Work While It Is Day

I was informed that today is the longest day. I was about to respond to the informant that surely that’s a nonsense as all days equally have 24 hours until I was further informed that it was meant that today would have the longest daylight hours in the year. From there on the day would grow ever so incrementally shorter through the rest of the year.

That thought got me thinking about what Jesus says – work while it is day for when night comes no man can work. The context suggests that the kind of work being talked about was not the usual grindstone labour that brings in the weekly wage, but the work of those serving in the Kingdom of God. The kind of work that typified the life and times of Jesus. The work of giving good news to the poor, seeing the broken-hearted healed, those oppressed delivered and those bound set free, the kind of work that establishes this as the time of God’s favour. The kind of work that reconciles man back to God and then demolishes cultural, social, ethnic, ideological and any other significant barrier that hinders man’s relations to man. The kind of work that reflects shalom.

As tends to happen on these occasions as I pondered on that today, God presented another golden opportunity to experience an aspect of the work. Funnily at work – where I work, I mean, I have a colleague called Neil. We have only been working together since late April, but already there is a rapport between us that I love and he is fast becoming a dear friend of mine. Neil is not a Christian but what we do have in common is a love of football (or association football aka soccer to my foreign friends). He and I could talk about aspects of the game for hours on end (not that we would, after all, we are at work). He is a Tottenham Hotspurs fan. I am a Liverpool supporter. We have our disagreements – strong ones at times, but it’s all very good-natured and no malice or menace is part of it. From that shared love and interest there turns out to be others as well. In our differences we overlap and maylose each other, but from time time we are quick to gain the understanding from the other and go from there. It is a good relationship with all the makings of a great one all based on understanding, respect and genuine delight in each other’s company.

There was a great example of that today. As the end of the working day approached, he starrted on a subject of documentaries, a subject in which i’m interested and before you blinked time and flown way beyond closing time and we were the last ones leaving the office. All because of the interest and intrigue in the other. What it reminded me of was great christian fellowship. Not just pouring over the word, but expressing it in every day life and delving deep and personal and delighting in the company of the saints where there is no one hogging the conversation and there is a spirit of accord that gets people further engaged and leads ideas and exploits done together from prayer walks and mercy missions too visiting the vulnerable in the community and being a presence, to preparing a banquet for the homeless to feel loved and appreciated and all riven with that conversational harmony made of differenyt parts contributing as they are lead and making a lovely interwoven tapestry of love and unity among disparate peoples as a display of god’s Kingdom. All showing what ‘the work’ looks like that Jesus calls us to be about.

You can see it in creation – God has a chat and things happen. God talks with us and things happen. We share with each other and things happen. Not just any thing, but the tings that relate to peace, righteousness and joy. As we work while it is day.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd