Reflection: In Work, Function Follows Form

Christians with the eyes to see and ears to hear work can become a real participation in the continuing creative and redemptive work of the Lord.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - "Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2)

We live in a functional age that often reduces human beings to human doings. It is an age of Nihilism where the perceived "value" of a person is often gaged by what they "do", rendering them producers rather than persons. Sadly, these errors have permeated every level of our existence. It encourages a wrong view of human work, the approach Pope John Paul II rightly labeled "economism." To evaluate someone's worth by how much money they "produce" is a symptom of the disease spread by the practical materialism of our age. The frantic pace of existence that it promotes robs so many people from finding the primacy of love, drinking in the beauty of art, and receiving the gifts of contemplation, creativity and leisure, all of which are integral to being fully human.

How often have we heard the expression "Form follows function?" So often I submit, that upon first glance, you may have thought that was the title of this piece. It is not. In fact, the phrase belies the problem I am attempting to address. We have elevated function over form, doing over being, and lost sight of an existential truth; who we are is always prior to what we do. What we do will fulfill us as human persons only if it advances our becoming who we were created to be and who we choose to become in Jesus Christ through the life of grace.

The oft-repeated paragraph 22 from "Joy and Hope", (Gaudium et Spes) the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World tells us, "In reality, it is only in the mystery of the word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear. For Adam, was a type of him who was to come, Christ the lord, Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of His love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling."

It is of this Jesus that the Apostle Paul writes in the passage with which I began this reflection. God Incarnate emptied Himself. In the Greek, the word "kenosis" is used. It means that He poured Himself out like a drink offering, out of love and for love, taking the "form" of a servant. In His Sacred Humanity, Jesus shows us that function follows form - and not the other way around. The God who is Love loved completely and fully. He gave Himself completely for us. We are now called to give ourselves to Him and, in Him, for others. He does what he is. So it should be with each one of us.

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We have been created in the Image of God. We are called into the fullness of communion with the Father in and through Jesus Christ, by the working of the Holy Spirit. God became like us so that we could become like Him. To embrace this is to learn to live differently and therby discover the "mystery of man". Through our Baptism into Jesus Christ we are now capacitated to live and to love as Jesus lived and loved in His sacred humanity. That is our truest identity and our vocation. Only in following this path of surrendered, "kenotic" love will we find true human fulfillment and flourishing. We are human beings, human persons, not human doings.

The purpose and nature of human work is clarified in light of this insight. Our first parents worked in the garden before the fall. Work is not a punishment. Jesus was always busy doing His Fathers work. For Christians with the eyes to see and ears to hear work can become a real participation in the continuing creative and redemptive work of the Lord, ennobling the worker by sanctifying and transforming them and the world around them. That is, when, by faith, it is joined to the work of the Lord. Its capacity to also help the worker to earn remuneration in order to assist them in obtaining the goods of the earth becomes a fruit and not a goal.

Perhaps, if we begin to follow the admonition of the Apostle Paul and cultivate "the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus" we will begin to live differently in our daily lives. For the Christian, form does not follow function, but rather function must follow form. Our Baptism invites us to help all men and women become who they were created to be and understand the implications of their very humanity by helping them to be set free from the bondage of this age through redemption in Jesus Christ and incorporation into His Body, the Church where they will find the fullness of life.

There, at home in the Lord, they will experience that "Christ the lord, Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of His love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling." Function follows form.

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