When Ecclesiastes reflects on the topic of work, he is almost wistful: “I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun” (2:18). And in In verse 24, he makes a profound and good observation: “There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil.” He is pessimistic about work and sees everything as vanity.
Century later , the Apostle Paul brings a new twist to the biblical concept of work . Writing to the Early Church , he says “ There are varieties of gifts but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
John Calvin, in a commentary on the subject, differentiates between work and vocation. Work, Calvin said, can be any kind of job. God doesn’t rank jobs by priority. Our vocation is our calling. We are called—all of us, Calvin said—to be a Christian person, a child of God, and to use our gifts, in God’s larger economy, for the common good—or as someone put it—to be useful.
Each is given a gift, a skill, an ability, to put to work for the common good. No one is left out. There is work for everyone, a special labor of love that God gives to each of us. It is our project for which we, uniquely and individually, have been equipped by God.
And so perhaps the most important task for each of us is to discern and discover and claim and do our project, our labor of love.
Dr. Willy L Mafuta, Ph.D, Th.D
Senior Pastor,
Hopewell United Methodist Church, Hopewell, NJ 08525