July 9, 2015
“Most Americans are unhappy with their employment.” This was a headline last year in Forbes. I was surprised that it was only 52 percent of Americans that were unhappy; from the way people talk about work, one would think dissatisfaction would be higher. I know one of the popular comics today is “Dilbert,” which spoofs the modern workplace. Dilbert and his irascible fellow engineer, Alice, seem to be the only competent employees. Wally has become a genius at avoiding work. Dogbert is the human resources director straight from hell. And the boss with the pointy hair spends most of his time messing up everyone else’s work.
Nevertheless, it’s good to have a job at all. Unemployment has fallen since 2008, to 5.3 percent, yet behind that number lurks a lot of uncomfortable realities: how many are working at minimum wage, how many with two jobs, how many without benefits, and how many who have just given up trying to seek a job.
But what if God gives you a job? I’m afraid it doesn’t necessarily mean that things are any easier. We see the prophet Amos – one of the earliest – who was called by God to speak to the Jewish people living in the northern Kingdom. “Just get lost,” is what the priest of Bethel, an ancient shrine, say to him. “We don’t want to hear your message.” Amos tells them that he had a calm life as a shepherd and a tree worker: but God took him from these everyday occurrences so make him a messenger for Israel. Amos knows his job, and he’s going to do it.
Jesus gives his disciples a job as well. It seems to go better than it did for Amos. The Twelve have been following Jesus during his busy, mostly-successful ministry in Galilee. We’ve heard about the healings, exorcisms and outreaches of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel all these Sundays. Now Jesus says to the Twelve: “You do it.” Of course they are apprehensive, as most of us would be, wanting to take this and that along with them. “You don’t need it,” Jesus says. “You have experienced me and my message. Don’t bring a big suitcase full of things; just go forth as you are, freeing people from evil and illness, and proclaiming the Kingdom of God.” Later in the Gospel, when they return, Jesus compliments them: “I saw Satan fall from the sky,” he says, and we can imagine him smiling.
Jesus, of course, gives us jobs as well. Our jobs are not all that different from the Twelve. As baptized followers of Jesus, we have one task: to proclaim the kingdom of God to the world – God’s realm of endless love – and to show that kingdom by helping others as we can, and diminishing evil in the world. Most of us do these jobs as part of our daily lives. Raising a family in the vision of God is a key way of accomplishing the job Jesus gives us. But most of us unfortunately don’t see our daily lives as carrying out the work of Jesus. And most of us don’t see our workplaces as key venues for building the kingdom.
That’s why we need a periodic job review. The Letter to the Ephesians gives us this review: wake up, it is saying. Don’t you know you have been chosen by God, chosen in Christ, chosen in the Holy Spirit, to fill up the world with God’s glory? Yes, by the way we live, the hope in our hearts, the joy that permeates our lives, by the force of our having come to know Jesus – all of us are sent by Christ every day to transform the world.
You know at work how someone can be crabby all the time? And someone else, with the same job, can be helpful and positive? We know, too, whom we’d prefer to work with: not the crabby one, that’s for sure! If it’s like that in the workplace, it can be like that in God’s ministry. Which worker do we want to be? The disciple who obscures the kingdom, or the one who, in daily life, makes the kingdom shine?