Jan
18
2010
The Only Christian Work Is Good Work Done Well unto God
From Dorothy Sayers’s essay, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949):
The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.
. . . Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside of it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meant they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meant for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.
The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work—by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery or sewage-farming.
HT: Tom Nelson
15 Comments
Amen and amen. As a pastor, this is one of the difficulties I have – convincing the people of the church that their jobs are as glorifying to God as mine if they just work to the best of their ability.
May we recover the Christian doctrine of vocation!
“But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meant for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.”
Every such decision must be taken with reference to the circumstances, and the urgent nature of the business at hand.
We ought not to interpret the mandate of “preach the gospel” to mean “get a job as a preacher”. But neither should we think that we who have chosen other professions are simply excused from preaching the gospel, or that this job is the exclusive remit of dedicated preachers.
Some jobs are more important and urgent than others, and if we see one such job that needs done and no-one else to do it, then we must be prepared to go to it ourselves, and re-prioritise our agenda. The good samaritan comes to mind.
I don’t think Sayers or anyone here would disagree in general that where there’s an urgent need that someone’s gifts can help meet, they should do it. She is encouraging the Christian community to stop guilting every man who wants to serve God faithfully into becoming a preacher or missionary (or woman from marrying one). If it’s okay to say, there are a lot of men in pulpits today who would make wonderful,godly carpenters,plumbers and accountants. There are a lot of missionaries who are flaming out because they would make excellent office managers. And there are a lot of people currently in those professions that aren’t doing them well to the glory of God. e.g. even though they’ve made a commitment to do a particular job, they’re asking for time off here, there and everywhere to go on missions trips to exotic places or Bible study retreats with their singles group specifically when their company needs them, and chalking it up to “I have to put God first, and if you start to question my commitment to my job, you’re persecuting me.”
“God is not interested only in Christian writers as such. He is concerned with all kinds of writing. In the same way a sacred calling is not limited to ecclesiastical functions. The man who is weeding a field of turnips is also serving God.”
–from C.S. Lewis’ final interview
Thanks for that helpful reply Rachael!
You’re welcome. And thanks for that quote, 3GD, on a day when my “field of turnips” is seven loads of laundry and the sorting, folding and putting awaying thereof alongside reluctant girls of my own. We might actually have a discussion about this while we fold. Think it’ll help? :)
Part of this is convincing plumbers that their work will be, if Christ returns soon-ish, a part of his world. Good work, craftsmanship, beautiful art–it all matters to God. That which is beautiful and good and true will continue.
I would only add to Sayers that the other “only” message we give businessmen and laborers is to give–to give to the church, to work for free for the church. That ends up being the measure of most Christian business people–their generosity. The way they get their money or the product they produce/sell–we don’t care about that very much.
This is great and I commend pastors and teachers for emphasizing this and discouraging the tendency among many evangelicals to wander into what some theologians have labeled “The Catholic Distortion” view of vocation. But with that said I have also noticed a disturbing trend among some Reformed Evangelical lay people who end up reacting so strongly against what they see in a lot of mainstream Evangelicals who operate by “The Catholic Distortion” that they have reverted to a total compartmentalization of their work from their faith. To the point that their work and the financial gain of their work is intentionally separated from any kind of faith component. I believe biblically this “Protestant Distortion” can be just as dangerous if not more so for the sake of the Gospel. We know that historically speaking we can infer that this was one of the many components that made the possible slide into a dead orthodoxy by a lot of mainline Protestantism possible. So yes I whole heartily agree with Tom and Sayers on this but we still should be very discerning and careful that we don’t slide too far to the other side and repeat history all over again.
Yes!! so true. we must remember who we really work for. we are citizens of Heaven and work for our great Lord to His glory every day. I pray that we will all keep this close to our hearts.
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