<<< previous post
One of my favorite movies of all time is an off-beat, 1990 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan outing called Joe Vs. The Volcano. If you’ve never seen it, stop reading and go watch it now. I’ll wait.
If you don’t have time for the full Joe experience, let me share the crucial scene today, and the reason I’m mentioning it as part of this series on the theology of work. It’s the opening sequence, where Joe stumbles into work at his “lousy job” at a medical supply company, while Eric Burdon’s rendition of “Sixteen Tons” growls away in the background.
As the story unfolds from this bizarre opening, Joe discovers that he is suffering from an incurable illness called a “brain cloud.” The sudden realization of his imminent demise startles Joe awake, spiritually speaking, and launches him into a series of unlikely events. He quits his job (in one of the greatest job-quitting moments of film history, second maybe only to Tom Cruise’s resignation in Jerry Maguire).
The next morning a mysterious billionaire named Mr. Graynamore shows up at his door, offering Joe the chance to live like a hero at Graynamore’s expense, provided he will jump into an active volcano on a South Pacific Island called Waponi Woo. Joe accepts the offer and embarks on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment, culminating in a death-defying leap into the smoldering mouth of the Great Woo.
It is, in Roger Ebert’s words, a film that “achieves a magnificent goofiness,” and I mean it unironically when I call it my second favorite film of all time.
The reason I’m mentioning it here, though, is still that opening sequence, where Joe stumbles along the path, a miserable sommambulist in a crowd of zombies, into the great gaping maw of the factory where he works. If you watched the clip you may have noticed that he stubs his toe on the way into work, tearing away the sole of his shoe. When he arrives at his desk his co-worker DeDe asks him, “what’s with the shoe,” to which Joe replies, in one of the most poignant puns of the movie: I’m losing my sole.
Torn shoes aside, Joe is indeed losing his soul, and it is the factory’s insatiable appetite for his life’s-blood that is slowly sucking it away.
Joe vs. the Volcano is about a lot of things, but one of the things it’s about is the soul-sucking nature of work. The ravenous factory sucking in worker after worker and cough up great clouds of greasy smoke as it does, is a symbol for the modern work world, the so-called “rat-race” that takes from us all we have to give and leaves us lifeless, empty, and soulless when it’s through with us.
Joe vs. the Volcano is a commentary, among other things, on the existential nihilism and spiritual vacuity of our work in the modern world. The image of Joe, throwing himself into the volcano in a death-defying act of courage is offered as a symbol, a metaphor to describe how we might transcend and escape it. Only the fortunate few who are brave enough to confront the “volcano god” and name it for what it is will ever escape its clutches. It’s notable that at the end of the film, Joe and his soul-mate Patricia—the only two who take the leap—survive the volcano’s eruption, whereas all the rest of the islanders go down in plumes of smoke and whimpering misery.
Whatever else its merits, Joe vs. the Volcano’s take on work is profoundly stirring, if you can see it clearly through all the campy trappings with which it presents this theme. There is something about our work, as it’s experienced in the modern world, that has sucked the soul out of us. So much of it is devoid of meaning, lacking any real human contact or connection, artificial, superficial, and unnatural, and yet, because of the fear of death (our brain clouds), the fear of spiritual enlightenment, the fear of the unknown, we sell our souls to the “god of the volcano.” To paraphrase Joe: we’re too chickensh*t afraid to live our lives, so we’ve sold it to him for 300 lousy dollars a week.
Any robust theology of work, like the one I’m trying to assemble in this series, will have to wrestle honestly with the “work conundrum” that a movie like Joe vs. the Volcano presents us with. We’ve already seen how the Christian story provides the theological resources for understanding our work as good (it’s good because by doing it we fulfill our creation mandate as creatures made in the image of a creating God). The Christian story also provides a theological explanation for why, even though it is intrinsically good, most often our experience of work is like that of the staggering zombies in the opening scene of Joe vs. the Volcano (it’s like this because the ground has become cursed as a result of human sin).
These observations are all helpful as far as they go, but a deeper question remains. Where do we turn, from within the Christian tradition, for theological solutions to the problem of work, the fact that more often than not it’s soul-sucking and not life-giving? In previous posts I’ve suggested that as we are redeemed of sin through faith in Christ and the work of the Spirit, our experience of work can be redeemed, too.
But is there something more specific we can say about the redemption of work than this? Is it just that the Joy of our Salvation makes it so that we won’t “feel miserable anymore, while we’re doing it”? Or is there something about the Christian message that actually transforms work itself?
One of the most significant theological studies of work I’ve ever read was by a theologian named Miroslav Volf, called Work in the Spirit. His study is a bit more meaty than the film Joe vs. the Volcano, but he arrives at a similar conclusion. He argues that all modern theories of work, whether capitalist or Marxist, make it a means to strictly material ends. It’s only value is that it accomplishes our immediate goals. He argues that such instrumental perspectives offer no boundaries to prevent work from becoming dehumanizing, degrading, even demonic. And he points to things like sweat shops, monotonous assembly lines and workaholic burnouts to prove his point.
Volf holds that the key to finding meaning in our work lies, of all places, in Christian eschatology-- what we believe about Christ's return and the end of the age. He argues that the hope of New Creation allows Christians to value their work now as a participation in the future renewal of all things under the shalom Christ. God's Spirit is at work in and on behalf of the creation, laboring towards its final consummation. And the Spirit calls us to join him, working towards that day when the healed nations will bring their glory and honor into the heavenly Jerusalem.
Volf's not alone in ascribing eschatological significance to our work. Paul wrote some strong words to the Thessalonian church about some Christians who were using the hope of Christ's return as an excuse to stop working. "Keep away from these lazy busybodies," he says. "That's not the tradition you recieved from us." Christian communities with a genuine Second-Coming hope will be places where work is valued, not as an end in itself, not even as a means to an end, but as a participation now in God's good and coming future.
Volf’s take on the eschatological meaning of work—not just “religious work,” but all the good work of human hands, from buildings well-built to businesses well-run, books well-written and trust-funds well-managed—has the power to transform our view of work. It is the theological alternative, I think, to simply jumping into the volcano and hoping it will spit you out, infusing all our work with rich, authentic, and especially eternal significance.
The promise of a renewed Heaven and Earth, restored and redeemed in Christ, assures us that our work really matters to God. Not because of the bread it will put on the table, not because of the identity we may derive from it, but because Spirit himself is at work in and on behalf of my little corner of the world. He's toiling for its future transformation in Christ. And if I have eyes to see him, I can join him in this with my faithful, earnest, sometimes sweaty, work.
0 comments:
Post a Comment