to plant them. Knowing that our fellow nonworkers have faith in us emboldens us to keep supporting them. • God. On that awful layoff day when the notices went out, our jobs didn’t save us from change. Nor did they protect us from the brink of economic and emotional despair. We probably blamed God for a while, along with others. We wondered bitterly, “Shouldn’t believing in God vaccinate us from the randomness of the universe?” Whether or not we doubted God, God didn’t forsake us. Instead of protecting us from the hard stuff, God ushered us in to some wild places. God reminded us of the promised manna-life, a life of enough. (Really God? Hate to say it, but enough often looks terrifyingly like not enough.) God introduced us to the ones we labeled losers because they didn’t have jobs, and in doing so shined a stark light on our judgment and assumptions. God welcomed us to the neighborhood of resurrection, where we find out our lives are of value for reasons deeper than our work. No matter how much we loved our work and felt it gave us life, only God can give us a life that rises again in spite of many deaths. In the end, our jobs didn’t gift us with the security of
“forever” or the luxury of debt-free days. After all that we gave, our jobs still disappeared. This left us, like God’s exiled people in Babylon, resenting those who stayed back in our old homeland. “Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines” (Isaiah 61:5). Isaiah 61 was written during the post-exilic period when God’s people had returned home from Babylon. They soon found out that their homeland wasn’t what it used to be. Restoration of their temple severely lagged behind schedule and rebuilding efforts were overwhelm- ing. As the Israelites struggled to put their lives back together, truths appeared: • They continued to talk about the “anointed” one for whom they waited. Their messiah remained potent. The anointed one in whom they trusted offered a vision beyond their imaginations and woes. Isaiah’s words prophesied not only about the cessation of their personal suffering, but God’s vision for all broken hearts to be healed, all the oppressed to be lifted up, all the folks at the unemployment office to get jobs. • They prayed their despair. “Who are we now?” won- dered God’s people as they found others living in their former homes, tending their flocks. They left the famil- iar, yet Yahweh traveled to Babylon and back, never missing their prayers.
When we lose our positions and purpose, we won- der—who am I now? We inevitably compare ourselves with others, which can be painful and destructive. We
long to get “our world” back, or at least our sense of security. God lives within us—in a sacred place that remains intact. God empowers us to come home to that place, where we listen and know for sure that we are loved. With God’s love, we can abide the rest. • They built up the ancient ruins—piece by piece. They started with what they could see, and then each step they couldn’t see began to show itself. They returned to what mattered: a place of worship, daily survival, shared resources. What’s left of our founda- tions when the walls fall? Our former colleagues for one thing, still carrying on the work we shared, hurting in their own right. Maybe that’s the place to begin the restoration. What’s left? Ideas, our character, God’s empower-
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ment. The new temple will not be the old one, but it will serve the same purpose of expressing what matters. • They heard Yahweh’s advice: take two poems and call me in the morning. Rather than formulate specific blueprints, the words in Isaiah 61 painted poetic pictures of change. A garland instead of ashes, the mantle of praise (verse 3)—these healing words provided the oil of gladness to pour over God’s hurting ones. As long as Yahweh could send the prophecies in poetic form, cre- ativity was alive and well. What better tool than that to start again?
Even after we’re safely installed in the new “home” of another workplace, the experience of job loss remains with us. We can’t be exiled from our comfort zone without being changed. We’re less naïve about the solid ground surrounding us. After all, we lived through a time when that ground proved to be liquid. Ideally, we’re also less naïve after job loss about what is solid: prayer, community, creativity, tenacity, humil- ity, the stories of God’s desire to be with us. We can’t return to the jobs we lost, but we can go back to the sto- ries of God’s people and their liquid experiences—being delivered through the waters of the Red Sea, watching Jesus walk on the waves. We live in an increasingly changing economic world.
No matter how much we pour ourselves into our jobs, there is no guarantee they will last. We don’t usually get ready for change. Instead, change foists itself upon us. But we can ponder some questions that may help us clarify what we know now and surf the waves later: • How does our job relate to our mission? • What steps do we take for a building project? • Who is hurting in our community because of job loss? • How did God surprise us during the journey of job loss?
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