Toil and Ashes

by Tricia Hudson

Genesis 3:17-19
“cursed is the ground because of you;
    in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

There is a lot about the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis that makes me uncomfortable, and among those things is God’s curse on Adam for eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Having disobeyed God, humanity will now have to toil the cursed ground, amid thorns and thistles and our own sweat to survive. And then eventually to return to the dust from which God made Adam.

Certainly today many people still toil in the earth to keep us all fed, our homes built, and our roads clear. But our toil takes on many different forms, from warehouse picking to lesson planning to spreadsheet wrangling. It may be caring for a child, cleaning our home, or struggling with the eternal question of what is for dinner tonight… again. Some of our thorns and thistles are unkind customers or patients or clients or difficult co-workers. We sweat with physical labor but also uncertain financial forecasts. 

Few things can be as challenging as an unexpected layoff, when we quickly see that the toil of a steady job is a great blessing. The apostle Paul was very proud to have continued to work and support himself as a tent maker as he traveled the known world spreading the gospel and planting some of our first churches. He reminded the church at Ephesus that labor with our own hands is good and useful, and allows us the ability to help those in need. 

So often, though, we confuse the work we do with who we are. It is an easy thing to do. We spend so much time on our work, and it is valuable to find meaning in something that takes up so much of our life. Getting a promotion or earning a degree is a wonderful feeling, recognizing not only toil but often resilience. But it is far too easy to see a job title or a paycheck as an appraisal of our own self-worth. No job or job title is permanent. We might lose our job. We may have to stop work for a medical need. If we are so blessed, we might even have the luxury of entering a much dreamed of retirement. And with those changes, we enjoy God’s blessings but also encounter new challenges, responsibility, and, yes, toil. 

As we receive the ashes on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we will return to the dust. This is always a powerful sense check for me in the year. So much of our work is ephemeral. Seasons change and fiscal years begin again. Companies are bought and sold. Products are retired and leadership changes. In the business world, no one is really indispensable. In God’s eyes, however, we are his cherished children. From dust, he made us in his own image. We each have gifts that make us entirely unique and deeply loved, warts and all. He loved us so much that he quite literally sacrificed himself for us. God has plans for us that we can not fully understand in this brief moment we have between the dust. When we let God lead us, our toil for him can yield wonderful things. Some of the yield we may see. And some we will not. As Christians, perhaps we should best think of our job title as God’s hands on earth. When we pray for his will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, we are offering to be a part of that transformation. This Lent, let’s open our hearts to God’s call so that we can see the work he is calling us to do.