Dr. J. Daryl Charles “Vocation entails the basic awareness that based on the image of God (i.e., his likeness), we are created for work, which is a form of worship. Our work is our worship.”
Dr. J. Daryl Charles
Introduction[1]
At this stage of life I find myself reading – and rereading – the utterly fascinating book of Ecclesiastes, which is a part of what is called “wisdom literature.” Wisdom literature is a literary genre that was found throughout ancient Near Eastern culture, including ancient Israel. Ecclesiastes joins Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and assorted Psalms as Old Testament evidence of the importance of this genre. Reading wisdom literature in the Old Testament, with the timeless truths which it teaches, is a sobering reminder of what we miss if we neglect the insights of wisdom, especially in a foolish age such as ours.
Wisdom literature can assume any number of forms – for example, poetry, proverb, parable, allegory, riddle, or philosophical reflection – with Ecclesiastes, in remarkable fashion, incorporating several of these, often to the reader’s befuddlement. Indeed, because of the sheer variety of generic forms found in Ecclesiastes, attempting to interpret the book is a challenge, evidenced by perusal of most biblical commentaries.[3] The writer’s continual cry throughout this treatise is the meaninglessness of all things “under the sun,” or so it would seem.
Meaninglessness, however, is not applied to life itself or to human endeavor per se, as is often assumed based largely on the pronouncement at the beginning and the end of Ecclesiastes, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (1:2 and 12:8).[4] Rather, that despairing cry is applied to anything pursued outside of a theistic outlook.[5] Upon closer inspection, there appears to be a literary-rhetorical strategy at work in Ecclesiastes, with the writer juxtaposing two diametrically opposed outlooks on life continuously throughout the treatise. “Meaninglessness,” hence, is the fruit of a world- and life-view that we might call “under-the-sun secularism” or metaphysical materialism – i.e., a human striving apart from the Creator. This striving stands in bald contrast to the writer’s acknowledgement that the Creator “has made everything beautiful in its time” and has “set eternity in [humans’] hearts,” even when they cannot penetrate divine providence and inscrutability (Eccl. 3:11).[6] Whereas a secularist-materialist conception of life strips work and vocation of their deepest (and thus religious) meaning, a theistic perspective in which work and vocation possess both design and dignity infuses life – all of life – with wondrous meaning and significance.
A startling statement follows in Ecclesiastes 3. The writer observes, “That every man may eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work – this is a gift of God” (3:13). He then concludes with these words: “So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his portion” (3:22). This theistic conclusion is strengthened later in Ecclesiastes with the statement that “when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work – this is a gift of God . . . because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart” (5:19-20). And if this were not enough, the reader is informed later in the treatise that joy “will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun” (8:15), despite human inability to comprehend what God does.
While Ecclesiastes, to the surprise of many, teaches satisfaction and joy in our work where the fear of God and a theistic outlook are presumed, the book does not address many of the specific questions that we have about vocation (i.e., calling)[7] and work. I will return to Ecclesiastes later in this essay.
Not long ago I stumbled quite by accident upon Viktor Frankl’s deceptively brief but classic work Man’s Search for Meaning.[8] Frankl, it will be remembered, was a survivor of two of the Nazi’s most notorious death camps – Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau. His own family was sent to the gas ovens, with the exception of a sister. Yet despite the bestial conditions to which he was subjected, quite miraculously Frankl lived to reflect on these experiences and then, after the war, practice psychotherapy in Vienna (he was a student of Freud).
Frankl notes that in his practice he would sometimes ask his patients who were suffering from various forms of torment why they simply did not commit suicide. From his patients’ answers he would then derive a particular therapeutic strategy that best suited them in the consulting room. Frankl observed three general types of reasoning among his patients. For some, love of one’s family members prevented them from taking their lives, for others lingering memories of the past served as an obstacle, but for yet other patients there was a sense of responsibility to use their talents responsibly in this life. Frankl was especially intrigued by this third answer: life seemed to be worthwhile where hope, meaning and purpose were identified in work. Survival is made possible where meaning and purpose in our present suffering are found.
Writing about the same time as Frankl, novelist Dorothy Sayers, perhaps best known for her detective stories,[9] argued in her marvelously provocative essay “Why Work?” for the utter value and dignity of work. Sayers’ burden was to call for “a thoroughgoing revolution in our whole attitude to work,” insisting that the Monday-through-Friday is not “a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money” but rather “a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God.”[10] Do we grasp the sort of language that Sayers is using? “A way of life” in which human nature finds “delight and fulfillment,” and this “to the glory of God” our Creator. Work, as Sayers understood it, is best understood as “a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself.”[11]
In the present essay, my argument is essentially twofold: (a) we may and should have clarity in our calling (i.e., our vocation) and (b) we may and should find satisfaction in and through our work. As it stands, these two realities are interdependent. And as it stands, the church’s social presence in the world is her primary witness. Therefore, the church will need to rethink “missions” as she has traditionally understood and promoted it. This adjustment of vision is foremost theological in nature.
After over three decades of doing public-policy research, teaching in a university liberal arts environment, and counseling others (of differing ages – from those entering the workforce to those near retirement age), I have found one particular conversation to be recurring through the years. Sadly, it is one that goes unanswered or unaddressed by our churches and by most preaching and teaching – a topic that desperately needs to see the light of day. I refer to an awareness of our vocation or calling as it relates to our work in the Monday-through-Friday, for it is to the marketplace that virtually all Christian believers are called.[12] In what follows I attempt to explore the theological basis of this conviction.
The Relationship between Vocation and Work
The English words which derive from the Latin vocatio show their root to be rich with meaning and ramification – “voice,” “vocalize,” “vocation,” and by extension, “call,” “summons,” “bidding,” “invitation.” Christianity is unique in its conviction that the “ordinary” in daily living is “holy” or “set apart,” even when our experience may seem to deny it. It is also unique in its conviction that God’s “calls” are discernible and to some degree “accessible.” This is in accordance with God’s fundamental nature: he speaks, communicates, reveals, initiates, prods, and confirms, even when we must concede that how he does this remains something of a mystery.
What is tragic is that the Christian church and Christian leaders for the most part have not grasped the importance of the Christian doctrine of vocation. We typically understand vocation in a bifurcated way that encourages the insidious, two-tiered “sacred-versus-secular” dichotomy which has plagued the church since time immemorial. When and where the language of “vocation” is employed in the wider culture, it has been denuded and is typically used in the sense of “vocational training” – that is, job assistance, vo-tech education, professional training, and employment enhancement. Or it ends up morphing into best-selling “self-help” volumes, with titles such as The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, The Management Method of Jesus, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, The Corporate Mystic, Jesus CEO, Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work, Your Best Life, or The Power of I Am. But sadly, where the Christian community does use the term “vocation,” more often than not we presuppose a separation between “calling” and our work, and we advance (wittingly or unwittingly) the aforementioned “sacred-versus-secular” dualism, by which a superior-versus-inferior sense of “calling” is assumed. Hence, contemporary religious understandings of “vocation” – be they Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant – unfortunately tend to call us, at least in our thinking, away from our work in the marketplace and toward church work, “Christian service,” prayer and Bible study, or week-long “mission” trips (not that there is anything inherently wrong with these).[13] We really don’t believe, at the deepest level, that our work is our witness, that the church’s vocation is secular, and that the marketplace is the context of our greatest service to God and others.
The problem of a disappearing notion of vocation – or, at least its misunderstanding – is not merely that the culture has become secularized; that is part of the story but not the whole. Its disappearance, tragically, is perhaps the result of religious thinking that has dominated our own circles. Thus, we are in desperate need of rediscovering the concept of vocation, rightly understood, given its centrality in Christian theology. A return of this biblical concept to its proper place will require several things. For one, it may require, especially in the Protestant context, that we repent of the idols of “church growth,” “seeker-friendliness,” numerical measurements of “success,” and business as usual, which usually centers on a “personal” as opposed to a “public” faith.[14] Among Catholics and Orthodox it may mean actively working against the clergy-laity distinction that for centuries has been a part of their churches.[15] Where this recognition occurs, it will then need to be followed by a vision and willingness to train and equip our parishioners and congregants for the marketplace, in the awareness that our real work is in the marketplace, since most of us are called to the marketplace. After all, that is where we spend most of our lives – at least most of our waking hours. As a test of good theology and proper priorities, for example, why not have commissioning services – as we do for so-called “missionaries” – for those in our congregation? That is, for businessmen, lawyers, I/T people and tech’s, social workers, government employees, medical professionals, economists, as well as all sorts of craftsmen who are serving in the marketplace?
While the specific topic of work will be the focus of Parts 4 and 5, we might first benefit from a reminder of the centrality of vocation or calling in the Christian tradition.
A Theology of Vocation
It has been standard for much of the church’s history to speak of two general types of calling – a calling to Christ and a calling to a specific task or service in the form of one’s daily obligations. Out of the “general calling” to Christ and his lordship, specific avenues and types of service are assumed, suggested not only by New Testament texts such as Romans 12[16] but also by the Protestant Reformation context wherein Luther, for example, speaks of various life “stations.” “Vocation,” properly understood, encompasses the totality of our lives, not merely our career, occupation, present job, or so-called “retirement” – even when vocation does encompass all of those, yet more.
Moreover, everyone has a “calling,” even when many don’t have a clear sense of it or a clearly defined “career” or “occupation.” In other words, my work, my job, or my career might come to an end or change, but my calling (my vocatio), which is all-encompassing and broader, does not. In addition, there might be different “seasons” within my calling, seasons which seem to involve unrelated jobs, responsibilities, or duties; yet all of this occurs within my wider calling.
Vocational questions, it needs emphasizing, follow us through various stages of our lives. Not just when we head off to college. Not just when we graduate from college and enter the workforce. But middle adulthood and later adulthood as well. In any case, the Christian wrestles with – and keeps in tension – two basic vocational questions: How is God calling me to serve him at this time, in this season of life? and What is my wider calling in life, for which I’ve been given particular gifts, abilities, capacities, and passions or burdens? Having a sense of the latter – i.e., an awareness of our wider calling in life – will anchor us, giving meaning and purpose to the particular season in which we presently find ourselves. We may encounter detours, changes, or transitions, so that the sheer mystery of walking by faith requires that we employ basic discernment – a discernment that will stabilize us in an awareness of our wider calling and in God’s providential care.
Now, perhaps the reader is saying, “Okay, all well and good, but what do we mean in practical terms by “vocation”? “What does it mean for me to think vocationally?” Perhaps we can answer in the form of several descriptions or definitions of “vocation.” Properly (and biblically) understood, we may confess the following:
· Vocation entails the basic awareness that based on the image of God (i.e., his likeness), we are created for work, which is a form of worship. Our work is our worship.
· Vocation entails the awareness that we do not “choose” our calling; rather, it “chooses” us. Just as none of us chooses our DNA, our families or our children, in the same way we receive our vocation from God. In fact, it is more accurate to say that we discover rather than “receive” our vocation – a “discovery” that tends to be a gradual process.
· Vocation entails the meeting of genuine human need around us. While we cannot meet every need around us, we are equipped in such a way as to be able – through gifts and abilities, energy and influence, and socio-cultural placement – to meet some need in a strategic and practical sense.
· Vocation also entails our recognition of skills, talents and abilities that have been given to each of us by God and of which we are stewards; and stewardship means an intentional and guided development of those skills and abilities.
· Vocation entails a willing desire to serve others and meet genuine need, thereby serving the common good. What is the Great Commandment identified in the Old Testament and reiterated by Jesus in the New Testament? Serve God and serve your neighbor.[17] That is our calling.
· Vocation entails the recognition that we are placed in particular social-cultural contexts. For most of us, that calling is not Kazakhstan or Kenya or Calcutta; it is here. Callings must be culturally relevant.
· And finally, because vocation entails the recognition of work’s intrinsic worth, dignity, and value, work therefore is its own reward in terms of a certain level of satisfaction. Work must not be our identity, but it does offer a measure of satisfaction, properly viewed.[18] To the surprise of many, this is a sub-theme in Ecclesiastes, to which we will return below.
All of these descriptions of vocation or calling have their foundation in theological truth. I refer here specifically to the doctrines of creation, providence, redemption and incarnation, all of which are interlocking and inform one other. A few comments on these doctrines are in order.
The centerpiece of creation is the human person, in which is found the imago Dei, the very likeness of God. Based on this likeness, we are co-regents of creation, co-creating, molding, shaping and extending the created order.
Providence implies direction, and thus meaning and purpose. It also implies redemption and restoration. It is a distortion to view “the hand of providence” as some rare intervention; rather, it is a moment-by-moment, ceaseless presence and guiding of human affairs.[19] This in itself renders the “mundane” and our work meaningful. God’s design, indeed, is both general and specific to each of us. Providence does not imply some form of fatalistic predeterminism, canceling out the marvelous realm of free will and human moral agency. Ecclesiastes 9 contains the wonderful carpe diem, a “seize the day” exhortation: “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might!”
Relatedly, redemption is part of God’s very character, not an exception to it. Moreover, redemption entails all things created, not just the spiritual realm; “all things,” as the apostle Paul reminds Colossian Christians, entails the material and non-material realms (Col. 1:15-20). By virtue of creation, there is nothing that does not belong to Christ. And incarnation, which is part of the redemptive process, is part of God’s character as well. It is God’s very nature, as the prologue to the Fourth Gospel makes abundantly clear, to incarnate his life in the world. We do well to remember that God continues to incarnate his life in the world – through our work and through his church.
The realities of creation, providence, redemption, and incarnation, alas, lead us neither to pronounce judgment on or curse the world, nor to flee from it or isolate ourselves, but rather, to enter it – with all its sin and anguish – and by God’s grace and help restore various spheres of the created order. How? Through our lives and the God-given gifts of which we are stewards. Creation, providence, redemption, incarnation and vocation, then, go hand in hand; they are mutually dependent on one another. Together they furnish our theological baseline, and they make work meaningful.[20]
The benefits of thinking vocationally, it needs emphasizing, are many; they are both profound and quite practical. Thinking vocationally, for example, will prevent us from a sort of chaotic, day-to-day, meaningless lifestyle that can plague us when we have no sense of direction[21] – a mode of living which, as Ecclesiastes reminds the reader, takes its toll on us both spiritually and mentally-psychologically. For some of us, it can even lead to despair. Relatedly, thinking vocationally liberates us from what someone has called the “tyranny of the urgent.” It also liberates us from the common but insidious sacred-vs.-secular view of work and calling already noted. And it keeps us from a false sense of duty and conformity to the world and its standards, while also freeing us from comparing ourselves with others – i.e., becoming people-pleasers. Living in the reverential fear of God rather than in the fear of what others think is liberating, causing us to be at peace with ourselves and giving us a boldness and confidence.[22]
Wisdom and Work: A Closer Look
At the outset of this essay, I stated that although “meaninglessness” in Ecclesiastes is applied to human activity “under the sun,” it is not applied to human activity or work categorically or unconditionally. Rather, it applies to anything that stands outside of or apart from a theocentric outlook on life. In a theistic outlook, work is portrayed as an aspect of satisfaction and enjoyment that constitutes a “gift” from God.
The sheer frequency in Ecclesiastes of the term “meaningless”/“vanity” (hebel) – appearing over 30 times – would lend the impression that the writer believed nothing in the temporal life could be called “good.” But in fact the Hebrew word for “good” occurs even more frequently than hebel in the book – roughly 50 times. Several other catchwords of note in Ecclesiastes – for example, the verb “to enjoy” and its noun form “enjoyment” – as well as the catchphrase “the gift of God” suggest a picture that differs radically from conventional thinking about Ecclesiastes: there is indeed meaning and satisfaction in life, if life –from a metaphysical standpoint – is viewed properly. In fact, God is mentioned in 40 times in 222 verses of the book – quite remarkable in itself, and suggestive in our interpretation.
Much commentary wrongly assumes that Ecclesiastes is setting forth a harsh, fatalistic, despairing view of life, or that Ecclesiastes is “sub-Christian.” And standard commentary generally ignores or downplays the presence of seven or eight refrains spread throughout Ecclesiastes in which a full-throated recognition of enjoyment and satisfaction in one’s work is acknowledged. But taken together, these “enjoyment” refrains contradict the “meaninglessness” thesis that is expressed throughout. The writer’s interpretive strategy, I would argue, is to go back and forth continuously between what is meaningless and what is meaningful, even when the writer’s literary strategy appears to emphasize the despairing and negative fruits of a wrong metaphysical outlook.[23]
Significantly, in five of the above-mentioned refrains an explicit connection is made between work and enjoyment – a state of affairs that does not exist in a secularist-materialist account of human life. Moreover, eight times in Ecclesiastes the writer speaks of a human being’s “lot” or “portion” that has been “assigned” by heaven,[24] several of these appearing in a positive context of one’s delight or contentment through work.
Note the literary-rhetorical strategy at play: the reader detects seven or eight refrains which correspond to seven or eight intervals in the writer’s argument, over against the absurdities of a “secular” existence. We may view this literary strategy as point-counterpoint. And in each of the refrains, the source of contentment – the Creator – is explicit, and in six of these the emphasis is placed on enjoyment or contentment in the context of our work.
2:24-26 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. (RSV)
These statements serve as a counterpoint to the futility, pain, and grief of toil and endless effort poured into labor done “under the sun” up through 2:23. Verse 24 contains the first of four “there is nothing better” rhetorical devices applied to work in the book.
3:12-13 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. (NIV)
These statements serve as a counterpoint to human inability to fathom what God does (3:10-15). Eating and drinking and working symbolize the joy of being human. Verse 12 contains the second of four rhetorical devices applying to work in the book. Living in the present is God’s design.
3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? (NIV)
This statement serves as a counterpoint to the finality of death and divine judgment (3:16-22). Verse 22 contains the third of four “there is nothing better” rhetorical devices applied to work.
5:18-20 This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot.19 Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. 20 They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. (NIV)
These statements serve as a counterpoint to the pursuit of wealth and riches and their disappearance or loss (5:10-20). These verses contain one of the densest concentrations of allusion to God in the book, along with chapter 3.
8:15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun. (NIV)
This statement serves as a counterpoint to life’s “unfairness,” life’s “injustice” (8:11-15). It also contains the fourth of four “there is nothing better” rhetorical devices applied to work.
9:7-10 Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works. Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom [hereafter]. (NASB)
These statements serve as a counterpoint to death as the universal destiny of all human beings (9:2-6). They also constitute a powerful witness to human moral agency and human potential with their “seize the day” imperative.
Theological Reflections on Work
Contentment or satisfaction – including the realm of human labor – is a divine “gift” as depicted in Ecclesiastes. Gifts are to be received. God’s gifts, moreover, are declared “good” in six of these intervals just noted. In granting satisfaction in our labor, God sanctifies, as it were, the ordinary. Moreover, the Judeo-Christian tradition knows no split or dichotomy between manual and mental labor, in contradistinction to the Greco-Roman tradition. The reason for this is quite simply that we are created in God’s likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). Furthermore, the enjoyment of our labor is not merely some momentary phenomenon – here one minute and then gone the next. Rather, it has a residual effect in the believer’s life; recall Eccl. 8:15: “for contentment will accompany him in his labor throughout the days of life that God has given him . . .” Ecclesiastes depicts work in a way that is surprising and utterly relevant to our contemporary world, just as it always has been.
Biblical faith describes God chiefly as working: he creates, makes covenant, redeems, justifies, sanctifies, and transforms. From Genesis to Revelation, from creation to the new Jerusalem, “the biblical narratives overflow with work.”[25] In the beginning of Genesis, moreover, work arises not because of the Fall but because of the imago Dei.[26] Sadly, much Christian thinking about human labor and the fall is misguided, assuming that any meaning and purpose that our labors did have through creation were obliterated by the fall. Such thinking illustrates the pernicious – indeed, devastating – effects of bad theology. Work has meaning and purpose because of the imago Dei, and not even sin – tragic though it is – removes this blessed reality. Relatedly, it needs pointing out that according to Genesis 3 the ground was cursed, not work. Human work is patterned after the divine model; that is, it is based on the image or likeness of God.
Significantly, in Jesus’ parabolic teaching, work or work-related themes predominate.[27] And even the apostle to the Gentiles does not abandon his trade after being called by God to take up the apostolic ministry; he still makes tents. And we can assume that the disciples – all of them – continued in their professions. In the early church, there were no “clergy”; all were “laity.” Fishermen still fished in the sea of Galilee, even when they were made “fishers of men.” In fact, our Lord himself, before a mere three-year messianic stint, spent the better part of thirty years doing what? Apprenticing and working as a carpenter. Does anyone think that the Son of God did shoddy woodwork? That he made bad furniture?
Few have argued for the value and dignity of work with greater rhetorical force than Dorothy Sayers, a contemporary of C.S. Lewis noted earlier in this essay. Sayers believed that, among those who call themselves “Christian,” several underlying convictions and baseline assumptions need identifying. For her, these include inter alia the following: (1) human beings image the very nature of God; (2) because of this there exists an almost “sacramental” relationship between the human person and work; (3) in work the Christian should find spiritual, mental and physical satisfaction; (4) work is a medium in which the human person offers himself/herself to God; and (5) the only truly “Christian” work is work that is well done.[28]
Permit me to add yet another conviction to those of Sayers. The very notion of rewards presupposes the value of work when it is done with the proper motivation. Based on biblical theology, on that final day, judgment will be according our works.[29] Which means that our efforts here on earth in the present truly mean something; their fruit will endure beyond this life. And even when the New Testament writers speak of “a new heaven and a new earth,” there will be some continuity with the present life. Our works and the created order will not simply be thrown on some cosmic ash heap; they will remain in some discernible form and fashion, even when that form is mysteriously transformed.
It surely needs emphasizing that the Christian church has not always had a healthy view of work.[30] For this reason the Lutheran breakthrough in the early 16th century was so important, for it addressed two primary distortions regarding human labor: (1) the notion of work and human effort as salvation or justification before God and (2) the sacred-vs.-secular dichotomy, which existed because of the religious devaluation of earthly occupations, as personified in monastic orders and the priesthood. Work, for Luther, was a divine vocation; all manner of work – whether as a farmer, a leatherworker, a craftsman, a weaver, a teacher, an artist, a prince, even a henchman – was “sacred” in terms of its service to God and to the community. When people asked what they should do, the last thing Luther could recommend was to retreat into a monastery; rather, serve God and others where you are. Every believer is a priest, serving God and society through work.[31]
Concluding Thoughts on Work and Vocation
Let us return, in concluding, to the book of Ecclesiastes, which addresses everything that constitutes normative human activity, inclusive of human labor. Against much commentary to the contrary, the writer does not despise or devalue work; rather, he re-casts it at various intervals throughout his argument, even when his focus – to be sure – is on the utter vanity of human activity done for the wrong purpose. Specifically, within a theocentric context, work is portrayed not as “meaningless toil” but rather as (a) satisfying and (b) a gift from God.[32] Work as both a sign of contentment and a divine gift, as we have attempted to argue, is part of the writer’s broader literary strategy.
While a secularist-materialist perspective strips life and life’s vocation of its inherently religious meaning, “vocation” properly understood infuses mundane secular life – the “ordinary” – with meaning and significance. Such renewed understanding of the “ordinary” occurred in significant ways 500 years ago in Western history, as I’ve just noted. One of the breakthroughs of early-16th-centiury Protestant reform, it needs reiteration, was to recover a deeper understanding of the notion of vocatio, following nearly a millennium of the Church’s devaluing of human work by a supposed “higher” calling to the priesthood or the monastery. As it is, the church in every successive generation needs to discern and collapse the insidious “sacred-versus-secular” dichotomy that so readily emerges in her life and vision. Given the fact not only that most clergy have not spent a significant season of life in the marketplace but also that our seminaries and divinity schools do not help us in this regard, we are at a disadvantage.[33] The great neglect of work, vocation, and the marketplace in our teaching, preaching and education will continue until a proper view of the church’s “mission” is better understood – by which we reconcile (rather than dichotomize) the “Great Commission” (based on our reading of the Gospels) with the great “cultural commission” (based on creation mandates).
On occasion throughout its history, as in the 16th century, the Christian Church is permitted to gain renewed insight into its “apologetic” mission in the world. Part of that mission entails rediscovering the meaning and purpose of neglected domains of social life – for example, in the arts or sciences, in language and linguistics, or in the study of history, philosophy, and culture. And not infrequently, those breakthroughs – as they did in the early 16th century – adjust our views of the marketplace as we grasp a deeper understanding of the concept of “vocation” and a renewed appreciation of the value and dignity of work.
Such renewed understanding has the effect of “recalibrating” our sense of duties and obligations within the larger ethical framework of God’s providential care and purpose. Work, alas, is perhaps the most significant element of the believer’s vocational calling, even when it does not represent the totality of that calling. Thus, when Ecclesiastes commends work as a “satisfying gift” and the yet the believer’s day-to-day experience at work is neither satisfying nor viewed as a gracious gift, theological recalibration is in order.
Anything less falls short of human flourishing and God’s design, which is to live in harmony with our Creator and to incarnate the life of God in all of the created order.
J. Daryl Charles, PhD, serves as a contributing editor of the journal Touchstone, a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy, and an associate scholar of the John Jay Institute. He is the author or editor of twenty-three books, including The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism (IVP), Retrieving the Natural Law (Eerdmans), Thriving in Babylon (Pickwick), and most recently, Wisdom and Work: Theological Reflections on Human Labor from Ecclesiastes (Cascade Books) and Our Secular Vocation: Rethinking the Church’s Calling to the Marketplace (B & H Academic). He can be reached at dcharles@jjifellows.org
Footnotes
[1] This essay represents a modified version of addresses presented at the Acton Institute’s annual conference, Acton University, in June 2018, and Chattanooga Institute for Faith and Work, in August 2019, and summarizes material found in Wisdom’s Work, Wisdom and Work, and Our Secular Vocation (see n. 2).
[3] The fact that Job and Ecclesiastes are more speculative and less “practical” than, say, Proverbs does not, however, detract from their essence as “wisdom literature.” Part of the wisdom perspective is to wrestle with the problem of suffering and life’s meaning.
[4] Some versions render the Hebrew hebel as “vanity.” Strengthening this “negative” reading of the book is the recurring catch-phrase “This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (1:14; 2:26; 4:4; 4:16; 5:10; and 6:9).
[5] Six times in Ecclesiastes the reader encounters the admonition to “revere God”: 3:14, 5:7, 7:18, 8:12 (twice), and 12:13.
[6] In both Wisdom and Work and Our Secular Vocation (see n. 2), I argue for the presence in Ecclesiastes of a “double framing” – i.e., a literary strategy that places two metaphysical outlooks – one non-theistic and one theistic – in contrast, even when the former is developed in a far more extensive and depressing manner than the latter.
[7] Throughout I am using “vocation” and “calling” interchangeably.
[8] The title of the German original, which appeared in 1946, is Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager (“A Psychologist’s Experience in a Concentration Camp”). The English translation, Man’s Search for Meaning, first appeared in 1959.
[9] Sayers was creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, the aristocratic amateur detective.
[10] Dorothy L. Sayers, “Why Work? in Creed or Chaos? (repr.; Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1974 [1949]), 89.
[11] Sayers, Why Work?” 89.
[12] While I do not deny the calling of full-time pastoral or “priestly” service to the Body of Christ – that is, teaching/preaching the Word and administrating the sacraments – this vocation applies to very few individuals. Surely 99.5% of the Body of Christ is called to the marketplace, and the sad truth is that very few pastors or priests have spent a significant season of their lives working in the marketplace; hence their inattention, in congregational life, to the ethical and economic challenges that their congregants face on a daily basis.
[13] Gene Edward Veith, “Vocation: The Theology of the Christian Life,” Journal of Markets and Morality 14, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 119, writes that of the three major teachings characterizing the Protestant Reformation – justification by faith, scriptural authority, and vocation – the first two remain while the third is lost. Surely, even among more “orthodox” or evangelically-minded churches, we may grant Veith’s claim.
[14] As Douglas J. Schuurman has correctly pointed out in his important book Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), esp. chapter 1, the church-centeredness of our congregations and activities mirrors a deficient vision of why the church exists.
[15] Pope John Paul II, however, contributed to an important “shift” through two major encyclicals during his pontificate – Laborem Excercens (“On Human Work”) in 1981 and Centesimus Annus in 1991 on the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum.
[16] In Romans 12, various attitudes are identified by St. Paul as befitting the Christian in terms of public witness – among these, moral integrity, service-orientation, continual transformation of the mind, the ability to “test” and discern, sober judgment, humility, and the awareness of gifts given graciously by God to every person. Cf. as well 1 Corinthians 12-14 and Ephesians 4.
[17] Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-34; and Luke 10:25-28.
[18] Biblically and theologically, vocation is about serving others and glorifying God, not self-therapy or self-actualization. At the same time, we may expect that a measure of satisfaction comes through our service to God and others.
[19] The reality of this God’s providential care has been quite helpfully described by Harry Blamires, The Will and the Way (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 43-44.
[20] Indeed, given Christ’s ownership and lordship over the entire created order, there is a certain sense in which the church is responsible for the world.
[21] In this regard Calvin notes: “Therefore each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life” (Institutes of the Christian Religion III.10.6).
[22] None has expressed the “benefits” of thinking vocationally more practically and usefully than Gordon T. Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential (rev. ed.; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2011), 128-47.
[23] Part of what befuddles the reader is the fact that the writer never indicates explicitly that he is engaged in contrast or dialectic.
[24] 2:10, 21; 3:22; 4:9, 5:18, 9:6, 9; and 11:2.
[25] David H. Jensen, Responsive Labor: A Theology of Work (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 22.
[26] In the words of Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 199, creation is stronger than sin and grace is stronger still.
[27] One finds over fifty occurrences in the Gospel accounts of Jesus resorting to parabolic discourse.
[28] Sayers, “Why Work?” 101, 108.
[29] Ps. 62:12; Prov. 24:12; Eccl. 3:17; 12:14; 2 Cor. 5:10; cf. 1 Pet. 1:17 and Rev. 20:12.
[30] One thoughtful Christian writer has described human labor as one of the “lost provinces” of Christian faith. The result of the church’s failure to address this realm in its teaching, preaching, and education, he lamented, was the rise of the “Marxist gospel,” to which hundreds of millions of lives worldwide have been offered in the last 100 years. See Elton Trueblood, Our Other Vocation (New York: Harper, 1952), 15, 25.
[31] See 1 Pet. 2:5, 9. The universal priesthood of the believer was a theological key for Luther in collapsing the false “sacred-versus-secular” dualism that had existed for well over a millennium. Elsewhere I have examined the Lutheran breakthrough regarding vocation and work in Wisdom and Work, 141-47, and Our Secular Vocation, 105-62.
[32] 2:24; 3:13; 5:18-20; 8:15; and 9:10 [implied].
[33] In Luther’s reaction to the traditional devaluation of work and the marketplace, it is worth noting that the book of Ecclesiastes played a significant role in helping shape his thinking on work and vocation. What deeply disturbed Luther was the prevailing attitude of contemptus mundi – “contempt for the world” – that had dominated the church’s view of work and the marketplace for well over a millennium.