Dear friends in Christ at Peace and Grue,
The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. ” 1 Cor. 3:8-9
The quotation is all over the internet, so it must be true. Martin Luther, we are told, said this about vocation: “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays-not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.” Yet nowhere could I find a website that made reference to any of Luther’s works when quoting this statement.
We are reminded of other delicious “quotations” that Luther never said: “If I believed the world were to end tomorrow, I would plant a tree.” Even though we now know Luther never said that it sounds like Luther especially if it refers to a “creaturely service” of neighbor and world within a fully Christ centered perspective of the end times.
So, what about the maid sweeping to the glory of God and the shoemaker doing his Christian duty because God likes good craftsmanship. The gist of the quote does indeed sound like Luther. The problem is that work made “Christian” by singing hymns or attacking little crosses is too modern. Work, it says, is pleasing to God because God likes quality work, theologically endorsing work as an end in itself. In the hands of a modern boss, good craftsmanship and clean floors (clean desk or signed contract) to the glory of God could be a tyrannical tool to promote the bottom line.
Here is something Luther did say about work, whether the work of the prince or the work of a tailor: “The prince should think: Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him. That is why God has given me this office, and I have it that I might serve him. That would be a good prince and ruler. When a prince sees his neighbor oppressed, he should think: That concerns me! I must protect and shield my neighbor….The same is true for shoemaker, tailor, scribe, or reader. If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor. When a Christian does not serve the other, God is not present; that is not Christian living.” (WA 10, 382)
Vocation is a tricky notion. Rightly understood, it sets us free in Christ to give ourselves for the service of the neighbor to the glory of God. Wrongly understood, it enslaves us to the boss. God may indeed like good craftsmanship, but Christian vocation is not about production (though production will result), nor is it about my own satisfaction (though it will surely satisfy); it is about giving oneself to the other in love and service in the glorious freedom of the gospel. God will welcome all our efforts to that end, however skilled or hesitant they might be.
Have a blessed Labor Day,
Pastor Dan