Bees
There’s a lot more that goes on in someone’s work that you might guess.
Take preaching.
Last week my colleague Eric was rudely attacked by a rogue wasp while he was preaching in the late service. Repeatedly the wasp came at him. Like a miniature jet fighter honing in on a target it aimed for his face as he preached away. He had to swat and preach, swat and preach. I wasn’t present, but I watched the video. It was the most heroic preaching effort I’ve ever seen. Finally, Wasim Khokhar, longtime Highland member, killed the wasp, and laid it at Eric’s feet.
Sometimes there’s a lot more that goes on in someone’s work than you might have ever guessed.
Eric’s experience tempted me to wear a beekeeper’s outfit to preach in this Sunday. In fact I asked Andria, our receptionist, to find one for me. I have to say I was surprised when she found one–more than one. Because I’ve never personally known someone who kept bees.
Which got me to thinking about beekeepers. You don’t see a lot of beekeepers do you? Their work is pretty hidden. It’s hot high profile work. But it turns out to be a piece of something very, very important.[1] There are 100 crop species which supply 90% of the world’s food supply. 71 of those 100 crops species are pollinated by bees. Without those bees, there wouldn’t be enough food to feed the world. In fact, the value of crops pollinated by bees in the U. S. alone each year is $16 billion. Those bees are pretty valuable little workers.
But bees are having a tough time. The increase in pesticides has killed bees or made them unhealthy. And, many of their habitats have collapsed. Since 2007, an average of 30% of all bee colonies have died off each year.
Beekeepers intervene in this and help provide a safe and nurturing space for bees to live and thrive. Thus, in a sense, beekeepers feed the world. When a beekeeper puts on that funny looking outfit and does that rarely seen work of keeping bees, he or she is almost literally feeding and saving the world.
There’s a lot more that goes on in someone’s work that you might guess.
The same thing was true for one of the working class guys in the book of Esther. The Book of Esther has two heroes. One looks and acts like a hero. The other doesn’t necessarily.
Esther is one hero. And in many respects she looks and acts just like a hero. She’s got a rags to riches story. She’s goes from orphan girl to queen of a vast kingdom. And she uses her tremendous influence to save the underdogs in the story–the Jews.
The other hero is Mordecai. But Mordecai doesn’t really look like a hero. Because, in general, all Mordecai does from cover to cover is one thing. All he does is go to work. But like that beekeeper, and even more so, by just showing up to work, Mordecai ends up saving the world.
Working Hero
Let’s track Mordecai’s movements. Seven times Mordecai is mentioned doing the same thing in the book of Esther:
- Now when the virgins were gathered together the second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate. (Es. 2:19 ESV)
- In those days, as Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. (Est. 2:21 ESV)
- And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. (Est. 3:2 ESV)
- He [Mordecai] went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one was allowed to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. (Est. 4:2 ESV)
- And Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. (Est. 5:9 ESV)
- Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry; take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.” (Est. 6:10 ESV)
- Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered. (Est. 6:12 ESV)
Over and over the author simply describes Mordecai as “sitting at the king’s gate.” To us that sounds like the guy’s hanging out at some place. Sounds like he’s wasting an awful lot of time of time at that place and needs to go make himself useful and get a job!
But Old Testament scholar Adele Berlin points out that this language does not describe a place. It describes a position.[2] “Sitting at the king’s gate” indicates that Mordecai holds a high position in the king’s administration. This is code for a government position. Mordecai works for the king. The “king’s gate” is his office, his workplace. Again and again what we see Mordecai doing is simply going to work.
Chapter 2 – he goes to work.
Chapter 3 – he goes to work.
Chapter 4 – he goes to work.
Chapter 5 – he goes to work.
Chapter 6 – he goes to work.
We never see Mordecai go to synagogue, the Jewish version of church–although we can assume that he does. But we don’t see him kneeling in the synagogue, performing pious acts of worship.
We never see him at home–although we can assume he spent time at home. But we don’t see him teaching young Esther, whom he’s adopted, life lessons that end up shaping her into the woman that ends up changing the world.
The camera is generally only turned on when Mordecai goes to work. And yet by just going to work, by showing up day after day, Mordecai gains the opportunity to make a tremendous difference in his world.
Esther is the story of a person who saved his part of the world simply by going to work. Notice the 5 things that happened when Mordecai went to work.
First, it was in the context of his work in and around the royal palace that Mordecai was able to keep in touch with Esther:
And every day Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was and what was happening to her. (Est. 2:11 ESV)
When Mordecai first took this job for this secular government, he could have never imagined that his boss would force his adopted daughter from his home and into a harem. Can you imagine how awkward that would be?! But it happened. Yet Mordecai, because of his work, had an office closeby the harem and had authority that gave him the ability to keep an eye on Esther and give her counsel at this critical time in her life.
Second, it was in the context of his work that Mordecai uncovered a plot to kill the king:
21 In those days, as Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. 22 And this came to the knowledge of Mordecai, and he told it to Queen Esther, and Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai. (Est. 2:21-22 ESV)
When Mordecai first applied for this government job, he could have never imagined the day would come when he might actually save the king’s life. But because he clocked in every morning, and he did his work with excellence, one day came when he actually did just that–he saved the life of the most powerful person in the ancient world at that time.
Third, it was in the context of his work, this work that gave him close access to the now-Queen Esther, that Mordecai was able to give Esther the one key piece of counsel which became the key turning point in her life:
13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Est. 4:13-14 ESV)
The entire story turns on this advice. This conversation that did not happen at church. It did not happen at home. This conversation only happened because day after day Mordecai went to work and this work gave him access to Esther. And because of this conversation in Mordecai’s workplace, Esther was emboldened to do her part to save the Jews.
Fourth, it was in the context of work that Mordecai was authorized to write an edict that went to all the Jews allowing them to defend themselves against those whom Haman had sent to kill them:
9 The king’s scribes were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day. And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. (Est. 8:9 ESV)
Because Mordecai has served so well at work, he has earned the trust of the king and is thus able to send a letter from the king’s very own office, carrying the weight of the king’s office, which helps save the Jews.
Fifth, it is in the context of Mordecai’s work that he is able to bring prosperity and peace to all his people:
King Ahasuerus imposed tax on the land and on the coastlands of the sea. 2 And all the acts of his power and might, and the full account of the high honor of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? 3 For Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Ahasuerus, and he was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people. (Est. 10:1-3 ESV)
Over the long haul, Mordecai’s work eventually brings him to a position where he is able to bring prosperity and peace to all of his people in the kingdom of Persia. Because he went to work, day in and day out, and he did his work faithfully and with excellence, eventually he was in a position to bring “shalom” or peace, to every Jew in the kingdom of Persia.
Esther is the story of a person who saved his part of the world simply by going to work. The one picture we get of Mordecai is him at work. No picture of him at church. No picture of him at home. Just a picture of him at work. And it’s through his work, his secular work, in his position as a government employee in a corrupt administration, that Mordecai ends up making a difference in the world. Esther couldn’t have done what she did if Mordecai hadn’t come to work. The Jewish race wouldn’t have been saved if Mordecai hadn’t come to work.[3]
What we see in the book of Esther is that work, when done faithfully, when done responsibly, when done as a person of faith, becomes a means for so much more than just work. When our work in the world is pursued as part of our faith in God it becomes part of God’s work in the world. Just by showing up to work every day, Mordecai become part of what God was doing in the world. Why? Because he pursued that work, that secular work in a government job with pagan people as part of his faith in God. He is the one person in the story who seemed to have faith in God, who believed in this God so difficult to see. And he approached his work in the world as an extension of his faith in God. And because he did that, it became part of God’s work in the world.
In his book Every Good Endeavor Timothy Keller writes this:[4]
“Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever.”
If there is no God, then even the best work, the thing you spend your best energy, creativity, and time doing, will eventually amount to nothing. But if there is a God, and if that God is doing something larger on this earth, and if we do our work in connection with him, then our work becomes part of his work, and it matters forever. That’s what we see in the book of Esther. It’s not just what we do at home that matters. It not just what we do at church that matters. But what we do at work can matter forever when it’s pursued in response to God’s calling.
Ben Witherington writes in his book Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor that if we want to move in the direction of what we see in Mordecai, we need to make a significant change:[5] Stop working to make a living / Start working to make a life. Working to make a living is just working to pay bills, to earn money, to get an income. But working to make a life, a Christian life in particular, is working in order to align what we are doing in the world with what God’s doing in the world. We see our work as an extension of what God’s doing in the world. Every day we show up at the office, or at the classroom, or at the construction site, or on the road, and we strive to do our work with the faith that it too can contribute to what God’s doing in the world. Our work, even if it’s for a corrupt organization and among a group of pagan people, can contribute meaningfully to what God is up to in the world.
And what is God doing? According to R. Paul Stevens in his book Work Matters, God is bringing shalom–fixing and renewing all things in the world so that they are as they are now as they were originally intended to be. And work, whatever your work is, when it’s done faithfully, can contribute to this. Your work can bring life and shalom to others.[6] Just as we see with Mordecai. The story ends with Mordecai’s work bringing shalom to the kingdom and to many within it. And your work, whether it’s teaching or accounting or driving or building or taking photographs or creating or designing or counting, brings shalom in a wide variety of ways. When our work in the world is pursued as part of our faith in God it becomes part of God’s work in the world.[7]
My family and I recently saw the movie “Sully.” Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Zaslow piloted US Airways Flight 1549 from LaGuardia Airport. It was just a normal day at work. For 30 years Sully had been going to work as a commercial pilot. Day after day, flight after flight, he had been doing this very thing. Taking off, landing, taking off, landing. For three decades. But on this day, three minutes into the flight, the plane struck a flock of Canada geese. Losing both engines, Sully made the decision to land the plane in the Hudson River. It was a risky decision. Something only a pilot with three decades of experience could have made. It was a risky landing. Something only a pilot of his expertise could have done. But because he had clocked into work, every day, day after day, flight after flight, the lives of 155 people were saved.
It was called “The Miracle on the Hudson.” The remarkable thing was not just the miracle, but the fact that it took place at work. This miracle that saved the lives of 155 people took place at Sully’s workplace. Those passengers weren’t in their workplaces. They were on vacation or travelling in between workplaces. But Sully and First Officer Zaslow and the flight attendants were just at work. Their miracle took place when they showed up for another day at work.
And every day miracles take place in the workplace. Big ones like this one and like those in Esther where Mordecai worked. And little ones as well. From the janitor who cleans toilets at the rec center, to the cashier at Kroger, to the accountant, to the teacher, to the lawyer, and everyone in between, miracles happen every day in the workplace. The office, the classroom, the cubicle, the driver’s seat become holy places where God does some of his best work in us and through us. Home and church are not the only place where God is at work. Your work is as well.
There’s a lot more going on at work then we might have ever imagined.
Now What? Read one of these books and put it into practice at work:
- Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace, R. Paul Stevens, Alvin Ung
- Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor, Ben Witherington III
- Work Matters: Lessons from Scripture, R. Paul Stevens
- Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, Timothy Keller
[2] Adele Berlin, Esther, The JPS Bible Commentary, 31.
[3] John Knapp, How the Church Fails Business People (2011), xii-xiii “the overwhelming majority reported that the church had done little or nothing to equip them for faithful living at work. They mostly perceived the church and its clergy as preoccupied with the private sphere of life—family, health and individual relationships with God—and disinterested in the spiritual and ethical stresses of weekday work….Church priorities continue to tilt heavily toward private faith and away from ministries that might equip believers for a robust public faith.”
[4] Timothy J. Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work
[5] 83.
[6] 4.
[7] Our work doesn’t only shape the world, it shapes us. In our darkest days at work we often think of work as sucking our souls from us, as something that makes our spiritual lives impossible. We think we could be a far better spiritual person if we didn’t have to go to work or if we didn’t have such a pagan workplace. But in their book Taking Your Soul to Work Alvin Ung and R. Paul Stevens write that the workplace can actually be one of the most spiritually transformative places in our lives, if we approach it intentionally. Your workplace can actually be a place of great spiritual formation. They suggest that there are 9 “soul-sapping struggles” in most workplaces. They base these on the 7 “deadly” sins plus 2 more sins that are particularly present in the workplace. They don’t just leave these in generalities. They describe each of these in terms of how they are present in the workplace. For example, they suggest that anger shows up as a force that causes us to manipulate people at work. Sloth appears at work as a temptation to do the very least. Then, they show how the fruit the Spirit–love, joy, peace, patience, etc.–can be cultivated in the workplace as the direct antidote to those “soul-sapping struggles.” Anger, for example, can be replaced with gentleness in the workplace. They provide exercises to help us become more gentle with others at work. Finally, they show us the “outcome”–what life could look like at work if we allowed the Spirit to truly be at work in us in those specific ways. They share stories of Christians who have done just that. Your work can not only be a place and a way in which you help shape the world with God. It can also be a place and a way in which you are are being shaped by God.
