Holy Work in Ordinary Places

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. COLOSSIANS 3:23

When Luther was a boy, a calling meant one thing. To have a vocation was to be called out of ordinary life into the monastery or the priesthood. Monks and nuns were said to follow the counsels of perfection; everyone else lived a lower, secular life, which might be decent but was not truly holy. Luther had believed this so deeply that he broke his father’s heart to enter the cloister. Some of his most lasting work was to turn it upside down. By the end of his life the German word for calling, Beruf, had come to mean what it still means: a person’s ordinary work and station in life, seen as a place where God has put them to serve.

No higher road

In 1521, at the Wartburg, Luther wrote a book On Monastic Vows. He argued that vows made in the belief that they would earn salvation, or make a person holier than other Christians, were contrary to faith. There is no higher road to God than the one every Christian walks, the road of faith in Christ and love for the neighbour. The monk in his cell is not nearer to God, simply because he is a monk, than the maid in the kitchen or the farmer in the field.

His sermon on the appearing of the grace of God tells a story from the desert fathers to make the point. A monk who could not bear the temptations of his community fled to the wilderness to serve God in peace. But there, when his water-jug kept tipping over, he flew into a rage and smashed it. He realised that the trouble lay in himself, not in his surroundings, and went back. Luther draws the moral:

“Conflict and not flight, energy and not rest, must be the order in this life if we are to win the crown.”

Holiness is not found by running away from ordinary life. It is lived out in the middle of it.

Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 1 CORINTHIANS 7:20

God at work behind masks

Luther loved to say that God hides Himself behind the ordinary work of human beings as behind a mask. God could feed us directly, as He fed Israel with manna; instead He feeds us through the farmer, the miller and the baker. He could protect us directly; instead He does it through parents, magistrates and neighbours. When we pray for our daily bread, He answers by setting a whole world of people to work.

The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. PSALM 145:15–16

This means that the most ordinary work is a sharing in God’s own care for His world. The mother feeding her child, the carpenter framing a roof, the clerk keeping honest accounts, the soldier guarding a city, the teacher explaining a sum — all are God’s hands. Their work is holy, not because it is religious, but because God is in it, serving the neighbour through them.

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. PSALM 127:1

For the neighbour’s sake

If God does not need our good works, who does? Our neighbour does. This is the other half of Luther’s teaching on vocation, and it flows straight from justification by faith. Because we are accepted freely in Christ, we do not work to earn God’s favour. We are free to point all our work outward, towards the people who need it. His Christmas sermon puts it plainly: having received Christ, you have no other way to serve Him than “so to direct your works that they may be of benefit to your neighbour, just as the works of Christ are of benefit and use to you.”

In that same sermon he paints Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem, very likely without a servant, Joseph doing the work of both master and servant, Mary of both mistress and maid. There is no hint of shame in it. The Holy Family did ordinary work, and did it on the very road along which God was bringing His Son into the world.

With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men. EPHESIANS 6:7

In a little book on marriage written in 1522, Luther imagines a father washing his baby’s nappies while clever people mock him as a fool. God and the angels, Luther says, smile at the sight — not because nappies are holy in themselves, but because the father is doing it in faith. That is the whole doctrine of vocation in a single picture.

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:31

The cross in our calling

Vocation is not always pleasant. Luther knew that every calling carries its own cross: the farmer’s weather, the parent’s sleepless nights, the magistrate’s hard decisions, the servant’s unjust master. He believed that we do not need to invent crosses by going on pilgrimages or taking extraordinary vows. God lays enough on us in our daily work. The Christian bears it with patience, trusting that God is using it both to serve others and to shape him.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. ECCLESIASTES 9:10

Honest cautions

Luther’s teaching on vocation has a shadow side. He tended to see a person’s calling as fixed by birth and circumstance: the peasant should remain a peasant, the servant a servant. Taken that way, it can become a way of keeping people in their place and silencing their longing for justice or change. Paul’s counsel to abide in one’s calling is immediately followed, in the same passage, by his advice to the slave to take his freedom if he can. Scripture does not sanctify every social arrangement.

It must also be said that Luther was often unfair to the monasteries. Many monks and nuns had given themselves to prayer and service in genuine faith, not in hope of earning heaven. And later Protestant cultures have sometimes turned his teaching into something he would not have recognised: a worship of work and productivity, as if busy-ness were holiness. Luther was not a workaholic. He believed in rest, in feasting, in the Sabbath, and in the God who gives to His beloved even in their sleep.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Write down the callings God has given you — in family, work, church and community — and thank Him for each by name.

2. Choose one ordinary task you do tomorrow and ask, “Whom does this serve?” Then do it for that person, as to the Lord.

3. If you have thought your work unspiritual, read Psalm 145:15–16 and ask how God is feeding His world through you.

4. Identify the cross in your present calling. Ask for patience to bear it rather than escape it.

5. If your calling has become an idol of busy-ness, set aside real rest this week as an act of trust.

A PRAYER

Lord God, You feed and clothe and protect Your world, and You have chosen to do it through human hands.

Thank You for the callings You have given me, in my home, my work and my neighbourhood.

Let me do what my hand finds to do heartily, as to You, and for the good of those You have put near me.

When my work is hard, give me patience; when it is ordinary, let me see Your hand behind it; and when it is done, give me rest in You. Amen.