Morality and Work

Morality and Work

*This article previously appeared in an issue of _Creation Spirituality_ magazine.*

While a student at the conservative evangelical college where I spent my undergraduate years, I was invited to the wedding of a classmate. I didn't know her fiancé well at all save for a couple of coffee shop conversations we happened to fall into, but he seemed an amiable sort. I knew that he worked with some other of my acquaintances from college, and a point was made of this during the wedding when the groom and all of the groomsmen donned dark sunglasses and their security passes from the factory where the company for which they worked built missiles and other weapons for the military.

Their humor was not lost on me-I like to think I'm sillier than the next guy-but the four of them, upstanding young Christian men with spotless reputations, publicly admitting that they work where they do.... I was uncomfortably distracted by this incongruity. Perhaps they had never given a second thought to the use to which their labor may someday be applied. Not only did it not seem to bother them, but it didn't seem to occur to anyone at the college as odd, either. I was used to playing the Lone Liberal at my school, but it forced me to think about what is and what is not appropriate work for a Christian. When the bombs fell on Iraq, did they wonder if this murder was the work of their own hands? I wonder. It echoes the irony in The Last Temptation of Christ where Jesus is under contract by the Romans to produce crucifixion crosses. I racked my brain for some reference in the Gospels to making an appropriate living. This bothers me a little, in that I can't think of any explicit word on the subject.

For our Buddhist brethren, the primary practice of faith is guided by the Noble Eightfold path, which includes Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, and Right Livelihood. It is this last that I am concerned with here. According to Buddhist scripture, Right Livelihood forbids the disciple to earn a living that is contrary to the spirit of Right Speech and Right Action: "Monks, these five trades ought not to be followed by a lay follower. Which five? Trade in weapons, trade in living beings, trade in meat, trade in liquor, and trade in poison" (Anguttaranikaya 5, 177 III). Elsewhere, scripture specifies butchers, fowlers, trappers, hunters, fishers, robbers, executioners, and jailors (Majjhimanikaya 51 I).

Why is it that Christianity has nothing to say on this subject? Why is it that none of the above listed occupations are considered inconsistent with the Christian life in our culture?

The Gospels may be silent about occupation explicitly, but we can certainly infer some things from Jesus' actions. Two instances come to mind: the story of the dishonest tax-collector, Zaccheus, and the woman caught in adultery. In the former, Zaccheus was a man of diminutive stature who climbed a tree in order to see Jesus as he passed through the city. Jesus, to everyone's surprise, called Zaccheus down and informed him that he would join him for a meal. During the course of the meal, Jesus' presence worked a transformation within Zaccheus, a conversion. He admitted his wrongdoing in extracting more taxes from the populace than they owed. Zaccheus was eager to make amends and to start a new sort of life. Jesus didn't insist that he give up tax collecting, just that he be fair.

In the other story, Jesus rescues a woman from an angry mob set on stoning her to death, the appropriate Mosaic punishment for adultery. Jesus didn't lecture her about morality or the Law. She knew those things, and she knew her occupation was forbidden. Jesus didn't coerce her into repentance, his mere presence was enough to transform her. "Go and sin no more." Jesus said, and no more. Tradition tells us that this woman turned out to be Mary Magdalene, the first to behold the risen Lord.

A Buddhist story tells of a notorious murderer who terrorized the kingdom. The inevitable happened. When the murderer confronted the Buddha, intending no good, the very presence of the holy man shook him to his very core. He dropped his weapons and knelt before the Buddha declaring that he wanted to become a monk. The Buddha embraced him and ordained him. In each of these stories, authentic encounters with the Holy One result in a personal transformation which includes the convert's means of living. The implicit message is clear: encounter with the Holy redeems and transforms the whole of life.

The Gospels do have more to say about our occupations. When Jesus was called to task for picking grain to eat on the Sabbath, and for healing on the Sabbath, he made it clear that helping, healing, and providing for others is always more important than any explicit Law, even if that Law is from Yahweh's own hands (as in the Ten Commandments). In the story of Jesus' visit with his friends Mary and Martha, it is made clear that adoration-quality time with loved ones, with Nature or with the silent presence of the Divine-is of far greater import than having all the dishes clean, or having the closets in order.

I am still disturbed when I recall my friends' wedding. Not so much that these are friends who are making painful choices in hard times, weighing the moral implications of their employ over the hunger of their families, etc., but because they are completely unconscious of the incongruity between their work and their faith. It has challenged me to examine my own life for such oversights, in the light of a spiritual tradition that calls for daily conversion and continuous revelation.