Jesus the Worker

Scripture — Mark 6:1-6 (NRSV)

He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Devotion

Mark 6 is the only place in the New Testament that identifies Jesus as a carpenter (the Gospel according to Matthew says that Jesus is the son of a carpenter; Matt 13:55). The word the NRSV translates as “carpenter” is tekton, which denotes a craftsman who works with any local materials. While wood would have been a material available to Jesus, stone and brick were also readily available materials in the region, and we shouldn’t limit his work to carpentry alone.

I think it’s easy to gloss over this piece of information and focus on Jesus’s rejection by the people of Nazareth (a point I will discuss in my next devotion). But to fully grasp God’s view of work, we must pause and reflect on the fact that a group of people knew Jesus as a worker, a craftsman, a laborer.

In the opening chapters of Genesis, God gives humans work and responsibilities in the garden before the introduction of sin and disobedience. Human work is one way men and women image God, who is depicted as a worker who creates and rests. That Jesus works during his life on earth shows that God continues to dignify all work. Work is not discarded on the road to redemption and the cross, but is itself taken up and healed of the corrupting power of sin.

Perhaps more important than the fact that Jesus worked is the amount of time Jesus spent as a craftsman. The Gospel according to Luke says that Jesus started his public ministry around the age of thirty (Luke 3:23). Assuming Jesus learned his craft from Joseph when he became an adult, around the age of twelve or thirteen, Jesus spent around eighteen years working. That’s over half of his life and over 80% of his adult life! It’s incredible to reflect on the truth that God’s incarnate Son spent most of his life running the family business—building goods for his family and community, dealing with clients, and discerning how best to gather and utilize the resources of the land.

It’s important that we don’t disconnect Jesus’s life of work from his public ministry. Jesus served God and neighbor through his work, and in many ways, his life of work made possible the period of fruitfulness that characterized his public ministry. Summarizing the insights of Tom Nelson in his book Why Your Work Matters, we can say with confidence that part of the reason God is well-pleased with Jesus at his baptism is because of how he worked those 18 years. And surely Jesus’ teaching on serving instead of being served came, in part, from how he chose to serve his family, community, and clients through his work. All of Jesus’ life was lived as God’s son and was oriented toward God’s kingdom.

This disconnect between what we might call “secular” work and “ministry” or “Christian” work comes in many forms today. A common narrative assumes that only the work I do at my church or in an official ministry role counts as loving God and neighbor. I also see this disconnect in statements made by third third folks about their retirement. They say something along the lines of, “I worked for x number of years, and now I’m ready to serve God.” A desire to serve God in retirement is wonderful, but statements like this assume that the previous years of work were spent _not _serving God.

But Scripture points in the opposite direction. The New Testament reveals that God became flesh and worked among us. The reality that Jesus spent most of his life as a worker reveals God’s high esteem for human work. Work was created to be good in the beginning and will be good again through God’s redemptive work in Jesus. It also invites us to view our work as an expression of our love for God and neighbor, continuing to produce fruit into our third third of life.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Jesus the Builder (Mark 6:1-6).