Dr. Fletcher Tink on Theology of Work

1. Theology of Work
Finishing Strong

2. Whether it is a surgical procedure, a mathematical
formula, an architectural blueprint made into a
building, a programmer’s installation, or a scientist’s
discovery, each of these efforts can be accomplished
with diligence, detail and excellence to the glory of
God.
Each task done well earns credibility for the next, until
influence and freedom allow for greater and greater
opportunities to impact positively both the workplace
and beyond.
This concluding session celebrates work well done and
puts it in the context of glorifying God. Mother Teresa
helps us with her perspective:

3. God does not judge us on “success” as the world
measures it, but on our faithfulness to our
calling.
When Mother Teresa was asked if she felt like she
failed when she was unable to rescue all the
children on the streets of Calcutta, she said:
“No, I have been called to be faithful. This is all I
have been called to do.”

4. Please read the carefully transcript of the 1989
Time Magazine interview with Mother Teresa.
It can be found on the internet at
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,91
71,959149,00.html
1. Did she understand her vocation?
2. Did she see her work as tedious?
3. Did she experience joy?

5. It is so easy to start ambitiously, idealistically about how one
will enter into the world to transform it.
The danger is that over time, we allow the institutional
pressures to finally conform us to their culture.
We need to remind ourselves of Rom 12:1-2 (NIV): “Therefore,
I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your
bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God---which
is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what
God’s will is---his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

6. “Work” in the systems of the world needs to
be anchored in a theology that engages
body, mind and practice in humble service
to God, fulfilling His purposes , “growing
wherever we are planted.”

7. The danger is that one enters into the
workaday world with great enthusiasm to be
a transformative agent, a representative of
Jesus Christ but, over time, become
compressed by the cultural or institutional
habits and values, until no lasting legacy is
left. Yes, unfortunately the Christian at
times plays one or a variety of four inferior
parts:

8.  That of a “mole”: seeking to identify and slander
all of the sins of the institution.
 That of a “witness”: seeking to obsessively
compel people to accept Christ
 That of a “persuader”: seeking to push people
into Church
 That of a “tentmaker”: seeking to earn enough to
justify Churchwork
These all are beneath the calling of the Christian!

9. But the business, or the institution, itself is not
impacted or transformed or changed. Nor
has there been a significant change in the
“systems” that it represents.
God’s calling for all Christians is more than
these noble and good tasks. We persist until
the end to be transformative agents to “grow
wherever we are planted” and to embellish
the world that God has called us to serve.

10. A fitting conclusion to this course is given in the film clip
from “Chariots of Fire”, an Oscar-award true story about
the Scottish track-star and Olympic gold-medal winner of
1924.
The story of the two different motivations of two men to
excell is given in this documentary. Please watch this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvPEpIRd284
Though called to be a missionary to China (where he died in
1944), he recognized his extraordinary gifting in running
sprints. Despite peer jealousy, physical ailments, family
pressures, and ethical challenges, he persisted to utilize
his speed to witness to the nation and the world, his
single-minded commitment to Christ.

11. Eric Liddell: “You came to see a race today. To see someone win. It
happened to be me. But I want you to do more than just watch a
race. I want you to take part in it. I want to compare faith to
running in a race. It's hard. It requires concentration of will, energy
of soul. You experience elation when the winner breaks the tape -
especially if you've got a bet on it. But how long does that last? You
go home. Maybe you're dinner's burnt. Maybe you haven't got a
job. So who am I to say, "Believe, have faith," in the face of life's
realities?
“I would like to give you something more permanent, but I can only
point the way. I have no formula for winning the race. Everyone
runs in her own way, or his own way. And where does the power
come from, to see the race to its end? From within. Jesus said,
"Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. If with all your hearts,
you truly seek me, you shall ever surely find me." If you commit
yourself to the love of Christ, then that is how you run a straight
race.”

12. “I believe God made me for a purpose. God
also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His
pleasure.”
Another quotation by his dad:
“Compromise is a language of the devil. Run in
God’s name and let the world stand back and
wonder.”

13. What is not generally known, is that Eric’s final
days showed the same incredible integrity,
transformative spirit, and love of God and
others, that impacted a secular journalist,
Langdon Gilkey, confined with him in a
Japanese concentration camp at the end of
World War II.

14. In a book entitled, Shantung Compound, journalist
Gilkey, recalling the intricacies of desperate life
in the camp where teenagers ran amok because
of boredom and uncertainty, he writes of fellow
prisoner Eric Liddell (he calls him by the code
name of “Ridley):
“The man who more than anyone brought about
the solution of the teen-age problem was Eric
Ridley. It is rare indeed when a person has the
good fortune to meet a saint, but he came as
close to it as anyone I have ever known.

15. “Often in an evening of that last year I (headed
for some pleasant rendezvous with my girl
friend) would pass the game room and peer
in to see what the missionaries had cooking
for the teen-agers. As often as not Eric
Ridley would be bent over a chessboard or a
model boat, or directing some sort of square
dance---absorbed, warm, and interested,
pouring all of himself into this effort to
capture the minds and imaginations of those
penned-up youths.

16. “If anyone could have done it, he could. A
track man, he had won the 440 in the
Olympics for England in the twenties, and
then had come to China as a missionary. In
camp he was in his middle forties, lithe and
spring of step and, above all, overflowing
with good humor and love of life. He was
aided by others, to be sure. But it was Eric’s
enthusiasm and charm that carried the day
with the whole effort.

17. “Shortly before the camp ended, he was
stricken suddenly with a brain tumor and died
the same day. The entire camp, especially its
youth, was stunned for days, so great was the
vacuum that Eric’s death had left.”
A question: When you die, what vacuum will
you leave in the places where hopelessness
and distress, competition and abuse reign?
Will anything be transformed?

18. Gilkey, in a later reflection, on Eric’s influence, says
this:
“I was continually reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr’s
remark that religion is not the place where the
problem of man’s egotism is automatically
solved. Rather, it is there that the ultimate battle
between human pride and God’s grace takes
place. Insofar as human pride may win that
battle, religion can and does become one of the
instruments of human sin.

19. “But insofar as there the self does meet God and so
can surrender to something beyond its own self-
interest, religion may provide the one possibility
for a much needed and very rare release from our
common self-concern.”
It is in the world beyond, that Christianity finds its
truest expression when it can “surrender to
something beyond its own self-interest”, and
seek to become a transformative influence in the
world beyond the four walls of the Church.

20. Because the STEM professions offer such hope and
influence, there is the danger that they can be
self-serving at best, and perverse, at worse---a
place where human hubris reigns and Babel is
recreated again.
Yet, the STEM professions more than any other can
take us into the world of discovery, of miracles, of
beauty and utility that will either enhance human
life or blight it. Only with a sense of accountability
before God and man, will its true purpose be
served.

21. Feel free in insert below your questions and
feedback on what you have learned in this
PowerPoint:
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22. This concludes the Powerpoint Lecture
Sessions of the course. We trust that it has
been informative, instructive and meaningful
to your pursuit in the STEM professions as
your vocation seeks to honor God.