christian view of occupation is that our work is more than something to do for filling up our wallets and waking hours each day to a ripe old retirement age. Our occupations are stewardships through which we fulfill the greatest commandments to love God and neighbor.
Think about it: the most natural context for loving God with all your strength is your daily work. This follows for loving neighbor, too. God has given you skills and expertise and aptitude that blesses your neighbors and contributes to their good. This was the bottom line in Martin Luther’s theology of vocation: that all occupations—pimping, thieving, and serving as a papal priest (!) were Luther’s exceptions—glorified God as long as they contributed to neighbors’ good.
So the work you do affects others in both the larger socio-economic frame of your entire community to the smaller frame individuals you come into personal contact with in your work. But as Francis Schaeffer used to teach, there are no little people, no little places. He meant in the provident ordering of God every one and every place has value. This is why Luther used to say, “God milks the cows through the vocation of the milkmaids.”
Take garbage collection. I don’t glorify it and wouldn’t want to do it. But I do esteem the value of the work garbage collectors do and tell them so when I see them in my neighborhood. I remember a line from a popular Alabama song (they won a lot of Grammys and CMAs, by the way) years ago that esteemed the value of what we call blue-collar jobs, called “40 Hour Week.” The line: “And the fruits of their labors is (sic.) worth more than their pay.” Did you know the first guy in Scripture ever said to be filled with the Spirit of God was blue-collar? Bezalel was a craftsman whom God filled “with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts” (Ex. 35:31).
The most natural context for loving God and neighbor with all our strength is our daily work, whether we’re blue-collar, white-collar, black-collar, or no collar; whether an Emmy or an Evanie ever recognizes it. The work you and I do is a gift we’ll love giving to others when we know it delights the one who gifted and fitted us for it.
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