Vow V: Work

a productive and creative life

I love the movie Office Space. It makes me laugh. A lot. The tagline for the film is "Work sucks." I've had a number of jobs in my lifetime that make the situations in that movie hit really painfully close to home. I've had close to a dozen jobs, and only one can I look back on and say that I really enjoyed. Most I hated, and a good number I dreaded when I woke up in the morning.

Yet, when I look at my Bible, I get the disturbing feeling that work isn't supposed to be this way.

I look that the creation account and see that we're created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and I wonder what that means. I wonder how many trees have been chopped up to make systematic theology books. Because at this point in the biblical story we don't know any of that stuff about God yet - his trinitarian nature, his loving-kindess, all that "omni" stuff, none of that. All we know about God so far in the story is that he makes stuff and calls it good. So why is that significant?

The second creation account tells us that YHWH put Adam in the garden to work. That tells me that work isn't a result of the fall. Somehow being at work brings me closer to God's original purpose for me. Somehow work draws out the Imago Dei in me. And I see work bleeding over into the way that I worship, and also into the way that I serve my community I live in.

I think this is something bigger than just what I do to pay my bills. Maybe its something to do with the stewardship of my time. I'm still working on this.

What does it look like for us to be a House of Work? How does work fit into our common life together?

Lord make us a house of work.