Garden City: Work, Rest, and the Art of Being Human.

by John Mark Comer

What are you giving your life to?

The mantra of our culture is that we work to live. The American dream — which started out as this brilliant idea that everybody should have a shot at a happy life — has devolved over the years into a narcissistic desire to make as much money as possible, in as little time as possible, with as little effort as possible, so that we can get off work and go do something else. What a miserable way to live.

This word subdue seems to indicate there’s an inherent wildness to the world. It’s untamed. Out of control. In desperate need of ruling.

In Hebrew there’s a play on words. Adam (the man) is made from the adamah (the ground). It’s a poetic way of saying that human has a symbiotic relationship with the earth itself. We’re made from the dust. Which is why the first human profession was gardening . . . “Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the East, in Eden . . .” And . . . “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”4 Let’s drill down on two ideas here: work it and take care of it. The first word is abad in Hebrew, and it basically means work. But that’s not the only way it’s translated into English. Sometimes it’s translated “service.” So work is service. Service to God. Service to people made in his image — which is everybody. And, I would argue, service to the earth itself. But abad is also the same word used all over the Hebrew Bible for worship. Interesting. So work and worship aren’t two separate ideas. They are connected at the hip. They are two translations of the same word.5 It’s tragic that we think of worship as a few songs at church every Sunday. That is worship — of course. But in a Genesis-shaped worldview — all of life is worship.

love Tim Keller’s definition of work. He puts it this way: work is “rearranging the raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish.”7

In fact, our word culture comes straight from this idea of cultivation. Good culture is the result of even better people hard at work, rearranging the raw stuff of Planet Earth into a place of delight.8

To make a Garden-like world where image bearers can flourish and thrive, where people can experience and enjoy God’s generous love. A kingdom where God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven,” where the glass wall between earth and heaven is so thin and clear and translucent that you don’t even remember it’s there.

The last two chapters of Revelation are dripping with allusion after allusion to the first two chapters of the Bible. We read about . . . “The tree of life,” “The river,” “No longer will there be any curse,” “They will reign (or rule) for ever and ever.”10

Because the Garden was never supposed to stay a garden; it was always supposed to become a garden city.

He puts it this way, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”11 Now, planting, watering, growing — this is Eden imagery, and it’s likely that any self-respecting first-century Jew would have picked up on the allusion. And all of Paul’s language builds up to this staggering line: “For we are God’s coworkers.”

You are a modern day Adam or Eve. This world is what’s left of the Garden.

And your job is to take all the raw materials that are spread out in front of you, to work it, to take care of it, to rule, to subdue, to wrestle, to fight, to explore, and to take the creation project forward as an act of service and worship to the God who made you.

But for now, just know this: calling or vocation or whatever you want to call it isn’t limited to “spiritual”-type jobs and careers. It’s as wide as humanity itself.

The word vocatio can also be translated voice. Man, that says a lot. Your vocation is your voice. The Quakers have a saying about calling that I love: Let your life speak. Finding your calling is about finding your voice — what cuts over all the din and drone of the other seven-billion-plus people on earth.

The tune and tone that only you can bring to the table. Calling isn’t something you choose, like who you marry or what house you buy or what car you buy; it’s something you unearth. You excavate. You dig out. And you discover.

That, my friends, is the question. Who are we? How are we hardwired by our Maker? What is it that God had in mind the day we were born? These are the questions of calling and vocation.

And it’s also true that Jesus is with us no matter what we do, and what he called “life to the full”3 isn’t dependent on having our dream job. At all. Which is great, since billions of people see work simply as a way to survive. We’ll talk more about that later. For now, all I’m saying is what we do should grow out of who we are. There’s a lot of talk about burnout right now. As a society, we are overworked, tired, stressed out, and frazzled — the digital age is hollowing out our soul. But burnout isn’t always the result of giving too much; sometimes it’s the result of trying to give something you don’t have to give in the first place.

We need to learn to embrace our potential and our limitations. Because both of them are signposts, pointing us forward into God’s calling on our life.4

What would you do with your life if you didn’t get paid and you didn’t need the money?

Maybe for you it’s not design; it’s a really good meal or a concert or laughing around a table with friends on a warm summer night — but there are moments of awareness. When all of a sudden we become acutely aware of the Creator’s realness, nearness, and goodness.

kavod

There was something categorically different about the cloud in the temple, but kavod is everywhere. You can’t limit it or contain it or schedule it or pigeonhole it or brand it or claim it or control it or run from it. All you can do is close your eyes and live blind; or open your eyes and end up face down on the floor. It was the prophet Habakkuk who said that we’re heading toward a world where “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”4 So right now, not everybody knows about God’s kavod; some people are blind and oblivious, but in the near future, everybody will know about it. Because the awareness of God’s kavod will fill the earth like the waters cover the sea. Now, in the meantime, what does all this talk about glory have to do with work, rest, and humanness?

The Anglican writer John Stott said the kind of work we’re called to is, “The expenditure of energy (manual or mental or both) in the service of others, which brings fulfillment to the worker, benefit to the community, and glory to God.”9

This means we need to learn how to value beauty for beauty’s sake. Maybe even for God’s sake.

In fact, discipleship to Jesus is about one simple question: if Jesus were me, if he lived in my city, had my job, my education, made my salary, had my family, how would he live?

Do you see your work as an essential part of your discipleship to Jesus and as the primary way that you join him in his work of renewal?

ekplesso.

There’s an ancient rabbinic saying that’s worth quoting here. The legendary Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said this: “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’ ”16

If you’re really good at whatever it is you do, you don’t need to tell the rest of us. We’ll know. Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.