Bivocational

The first Monday in September is the Labor Day holiday in the US.  The day honors American workers whither their job has prestige or is considered menial.  

Twice this past week I’ve talked with parents concerned because their adult children have lost their jobs and face a difficult task of finding a new one.  In one instance, the son is in his fifties and though that’s not supposed to matter, we know it sometimes does.  For them, Labor Day is a bit of a mockery.

Of course, some Americans are struggling to make ends meet by holding down two jobs.  That’s not easy but it leads me to remind you that every Christian is supposed to have two jobs.

We Christians forgot that for a while;  instead, we tended to divide activities into the sacred and the secular.  It was once popular in the Middle Ages when people thought the work of the priest or the monk was more holy or spiritual than the work of the farmer or merchant.  You might put dinner on the table by plowing fields but you couldn’t really serve God.

Then the Reformation rediscovered the Biblical concept of vocation and work.  Vocation becomes more than our occupation, it becomes our divine calling.  Any task, however mundane or lacking in glamour, can be done to bring God glory.  Every worker could be a Kingdom worker.  So, in that sense, every Christian has two jobs.

In fact, anyone who does only the one job, the one done simply for the sake of earning a wage, often finds the work tedious and boring.  The writer of Ecclesiastes understood this.  In trying to demonstrate the wisdom of allowing God to be the center of our lives, this writer cast himself in the role of one who lived as a secularist, as one who did not live with God in mind.  Listen to the way such a person views work.

15.  People who live only for wealth come to the end of their lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day they were born. 16.  And this, too, is a very serious problem. As people come into this world, so they depart. All their hard work is for nothing. They have been working for the wind, and everything will be swept away.

 17.  Throughout their lives, they live under a cloud-frustrated, discouraged, and angry. 

Few of us can afford to work for without pay, but fewer among us can find any kind of satisfaction if we work only for the money.  We need that second job.

In his most famous sermon, Jesus laid out some important principles for dealing with the temptation of frenzied materialism.  At the same time, he lays the foundation for the Biblical view that every Christian worker really has two jobs, one that involves working at an occupation to provide for fundamental human needs and a second job that focuses on the building of the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 6:25.  So I tell you, stop worrying about your life, as to what you will have to eat or drink, or about your body, as to what you will have to wear.  Is not life worth more than food and the body worth more than clothes?

 26.  Take a good look at the wild birds, for they do not sow or reap, or store up food in barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps on feeding them.  Are you not worth more than they?

 27.  But which of you by worrying can add a single minute to his life?

31.  So never worry and say, `What are we going to have to eat?  What are we going to have to drink?  What are we going to have to wear?'

 32.  For the heathen [those who think this is all there is and God doesn’t care anyway] are greedily pursuing all such things; and surely your heavenly Father well knows that you need them all.

33.  But make His Kingdom and righteousness your chief aim, and then these things shall all be given you in addition.

 34.  Do not be over-anxious, therefore, about to-morrow, for to-morrow will bring its own cares. Enough for each day are its own troubles.

Jesus isn’t telling us that we shouldn’t plan for tomorrow.  Instead, he was warning us against the frenzied, focused activity that makes the accumulation of wealth the highest good. 

Such persons are in danger of selling their souls for job security.   Making God’s concerns our chief concern will keep us from compromising our commitment to him to make the big deal.  Knowing that God will take care of us allows the believer to take the sometimes-necessary stand for justice and fairness in the workplace or to refuse to participate in shady business practices. 

The Christian who has the right priorities knows you can do the “Kingdom work” in the guise of doing the “paycheck work.”

That’s why the Bible calls us to see the possibilities implicit in even the most menial and mundane of work. 

Paul had this idea in mind when he instructed the slaves who were part of the Colossian church.  He knew their work could be tedious, boring, and thankless but he wrote to them, “Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord….”

I once knew a salesman who joked that he hoped he never sold his customers anything made on a Friday or a Monday.  He said the factory workers were so eager to get away for their weekends they did poor work on Fridays and so hung-over or angry about being back at work, they often botched their Monday tasks.

That salesman may have been exaggerating the situation but most of us have known the frustration of buying some item that didn’t work or didn’t include all its parts.  Mistakes happen but I wonder if they would happen less frequently if every worker embraced the Bible’s call to working with consistency.  Of course, it calls us not simply to consistency, but to consistent excellence.  After all, if we’re famous for doing shoddy work, who will pay attention when we speak on behalf of Christ?

We Have the Opportunity to Make the Workplace a Venue for the Advancement of the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom advances as men and women come to acknowledge God’s right to be the sovereign over every aspect of their lives, to accept his assessment of their greatest spiritual needs, and to receive his provision to meet those needs.    When that happens, we are transformed.

Do you remember the story of Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail?  They were beaten and imprisoned for supposedly starting a riot.  At midnight, as they sang songs of praise, the jail shook and the doors suddenly opened.  The frightened jailer—who could have been executed for losing his prisoners—cried out, “What must I do to saved?”  Paul told him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ an you will be saved.”  Lots of sermons leave it there, especially evangelistic sermons.  And that’s okay.  But let’s look a little further.  Luke tells us what happened after the jailer believed:

At that hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized right away.  The jailer brought them into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced greatly that he had come to believe in God…

Paul and Silas eventually went on their way, released to continue their work.  I’d like to believe that jailer was changed.  Perhaps he continued to serve as the local jailer but he was different.  Instead of showing cruelty to his charges, he showed compassion.  Perhaps he made sure they had clean straw to lie on, fresh water, and maybe the meals were prepared with a little more care. 

As more and more people in a workplace become part of God’s Kingdom, the character of that workplace will change.  No, it won’t be perfect but some of the more negative characteristics that mark so many workplaces may begin to disappear.  Wouldn’t it be great to work in a place where petty jealousies, racisms, or intrigues were laid aside in favor of virtues which aim at making others better, helping others do their work?

We Have the Opportunity to Bring the Grace of God to Men and Women Wounded by the Tough Times of Life.

The people you work with have lives beyond the office, the assembly line, the classroom, or the break room.  Sometimes those lives bring intense pain and sorrow.  They need someone who not only brings a listening ear but also will speak the promises of God into their situation.

Do you remember Paul’s condition when he came to Corinth?  In his own words his he arrived at Corinth “in conscious feebleness and in fear and in deep anxiety.”

Several influences helped to bring about a change in Paul’s situation and one of the most important was found in the workplace.  While in Corinth Paul took a temporary job making tents, recalling a profession he once engaged in.  In that workplace he met Aquilla and Priscilla.  I’m convinced this Christian couple helped Paul deal the crisis he faced.

Providing this lonely missionary some much-needed companionship contributed to his new birth of enthusiasm for his work, not the tent making, the other work.  The Kingdom work.

Your words of encouragement might be just what a tired coworker needs to keep going—at work and in the rest of life.

We Have the Opportunity to Discover the Surprising Richness That May Characterize Some of Our Coworkers.

Max DuPree’s father made an amazing discovery about one of the longtime workers at the famous clock-making company Howard Miller.  The discovery concerned a millwright—the person who kept in working order the complicated pulleys that ran the machinery.  This key worker died unexpectedly.  DuPree tells the story:

My father, being a young manager at the time, did not know what to do when a key person died, but thought he ought to go visit the family. He went to the house and was invited to join the family in the living room.

The widow asked my father if it would be all right if she read aloud some poetry. Naturally, he agreed. She went into another room, came back with a bound book, and for many minutes read selected pieces of beautiful poetry. When she finished, my father commented on how beautiful the poetry was and asked who wrote it. She replied that her husband, the millwright, was the poet.

It is now nearly 60 years since the millwright died, and my father and many of us at Herman Miller continue to wonder: Was he a poet who did millwright's work, or was he a millwright who wrote poetry?

As a Christian you come to the workplace with the understanding that each person you encounter reflects God’s image and shouldn’t be thought of as common or ordinary.  From the custodian to the CEO each co-worker may reveal something surprising about the wonder of God’s creation.  Each person may prove the truth of the psalmist’s words, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

When you come to the workplace with this attitude toward your coworkers, you may make some amazing discoveries.

Conclusion

 Labor Day is about our Paycheck Jobs.  We think about the labor we have done to put food on the table.  As Christians, we also remind ourselves about our other job—the Kingdom Job.  When you came to Christ you took that job.  If you trusted Christ as a child, you had that job before you ever earned a paycheck.  You may have been laid off from the job that provided your salary; you’ve never been laid off from that Kingdom Job.  You may have retired after long years working for a factory or firm; there is no retirement from that Kingdom Job.  It’s a job for life.  It sounds tough, but the benefit package is something a union boss can only dream about.

Yet, think about this.  Pat once told me about something that happened at one of the schools where she worked.  During one summer, a new teacher signed up to start work at the beginning of the new school year.  She received the letter about new-teacher orientation.  She received the letter about the first day of work for teachers.  She received the letter about the day the student would arrive.  Each of those days came but this new teacher wasn’t there.  She simply never showed up for work.  There was no call to the principal, no letter of explanation, nothing.  The principal had to scramble to find someone else to do her work.

You may find this a strange story.  Most of us would.  Yet many, many Christians have heard countless times about their Kingdom Job but have not shown up for work.