Worship AND Work
Is Work Worship?
Work is Worship is heard all over the church, especially by non-church workers and business people seeking to validate their calling, and by training organizations wanting to teach a good work ethic to their students.
The motive is both valid and helpful, but the consequences to understanding worship are unfortunate.
To make work worship, you have to reduce worship to just an attitude. We hear this in the statement “when I do my work as unto the Lord, it becomes worship.”
Saying worship is a special kind of action attracts accusations of compartmentalization. But life is made up of categories, eating and sleeping, working and resting.
Where did this start?
The first mention of “work is worship” that I can find is from Thomas Carlyle in his 1843 book, “ Past and Present.” He quotes a Latin motto “Laborare est Orare.” Apparently he has just made this up. It can’t be traced to any monks actually saying that.
“Admirable was that of the old Monks, 'Laborare est Orare, Work is Worship.'“ - Chapter 12, Past and Present - Carlyle
I’m not the only one who has noticed this . . .
What is most amusing and illuminating, however, is the common practice of misquoting this motto to say laborare est orare. For one of infinite examples, see an article in Time Magazine (Time, 1955): ‘ “Laborare est orare” said St Benedict (work is prayer).’ So deep is this modern misreading, that some writers even mistranslate the Benedictine motto to fit it: ‘Thus, his (Benedict’s) motto - Ora et Labora (to work is to pray) - became a standard of the Rule .’ I have traced this very creative and suggestive error back to that great charismatic prophet of the Victorian work ethic, Thomas Carlyle: ‘The old Monks had a proverb “Laborare est Orare,” to work is to pray.’ Such pervasive misunderstanding, misattribution, misreading, and mistranslation, reflects more than mere bad scholarship: these are the errors, not of individuals, but of an age. No matter what Benedict may have said, we moderns cannot help but hear that ‘work is prayer’.
- Opus Dei: prayer or labor? The spirituality of work in Saints Benedict and Escrivá. -by JAMES B . MURPHY
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Click on the arrow to expand the quotes . . .
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For Christians who understand that we are saved by grace through faith, the whole concept of work has been transformed to that of worship. Paul told the Roman believers, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers [and sisters], in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Rom. 12:1; italics added). Scottish historian and social critic Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) has captured the wonder of what our forefathers understood: Laborare est Orare, Work is Worship….All true Work is sacred; in all true Work, were it but hand-labour, there is something of divines….No man has work, or can work, except religiously; not even the poor day laborer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer of your shoes.
No less now than in the sixteenth century, whatever our occupation, we are called to live twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, before the face of God and to worship God with all of our life, including our work.
Miller, Darrow; Newton, Marit. LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day .
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The Ancient Hebrews had a deep understanding of how faith and work came together in their lives. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that they used the same word for work and worship.
The Hebrew word avodah jointly means work, worship, and service. The various usages of this Hebrew word found first in Genesis 2:15 tell us that God’s original design and desire is that our work and our worship would be a seamless way of living. . . .
This is a powerful image to think that the word for working in the fields is the same word used for worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Avodah is a picture of an integrated faith. A life where work and worship come from the same root. The same foundation.
So often we think of worship as something we do on Sunday and work as something we do on Monday. This dichotomy is neither what God designed nor what he desires for our lives.
Avodah, on the other hand, suggests that our work can be a form of worship where we honor the Lord God, and serve our neighbors.
Read the full text: https://tifwe.org/avodah-a-life-of-work-worship-and-service/
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Hundreds of times in the Bible the Hebrew word “avodah” is used to mean both “to work” and “to worship.” Our work is meant to serve God’s purposes more than our own, which prevents us from seeing work as a means to stock up our coffers, set ourselves up for retirement, or just plod away ‘cause it’s a necessary burden.
Simply put, work is worship. The Gospel actually gives us new lenses to see work through: we actually work for God Himself!
Darren Bosch - https://reformedperspective.ca/work-is-worship/
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YouTube video - he says basically “if we offer our work to God, then it’s worship”
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Many today see their vocation as a hindrance to prayer. “If only I had some time free from the distractions of work, then I could pray” is a common sentiment. But prayer is not another duty to add onto an already overcommitted schedule. In Praying the Ordinary, our vocation, far from being a hindrance, is an asset.
How is this so? Is it that we learn the secret of praying as we work? Certainly this is important, but it is not why our work is such an asset to prayer. Our vocation is an asset to prayer because our work becomes prayer. It is prayer in action. The artist, the novelist, the surgeon, the plumber, the secretary, the lawyer, the homemaker, the farmer, the teacher—all are praying by offering their work up to God
-from “Prayer” - Richard Foster - Ch 15 (Praying the Ordinary)
Eastern Religions
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Freemasonry
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Worship is Distinct
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Biblical View of Work
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