Introduction
Unemployment is an unavoidable reality of modern life. It raises deep issues to do with human value and identity at the individual level. It raises structural questions to do with the nature of Western society itself.
What is Unemployment?
It is not the same as being out of a job. An unemployed person can be gainfully employed in a host of tasks around the home, in the family and as a volunteer (Tit 3:14). Seeking to find a job is itself a job.
Unemployment means the absence of remuneration despite the desire and need for such pay.
It needs to be distinguished from idleness, which is a deliberate desire not to work. Such an attitude is always treated as sin in the Bible (Prov 6:9-11; 10:5; 19:15,24; 20:4; 2 Thess 3:10-13).
Made for Productivity
Adam and Eve were placed at the pinnacle of the created world and at the centre of the Garden of Eden. They were commanded directly by God to care for the earth (Gen 1:26, 28;2:15). As God’s vice-regents they were able to sustain and develop the order, productivity and beauty of their environment in an “on the ground fashion” that was unique to their place in the whole created order as beings in his image. The ever-progressive maturing of their world would have filled them with a joy and satisfaction corresponding to the pleasures of God’s own Creator heart (Prov 8:27-31).
Lost Productivity
Disobedience to God meant a fall into immaturity (Gen 3:7ff). Life in the world now became a God – ordained struggle. The tangle of weeds, pain and inevitable death spoke to the human conscience of divine disapproval and the failure of both humanity and the world beneath it to reach maturity. The ultimate in productivity, emerging God-likeness, was lost (Rom 3:23), seemingly forever.
In this world of deception and darkness (Gen 3:13; 2 Cor 4:4; 11:3;Rev 13:14;20:10) many people turn to the pay associated with employment as a vindication of their value and status in life. Sometimes this is manifested in pride, or revealed by a bitter spirit at the loss of remuneration and activity (Heb 12:15). The total action within this circle outside of God – recognition remains in futility as all that people hold dear will perish (Rom 1:21; 8:20).
Productivity Regained
In doing the work of the Father, Jesus’ whole life is filled with a sense of productivity (Luke 10:21-22; John 5:17, 30). His ability to speak into the lives of both the employed and unemployed, trapped in a conscience that is formed by societal values of conditional significance, flows from the cross.
The cry of dereliction (Mark 15:34) reveals that Christ enters into the fallen human experience of futility and unproductiveness. In not being able to find God, Jesus loses his centre and significance. This is a necessary stage of his sharing in the darkness of the human journey into the light of the resurrection which itself is the climax of all the productive works of God.
In the world of the new creation in Christ, into which Christians have entered, nothing is perishable and so nothing is futile (1 Cor 15:52ff; 2 Cor 5:17). This reality becomes known to the believer through the impact of the gospel of forgiveness (2 Pet 1:8-9).
The Spirituality of Unemployment
Within its temptations to idleness and depression, the journey of unemployment opens up deep spiritual opportunities. When one’s own abilities have come to an end only God can be trusted (John 15:4 – 5). Issues of shame, low self-worth, anger, bitterness and idolatry may surface that were previously hidden.
There is an opportunity to reaffirm who we are in Christ (Col 1:27) rather than what we do. All of this requires prayer, patience and biblical meditation. The church has an indispensable role in support, grief counselling and corporate action to humanize society into the image of God as revealed in Christ.
As in all things Christian, those who have lost the most can rise again to teach the best.