Teaching for the New Jerusalem
Despite the fact that many educators enter the vocation with enthusiasm and excitement to invest deeply in students, we are not immune to the more “toilsome” aspects of the work – late night grading, completing assessment annotations for accreditation, or tracking down student late work among them. So, what might it look like to find deep meaning in the more mundane work of faculty life? One possible answer is offered by Andy Crouch in the form of this diagnostic question:
How might my work in this vocational sector be furnishing the New Jerusalem?
What Crouch describes is a vision for Christ’s kingdom, which is to be furnished with the best work and wealth of the nations, related in Isaiah 60 and Revelation 21. Counter to a vision for the future that devalues our present work in the fear that it might not survive the final judgment, a biblically faithful approach requires us to see that even work served faithfully now might bring God glory in the New Creation. Hear the words of Isaiah 60:10-14:
10. Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.11 Your gates shall be open continually; day and night they shall not be shut, that people may bring to you the wealth of the nations, with their kings led in procession.12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste.13 The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious. 14 The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. (ESV)
Here we see humanity bringing the best of their local places – Lebanon is specifically named along with the unique resources cultivated there – to beautify and honor God in the New Jerusalem. In other words, specific places and times matter to God as we seek to tend goodness and repair the ruins of brokenness around us. What about the work inside and outside our classrooms alongside students and colleagues might be considered worthy of the New Jerusalem? How might such a question animate the daily work we find ourselves struggling with?
Marilynne Robinson’s brilliant novel Gilead relates such a sentiment, where protagonist Rev. John Ames shares in a letter to his young son:
I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that…And I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality…the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. (p. 57)
In this way, might we believe that even the mundane aspects of professorial life could be a way of furnishing the New Jerusalem from the particular square inches to which God has called us? Might the small moments of caring for our student-neighbors by providing excellent feedback, or sharing a meal and prayer together, or cultivating the wisdom within our academic disciplines in scholarship, be eternal signposts to God’s glory? Such a perspective holds incredible potential in forming our own biblical worldview, seeing all of our work in light of Christ’s making all things new (Rev. 21:5).
Friends, may you and I continually find our affections captured by a God who mysteriously invites us into such a purposeful and joyful vocation of cultivating the Creation and loving neighbor through the work that many find uninteresting or tedious.
References
Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (InterVarsity Press, 2013).
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (Virago Press, 2006).
Justin Harbin is Director of the Center for Teaching & Learning at Lancaster Bible College. This post was originally published at Compelled to Teach. It has been lightly edited and reprinted here with permission.