The eCrozier

Tomorrow is May Day and for many it is a day to celebrate workers and the work they do. I want to celebrate that with you and to say how honored I am to work along side you in this diocese. This also gives me an opportunity to reflect a bit on the nature of work, both our work in the church and work in general.

If cultural observers are right, we are going through a massive cultural shift not seen since the Enlightenment and the Reformation. Such a shift puts great stress on all people and raises everyone’s anxiety. When that happens many people hunker down and try to resist the change, sometimes for very good reasons. But regardless of the reasons, stress goes up and anxiety deepens. And our people bring that with them to church and sometimes dump it on us. Verna Dozier was fond of saying: “I can remember that when I was most unhappy on my job, I was most active in the church.” So, I am aware as church leaders that we often are on the receiving end of people’s unhappiness in their professional or personal lives. That is why, in my semi-humble opinion, we have one of the hardest jobs imaginable. Once again, my miter is off to all of you who work as leaders of the church.

Another Verna Dozier quote also seems apt here. She wrote: “The layperson’s primary function is out there in the world. There is a problem when the church becomes the primary focus of their lives.” She is right. And we church leaders are at least partly responsible for this distortion in function. I know as rector I learned to play the guilt game with laity. Maybe I wanted them to serve on a committee or head up a project, so I would tell them the church needed them and they needed a ministry in the church and thus they should do what I asked. The not so subtle message was that they really weren’t much of a Christian if they did not volunteer for the job I proposed. I do not think we do that consciously with laity, but the message does come across that ministry is what happens inside the church walls or with the church’s name attached to it.

Maybe this is a result of not having a fuller theology of work? St. Benedict understood even menial work as one of the primary ways we can glorify God. What if we spent a good amount of our leadership energy helping people theologize about their work and the ministry they have in and through their work? Work should not only be a way to make money and provide for one’s family. It should be an opportunity to glorify God in how we relate to our co-workers, in the moral climate that we help create and to which we contribute, and in the integrity of the product we produce or the service we render. It is not just the end product we produce or the final service we render. It is how we get to that end product or service that matters just as much, maybe more. Thus, work ought to become our primary place of ministry outside of our families. The church should do just fine being third, especially if it is equipping people to minister in their families and on their jobs.

Our leadership should model this theology of work while also inculcating the virtues of Sabbath rest, honoring the body, and practicing hospitality (even to ourselves). That means taking and keeping days off and vacation, getting enough rest each night, eating well, and exercising. If we are workaholics who discern our “value” by the long hours we keep, then what are modeling for our laity?

+Scott