By Chris Armstrong, reprinted from Humanism as a Way of Life. Part four of a series.
But what is ordinary work? It is long, slow, steady, continuous, and fraught with the thorns and thistles of the Fall. It is incremental, additive, progressive. It most often creates results by the concerted efforts of many people, working over an extended time, within a carefully constructed organizational structure – yes, even that dreaded thing – a bureaucracy. It is two steps forward and one back – or sometimes, for long stretches of weeks, months, and even years, one step forward and two back. It requires grit, perseverance, and stubborn, nose-to-the-grindstone labor. And it is the birthplace and the testing place of many other virtues, too.
Virtues?
Yes: ordinary work is and must be our primary arena of discipleship—where the rubber meets the road in our faith—where growth in holiness must take place—progress in sanctification. This can’t happen primarily in church, where an ordinary Christian spends at most a few hours a week. But at work, where we spend two-thirds of our waking lives. That is where our sanctification happens most, with only one possible rival – the family – where another kind of slow, steady work takes place.
There. We’ve just raised the stakes on ordinary work. How we approach that work will determine, in large part, what kind of Christian, and what kind of human being, we will become.
No mistake, work really is an arena – as truly as the Roman arenas where the gladiators fought. At work, we’ll be tempted to other cults besides the ones I’ve mentioned. These are the cults of material gain, of accruing power and competitive advantage at any cost – cults that seem to demand cutting the legs out from the other guy, doing shady back-room deals, hoarding resources, mastering the white lie and the cover-up, stepping on others as you climb the ladder. . . . Most of you will be working alongside people who are 100%, totally given over to these cults. And you will find yourself daily tempted to join them – for after all, that’s how the game is played, right?
Lewis brings us clarity on just how extraordinary our struggle at work is. He describes the man who has just started a new job: “A man starts a new job with a sense of vocation and, perhaps, for the first week still keeps the discharge of the vocation as his end, taking the pleasures and pains [76] from God’s hand, as they come. . . . But in the second week he is beginning to ‘know the ropes’: by the third, he has quarried out of the total job his own plan for himself within that job, and when he can pursue this he feels that he is getting no more than his rights, and, when he cannot, that he is being interfered with.” (75-6) When we work, we are thrust into the arena of our own selfishness and sinfulness.
And our best weapons in that struggle, in that arena, will be something else that is quite ordinary – though at the same time rare and hard to find – that is, the ordinary virtues of the Christian life. These virtues are not sexy, they’re not flashy, and they’re not popular. They won’t help you build up your image on social media. But they are what Christ’s twofold law of love demands, for they protect and nourish both love of God and love of neighbor. You can think of what these virtues are, but a good start is Paul’s list of the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Individuality, Not Individualism
Now, as we close, let’s go back to individualism. My use of that term may have raised a question for you. Isn’t it good to be individual? To dare great things? To live out our God-given identity to the fullest? Well, yes . . .
By living our vocations, we do change the world, though not the way that the idols of individualism tell us we should. We do not make our meaning through heroic individualism, least of all by trying to change ourselves from pigs into sheepdogs.
But in God’s kingdom, our individuality does matter. As Paul puts it in Ephesians, our uniqueness, our individual talents, our personality contribute to a larger whole – an intricate “body” made up (as we might say today, extending Paul’s metaphor) of thousands of cells – each fulfilling a purpose. While the work of each cell may seem ordinary and small, God honors and animates it. The work of each of us, we are told, is both prepared in advance by God, and animated by the Holy Spirit working in and through us, for the good of our neighbors. As Gene Veith puts it, “The doctrine of vocation undermines conformity, recognizes the unique value of every person, and celebrates human differences; but it sets these individuals into a community with other individuals, avoiding the privatizing, self-centered narcissism of secular individualism.”
Conclusion
When we reflect on, and explore, and prepare for vocation, this is what we are getting ready for. Not a heroic journey of which we are the hero. But something much harder and yet, in the end, more fulfilling: a long obedience in the same direction. A slow provision of good things to other people, to help them flourish in mostly small and incremental ways. A slow earning of resources and trust and new responsibilities, through doing what you do well and virtuously. A slow clothing and feeding of children, and paying of bills.
Though there will most likely be moments of heroic action, of creative innovation, of heartwarming recognition for your service – and those are gratifying in their own way – this life of ordinary work will never satisfy you if you are captivated by the cult of celebrity, or the cult of the crisis event, or the cult of the startup. So as you consider your vocation, attend carefully to your soul. Are you in captivity to those cults? Or are you ready to love God and love neighbor through the slow, steady virtues and rewards of ordinary work? Is it enough to know that incrementally, faithfully, and on some days in spite of all appearances, you are bringing good into the world? That’s the real hero’s journey to which we are called.
The Green Room 