Work

Well, again, let me say welcome to all of you, and in particular those of you who may

be joining us for the first time.

We're glad to gather here as we do every week.

We're glad for this time in the service when we can turn our attention to God's Word.

We've been in a series over the last few weeks called Foundations, where we've been asking

foundational questions about what it means to be human beings, how to make sense of

the world that we live in, and ultimately how to understand the God who made all of this.

The idea being that if we understand how things were made and why they were made, then we'll

know how to make sense of them today, including all of the various aspects of our lives.

And so last week we started looking at this rhythm that God establishes in creation, and

this rhythm is a part of what it means to be human.

It's a part of our design to live out this rhythm, and that is the rhythm of rest and work, Sabbath

rest and work.

And as we said last week, working all of the time dehumanizes us.

It's dehumanizing.

And working none of the time, never working, also dehumanizes us.

That what we see in creation is that we were created for a rhythm of both rest and work.

And last week we took a look at the first part of this, Sabbath rest, and this week we're

looking at the second component, which is our work.

And for most of us here in D.C., when I bring up work, I think I don't have to convince you

that work is absolutely central to our lives.

It is central to how we organize our time.

It's central to how we think of our identities.

I think we probably, if we're honest, spend more time working or thinking about work than

virtually anything else.

One of the curses that we all seem to have fallen under is that when we are at work, we

are thinking about everything but work.

And when we're away from work, we're thinking about nothing but work.

It's almost perverse, and yet I think this is true for all of us.

I think we said last week that the Washington Post said this year that we are, Washington,

D.C., rather, that we have the second highest average work week, the second longest average

work week of any city in the United States.

That's pretty impressive, depending on your scale of impressiveness.

I think most of us, if we're honest, work pretty much determines everything else about

our lives.

It determines our relationships.

It determines our priorities.

I think for most of us, work is what brought us to D.C., and for those of us who leave, it

will probably be work or something work-related that takes us away.

So I think it's obvious that we need to reevaluate on a major level our relationship with our

work.

And this starts by asking, what's the foundation?

How should we think about our jobs, our vocation?

What does our work have to do with being human?

And that's why we're looking at Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

We're looking at two verses in particular.

Chapter 2, verse 5, and then we'll skip down and look at verse 15.

So I'll read those two verses.

When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung

up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to

work the ground.

We'll stop right there.

We'll move down to verse 15.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work and to keep it.

So we're going to look at these two verses, and we're going to see three things about

our work.

We're going to see the necessity of work.

We're going to see the distortion of work.

How does it become so distorted?

And then lastly, the rebalancing of our work.

So the necessity of work, the distortion of work, and the rebalancing of work in our lives,

how that happens.

Let's pray.

Lord, we do thank you and recognize that you not only promise your presence, but you

promise your voice.

And we know that apart from you, these would be merely human words, interpreting words

on a page, but that through your Spirit, you actually speak through your Word to us.

And, Lord, I know I need to hear from you tonight, and we all need to hear from you tonight, and

we pray that by your grace we would, for our good and ultimately for your glory.

In your Son's name, amen.

So first of all, as we look at these passages, we see the necessity of work, that work is actually

a necessary component of a healthy life and what it means to be a human being.

Essentially, we see this, that in the beginning there was work.

If you look at the story of creation, we see, first of all, God going to work.

And we've looked at this in previous weeks.

We see God going to work precisely by what?

He encounters chaos and void, in other words, undifferentiated matter, and He goes to work.

And He begins to order the chaos.

He begins to bring order.

He creates the light and separates it from the dark, day and night.

He creates the expanse above, the waters above and the waters below and an expanse in between.

And then He creates the land and separates it from the sea.

And we see God ordering creation.

And the fruit of God's labor is that chaos and death and meaninglessness becomes a cosmos.

We see domains established where life can not only exist, but it can flourish.

Ideal conditions for the flourishing of all manner of life.

This is the work that God's doing.

And we see here that God is in some ways the ultimate entrepreneur, creating something that

wasn't there before.

He's in the business of creation.

But then very quickly in Genesis chapter 2 verse 5, the first problem arises in creation.

Genesis 2:5

And that problem is in verse 5.

Everything's in place.

Everything's good.

Everything's been pronounced good.

And yet, there is no one to work the ground.

That's a problem.

And we need to understand the significance of this.

That the story actually begins by God creating and ordering a world that is by definition unfinished.

It's by definition incomplete.

See, He could have created the world as a complete thing.

But He chooses to create a world that is full of potential.

But that potential, the stuff of creation, is only in seed form.

It's an acorn.

And it needs to be cultivated.

It needs to be built.

It needs to grow into the fullness of what it was created to be.

And for that, God creates human beings.

And that's a fascinating departure from the other ancient Near Eastern myths.

Which essentially state that the gods, normally through violence, slitting the throats of other gods and filleting their corpses and slinging them into the sky.

That's a Numa Elish.

And the gods are, you know, work is so far beneath them that they need someone to uphold and to maintain this.

And so, human beings, these lowly creatures are created to sort of, because gods would never work.

Or we see the Greek and Roman philosophers abhorring the idea of work and saying,

you should do whatever you can to not work.

Because it's all about the richness of the mind and the cultivation of the mind and labor, special menial labor.

That's below you.

And yet we see here that God is actually doing work, and then he's creating human beings to continue the same kind of work.

This work of creating and cultivating and actualizing the potential of the world that he's made.

And this, I think, not only departs from the ancient stories, it departs from our modern myth of a happy life.

Most people I went to school with said, I want to go to school, I want to make a lot of money, I want to retire as soon as I can.

And the goal of all this is so that I can not work.

You know, retire as early as you can so that you can do everything that you want to do.

The assumption being nobody in their right mind would actually want to work.

And there's a funny insight, I've always loved that movie WALL-E,

and the statement that it makes, or rather the picture that it paints of what human beings would look like

if we took a permanent hiatus from work for multiple generations.

These humans have, I won't say evolved, devolved into slug-like creatures that have tiny little baby arms and legs,

and they can no longer stand on their own strength, and so they're carried around all day on floating chairs.

And one of the great victories of the movie is when the captain is actually able to stand up on his own two feet,

more physical exertion than he's probably ever done in his life.

So human beings are actually created to work, and the Bible actually says that God made us and this world in such a way that our work is necessary.

It's necessary for us.

Work is as much a part of your basic human needs as food or sleep.

You're created to need work.

So we need it, and also the work is necessary for the world, because God made a world that needs our care.

It needs to be developed and maintained by human beings.

So this is the way God designed things.

But, as you're probably thinking, this is not exactly the beautiful, harmonious way in which the world actually functions today.

And you're right.

God created things to function this way, but things have become, you might say, a bit distorted.

Our work has become distorted.

We just looked at how work was created to be, but that assumes that human beings have a right relationship with God.

And if human beings did, then this is how work would function in the world.

But the problem is, human beings on their own don't have a right relationship with God.

And here's the simple fact.

When your relationship with God is distorted, all of your other relationships become distorted.

It's just simply the way it works.

The distortion flows into every other area of life, including our relationship with our work.

And apart from God, there are two primary ways, I think, that our work becomes distorted.

It becomes distorted when we believe, or we come to believe more and more, that our work is meaningless.

That's a distortion.

Apart from God.

And also, apart from God, I think that some of us can tend toward the distortion of thinking that our work is a source of meaning.

So I want to look at both of these.

I think these are two of the primary distortions that affect most of us in how we think about our jobs.

The first distortion, apart from God, is that we believe that our work is meaningless.

I think some of us, as we're listening to this and maybe rolling your eyes and thinking, oh, all this talk about work,

and the last thing I want to do on a Sunday night in my last few precious hours,

before I go to sleep and have to wake up earlier than I would like and go to work,

the last thing I want to do is think about work.

And why do you think that?

Because when you go to work, you think, you look at all of the work that you do,

you look at the fact that you're sitting behind a desk all day,

maybe answering emails, and maybe they're not even your own emails.

Maybe it's somebody else's emails.

Or you're a part of this massive bureaucracy,

and you look at the labor that you pour in, and it feels like water on sand,

and you think, I'm not making any difference, any dent, any impact.

My boss doesn't even know my name.

I feel like a number.

And some of us think this, and some of us feel meaningless in our jobs.

We struggle to be motivated.

And, you know, when you feel like that,

it's tempting to begin to fantasize about other jobs that would give you more meaning.

It's tempting to begin to think about jobs in terms of the relative meaningfulness

that they might offer you.

You may think of certain jobs as being more meaningful,

and other jobs as being less meaningful,

whether you think of sacred versus secular jobs,

or you think of helping professions,

or you think of nonprofit versus for-profit,

or all of the different, I would say, artificial divisions in vocation

in terms of meaningfulness,

but we begin to think that way.

But here's the key as we understand creation.

All work has meaning,

and all work has dignity.

But here's the key.

It's your work does not have meaning because of what you produce.

What you produce has value,

and hopefully it's adding value somewhere,

but that's not the source of the meaningfulness of your work.

Your work doesn't have meaning because of what it produces.

It has meaning because of the one whom it reflects.

That's where the meaning come from.

So our work reflects a God who made all things and sustains all things,

and a God who made us to reflect His image

in the sustaining, the cultivating, the creating out of what He's made.

So just as we see God bringing order to chaos,

making it possible for life to flourish,

we continue in the work of what?

Bringing order to chaos.

So those of you who work in NGO worlds,

or in non-profit,

or international development spheres,

those of you who do that kind of work,

you are trying to get resources

from this place to this place.

You're looking and trying to understand the problems

that result in poverty and oppression,

and you're trying to funnel resources

and to develop strategies to what?

To bring order to chaos.

You're bringing order to chaos.

You're trying to create a society

or to create a community

where life can flourish better than it is.

If you start a business,

or you code and you build software,

or you develop strategies and different ways of thinking,

you're taking the stuff of creation,

and you're making something that wasn't there before.

You're reflecting the image of a creator God.

When you do that, you say,

well, I build websites.

That's an act of creation?

Yes.

That's an act of creation.

If you manage people or you manage teams,

you're bringing order to priorities

and people to maximize and draw out their potential.

If you teach,

teachers, their whole job is to cultivate

like you would cultivate a garden

and to draw the potential out of their students.

musicians take disparate, disordered sound

and they bring order and produce beautiful melody.

Artists take disparate stuff

and they order it and create beautiful things

like paintings and sculptures.

People who work in hospitality or customer service

create what?

Experiences.

You create encounters.

You have the opportunity to serve

and to treat another human being

with humanizing dignity

even when they're behaving

in an undignified way.

People who are administrative assistants

serve and empower those that they work for.

You bring order to details.

You bring order to emails.

You bring order to schedules.

You facilitate relationships and connections

and enhance productivity.

You're like the fertilizer

that makes everybody else do their job better.

Right?

I actually believe that stay-at-home parents

and homemakers are probably the clearest reflection

of the divine image

in that they are actually creating

and maintaining a place where life can flourish,

a home.

They're nurturing and sustaining human life

for those who have children.

They're forming the souls

and the characters of human beings.

All of these kinds of work,

and these are just tiny,

just a few examples,

they're all ways in which we,

in our work,

are reflecting a creator God.

But the key to sensing

and seeing the meaning in your work,

the key is this,

don't measure meaning by what you produce.

Measure meaning by the one whom you reflect.

Don't measure meaning by what you produce.

Measure meaning by the one whom you reflect.

In a fallen world,

as Genesis 3 says,

there will be thorns and thiscerals.

There will be futility.

There will be resistance.

There will be days and stretches of time

when our productivity is very low

or even in the negative.

Don't measure it by that.

Measure it by the one whom you reflect

when you're working in the image

of Him who made you.

So that's distortion number one,

coming to believe, apart from God,

that my work has no meaning.

All work has meaning.

Distortion number two

goes in the other direction,

believing that our work

is actually the source of meaning.

My work gives me meaning.

It gives me identity.

And this, in D.C.,

when the first or second question you're asked

is what do you do,

there is that immediate assumption

that the most important thing about you,

maybe even more so than your name,

is your career.

Are you somebody that I should be talking to?

Or should I excuse myself

to get another drink from the bar

and find somebody more important?

What you do defines who you are in our culture.

You know, there's that great, often used,

but never overused example, in my opinion,

of chariots of fire.

And Harold Abraham,

you've heard many preachers, including me,

use this a zillion times,

and it's because it's a great example.

Harold, that's the disclaimer,

Harold Abraham is a runner.

He and Eric Little are sort of rivals.

And Harold Abraham is,

he runs the dash,

and he says of the dash,

he says that when that gun goes off,

he says,

I have ten seconds to justify my existence.

And I think it's a great example

because I do think that in many ways

that reflects the distortion

that occurs in our hearts over time.

That my ability to do this thing

justifies my existence.

If I'm not able to do this thing,

then what am I?

You know, especially people in the helping professions.

You get all these degrees

and all these credentials that say,

this person's good at helping.

And then you get a job in social work.

And you try to help people.

And you realize how hard it is.

And you realize that a lot of times

people don't appreciate you.

And they actually resent

that they even need help.

And you give what you think is great advice,

learned advice,

advice that you've read in books

and learned from prior experience

of what would be good

in this or that situation.

And they reject your advice.

How dare they?

And you think, well,

what worth am I?

So we sacrifice our relationships.

We sacrifice sanity.

We sacrifice our own health for our work.

We're never content.

We're always wondering about other jobs

that might do a better job at justifying us.

Many of us wait,

many of us wait

to even think about getting married.

You wait to even think about getting married

until our career is secure.

And then we begin to look around

and realize that the pool

of eligible partners

has dwindled somewhat since undergrad.

And we wonder, what happened?

You know, for those of us

who are unemployed or underemployed,

you struggle not just with a lack of income,

you struggle with a lack of identity.

But the problem is,

our work was never meant to be

a source of meaning in the first place.

And if we spend our life

trying to find meaning,

identity, purpose in our jobs,

it will lead to profound disillusionment.

The late Lens Redding

is a great example of this.

He is a New Zealand-based

or was a New Zealand-based

art director, advertising guru.

By every standard,

he had achieved success

in a very cool and sexy field.

And he died at age 52

from inoperable esophageal cancer.

And after being diagnosed,

things began to shift for him.

And he wrote an essay

that was published after his death

called,

A Short Lesson in Perspective.

So I want to read an excerpt from this,

and it's edited somewhat for language.

He says,

And here's the thing.

It turns out I didn't actually like my old life

nearly as much as I thought I did.

I know this now

because I occasionally catch up

with my old colleagues and workmates.

They fall over each other

to enthusiastically show me

the latest project they're working on,

ask my opinion,

proudly show off their technical prowess,

which is not inconsiderable.

I find myself glazing over

but politely listening

as they brag about

who's had the least sleep

and the most takeaway food.

I haven't seen my wife since January.

I can't feel my legs anymore.

I think I have scurvy.

But another three weeks

and we'll be done.

It's got to be done by then.

The client's going on holiday.

What do I think?

And he says,

What do I think?

I think you're all effing mad.

Deranged.

So disengaged from reality

it's not even funny.

It's an effing TV commercial.

Nobody cares.

And he says,

This has come as quite a shock,

I can tell you.

I think I've come to the conclusion

that the whole thing

was a bit of a con.

A scam.

An elaborate hoax.

Countless late nights and weekends.

Holidays.

Birthdays.

School recitals.

Anniversary dinners

were willingly sacrificed

at the altar of some intangible

but infinitely worthy higher cause.

It would all be worth it

in the long run.

This was the con.

Convincing myself

that there was nowhere I'd rather be

was just a coping mechanism.

I can see that now.

It wasn't really important

or of any consequence at all, really.

How could it be?

We were just shifting product.

Our product and the clients.

Just meeting the quota.

Feeding the beast,

as I called it on my more cynical days.

So was it worth it?

Well, of course not.

It turns out it was just advertising.

So the point is,

on the one hand,

I want to impress upon you

this fact that work,

our work,

all work,

has inherent dignity,

inherent meaning,

inherent worth.

But on the other hand,

our work can never be a source

of meaning

and of value

and of worth.

And that altar

that Lens Redding talks about,

that altar on which

so many of us sacrifice

so many things,

so many people,

so many possibilities,

that is an altar

to an empty idol.

And the idol of work

is just like any other idol.

It never, ever, ever promises,

or never, ever, ever delivers

what it promises.

So this brings us

to the third point then.

If that's the,

if work is necessary

and work does have

inherent meaning,

but that meaning,

it's not a source of meaning.

The meaning comes from the one

whom we reflect

when we work.

If these are true things,

then we have to ask,

how do we then rebalance

work?

Because I know myself,

and I know most of you

well enough to know

that I think that our

work lives are pretty

out of whack.

So knowing this,

how do we rebalance

work in our lives

and maintain this balance

over time

so that we don't

slide into meaningless despair,

so that we don't

sacrifice ourselves

on the altar of our jobs.

And this is actually

where last week's sermon

and this week

come together.

And for those of you

who weren't here last week,

I can sort of bring us

back up to speed on that,

that the only way

to have a healthy,

balanced work life

is if that life

is part of a larger rhythm

of work and rest,

work and Sabbath rest.

That's the only way.

And as we said last week,

Sabbath is much more

than just taking a day off.

Taking a day off

is kind of and can be

a counterfeit Sabbath

because it's not just

about taking a day off.

Sabbath means

ceasing from our work

so that we can celebrate

God's work.

It's a reorienting

of our souls.

Ceasing our work

so that we can celebrate

God's work.

And this only fully makes sense

when we look at Jesus Christ

because in Mark chapter 2,

Mark 2:28

verse 28,

Jesus says something profound.

He says,

I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

The Son of the Man

is Lord of the Sabbath.

What is He saying?

I'm the Lord of rest.

I'm the one to whom

the Sabbath points.

When the Sabbath

was established in creation,

it was a giant signpost

pointing to the rest

that I would one day

make possible.

So when Jesus dies on the cross

and He cries out,

it is finished,

He's not just talking

about His heart.

He's not just talking

about His earthly life.

When He cries out,

it is finished,

He's saying that He has now

accomplished everything necessary

to give us that rest.

He's done everything necessary

to reconcile us to God.

And in that reconciliation,

we know,

as we come into the embrace

of that God,

we know that we have found

the only place in the universe

where we can know

that everything's going to be okay,

that we don't have to strive

any longer,

that there's nothing

that we lack,

that our future is uncertain.

All of that is done away with.

And every Sabbath

is an opportunity

for us to gather

as we are now,

to cease from our work,

and if any of you

are working right now

on your devices,

cease just for right now.

Because right now,

at this minute,

it's an opportunity

for us to gather

as Christians

and to celebrate

the finished work of God

on our behalf,

to actually remember

that all of our hope

and all of our meaning

and all of our purpose

will never be found

in this world,

especially in our work,

and it can only be found

in Jesus.

So in light of this,

in light of the Lord

of the Sabbath

and what we have,

those of us who have come

to Him

and put our hope

not in our work

but in His finished work,

that's what makes you

a Christian.

In light of this,

what's a balanced perspective

on work actually look like?

What does it actually look like?

How should we think

about our work

as you go to work,

most of you,

tomorrow?

And I would say

a balanced perspective

on work looks like this.

It's all wrapped up

in the word

that the Bible uses

for work.

The word that the Bible

uses here in Genesis chapter 2

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

for work.

The Hebrew word

is avodah.

Avodah.

And this first appears

in our passage,

but it's used all

throughout the Old Testament.

And in the Old Testament,

if you look at all the ways

it's used,

if you do a word search,

you'll find something

pretty fascinating

and that is this word

has three interrelated usages.

It has three ways

or three ways

that it's translated

in the Old Testament.

It's translated as work

or labor

or career

or occupation.

That's the first meaning.

That's the one

that we're most familiar with.

But it's also used

to describe service

as in serving one another,

being a servant.

And then thirdly,

it's used to describe worship.

Worship.

So in the Bible,

what you see

in this one word

is that there is

a seamless connection,

a seamless understanding

of the relationship

between our work,

our career,

our vocation,

our call to serve

one another,

and our purpose

as worshipers of God.

And what we see

is that those aren't

three separate activities.

I don't worship on Sunday,

serve at the soup kitchen

on Wednesday,

and then work

Monday to Friday.

That instead,

my work

is a place

where I worship.

And my work

is a place

where I have opportunities

to serve

other people

and the Lord.

So work

and worship

and service,

they're all one and the same.

Your work

is your worship.

And for most of us,

your primary place

of ministry,

your primary place

of evangelism,

your primary place

of service,

your primary place

of bringing justice,

your primary place

of bringing glory to God

and worshiping the Lord,

the primary place

you're going to do that

is your job.

That's the primary place.

And so while we as a church

have ways

that we serve initiatives

like DUC 127,

while we encourage

our core groups

to come up with ways

that they want to serve

together in the community,

we never want to lose sight

of the fact

that your primary calling

is to the Lord Jesus Christ

and next to that

you are called

to a vocation

and that is the way

that God has built you

and provided you

an opportunity

to do His mission

in the world.

That is it.

And so if nothing else,

for all of our core groups

who, you know,

who think that they need

to come up with

an elaborate vision

for serving,

no, it is enough

for you to simply say

our group exists

to support and empower

our people

to see their jobs

as the primary way

that they serve

and worship the Lord.

That's a great focus

for a core group

because that is what

our vocation means,

Avodah.

And when you see someone

who lives this balance

of work and rest,

someone who has

their work life

in balance

and sees it as Avodah,

sees it as a way

to serve and to glorify God,

when you see a life

like that,

what you see is someone

who's been liberated

from their work

so that they may fully

enjoy their work.

And I'll just give you

two quick examples

to close

of people who have

this kind of understanding

of their Avodah,

their work.

The first is

the other character

in Chariots of Fire,

Eric Little.

We have Harold Abraham

who says,

I have ten seconds

to justify my existence,

and we have Eric Little,

a very talented runner.

And in the story,

one of the,

you know,

a medal race comes up.

It's a race

where they can medal,

but this medal race

is held on the Sabbath.

And so Eric Little,

follower of Jesus

that he is,

Sabbath keeper that he is,

says,

I'm not going to do it.

And he doesn't race.

And Harold Abraham

ends up racing,

ends up eventually winning

the medal

that he's worked

so long for,

but in the end

he realizes

it's just a medal.

And it doesn't satisfy him

the way he thought it would.

He's a lot like

Linz Redding

who says,

it's just a commercial.

It's just advertising.

It wasn't worth it.

And then by contrast,

you see Eric

who goes on to serve

and love the people of China

for years

before being put

in a Japanese prison camp

where he eventually dies.

And a few years ago

it was found out

that he was actually

given an opportunity

to leave that camp,

but he traded places

with a pregnant woman.

And so she went free

and he ended up

dying in the camp.

And the world

looks at a story like this

and says,

what a waste,

what a colossal waste.

But when Eric describes

the reason he runs,

it's not to get medals,

it's not to get fame,

it's not to get acclamation,

it's not to get money.

He says,

when I run,

I feel God's smile.

This is Avodah.

That's what it looks like

in a life.

And the second example,

the last example I'll give

is the life of Lilius Trotter.

We've been immersed

in this story,

this amazing story

of Lilius Trotter

because my wife

has actually made

a documentary

about Lilius Trotter,

so I may be a little biased,

but I think when you

see the story for yourself,

you will understand

the beauty of it.

And it will actually

be premiering here in D.C.

on February 6th

at the National Gallery of Art.

So that's pretty exciting.

So our church

will be a part of that.

But when you look

at the life of Lilius Trotter,

here's a woman

who was a very gifted painter

who was told

by the great art critic

of her day in England,

John Ruskin,

you can be England's

greatest living painter.

I have the power

to bestow that upon you,

and you have the talent.

I can open the right doors

for you,

make all the right connections,

one condition.

See, Lilius had been spending

a lot of her free time

serving the poor of London,

the women and the orphans.

And Ruskin saw this

as being in competition

with her art and said,

you have to stop that.

You have to leave all of that

and devote yourself

exclusively to your art.

And if you do that,

I will make you

England's greatest living painter.

She takes three days

of prayer and discernment

and ultimately refuses Ruskin.

But the greatest thing

about the story is

she doesn't actually give up

her vocation as a painter.

She continues to paint.

What she gives up is fame.

What she gives up

is the chance at notoriety.

She gives all that up,

not because fame

is inherently bad,

but because for her,

for her,

the sacrifice would mean

sacrificing what it means

to be faithful to God.

And when she had to choose,

she chose faithfulness

over fame.

And where that took her,

it doesn't need to take

all of us here,

but where it took her

is actually to North Africa.

And she spent the rest

of her life in total obscurity

as a missionary in Algeria.

Painting,

painting,

growing as an artist,

but painting not for the elite

art critics of England,

but rather painting

for an audience of one

in the margins of her journals.

Like Eric Little,

she had a balanced view

of her vocation.

She saw her work

as a way to serve others.

She actually used her painting

to illuminate Arab text

to try to convey

to the Arab world

the beauty of Jesus.

And she knew that they took

the word seriously.

They took the written word

very seriously.

And so she used her

watercolor abilities

to create beautiful tracts

that would tell people

about Jesus.

Because that's what she believed

that she was called to do.

So as we gather together tonight

on this Sabbath day,

may the Lord rebalance

the way we see our work.

that we would see it

as Avodah,

that we would see

that all of our work

reflects the God

who made us

in his image to work.

That we would see

how we're called

both to serve those around us

and to glorify God

in all that we do.

And I pray that we would all

gain a vision for that

and what it looks like

in our lives.

And Lord,

as we do ask you

to bless us in this,

we ask you to enable us,

as your word says,

to give us everything

that we need

to accomplish the work

that you've prepared

for us beforehand,

that we should walk

in those good works.

We pray for your,

not only your vision,

but also the empowering presence

of your spirit

to help us live

lives of faithfulness, Lord.

And we ask this

in your Son's holy name.

Amen.