Labor Day made me think again of one of my favorite books, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life, by Gene Edward Veith, Jr. I know that may sound stuffy, but I promise you the pages contain some sparkling gems. Like this one:
“We often speak of ‘serving God,’ and this is a worthy goal, but strictly speaking, in the spritual realm, it is God who serves us.”
The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Matthew 20:28
The author then goes on to truly show us how every job on earth, from planting potatoes to creating beautiful art is a vocation given by God.
And, to what end? What good is all our labor under the sun, as Ecclesiastes puts it? Mr. Vieth has an answer to that, too.
“The purpose of vocation is to love and serve one’s neighbor.”
Ahhhhh. Doesn’t that make a difference? Isn’t it easier to get up each Monday and go to the factory if we remember that the widget we are making is to serve our neighbor? Granted, some of us may have to think a bit harder than others to make the connection. It is easy in my desk job at a medical clinic to see how everyone here is part of serving our neighbors. It is simple for me to see that service in the garbage collector who drove down our street this morning and in the safety officer who works next door.
I see it in the farm crew cutting hay, in the teachers at the school, and in the clerk who sold me groceries yesterday.
Maybe, if we all start looking at our work that way, we can ever-so-slightly shift the national narrative. Wouldn’t that be lovely?