Defining “Work” & “Leisure”

Vincent van Gogh, "The Sower" (1888)

Before we can begin to think through the biblical notions of work and leisure, it is important that we define our terms. Doing so, however, is not an easy task because “[w]ork is one of those things in our daily life ‘whose meaning is hidden in the mystery of their familiarity.’” (Volf, 8) I offer the following discussion in a preliminary way, deferring detailed biblical exploration for future posts.

It is common for the average person to think of work as synonymous with “burden,” “toil,” or “drudgery,” but as we’ll see, this will not suffice for the Christian theologian for several reasons. First, Edenic work can hardly be described in such negative terms. Good work was instituted in a good creation. Also, this definition implies that when a person begins to enjoy the activity they’re engaged in, it ceases to be work for them. But this does not comport with our experience.

Another common assumption is that work means solely “gainful employment” or “job.” But we cannot confine “work” to remunerative labor alone. If this were the case, we would be forced to say that pre-industrial agrarian societies never worked, which is clearly not the case. (Did God write Adam a bi-weekly paycheck?) Tying the concept of work to money-making would also mean that stay-at-home parents don’t work – not an argument I’d be willing to make.

Toward a Definition

What is a useful starting point, then? Miroslav Volf defines work as “[a]ctivity whose primary goal is the creation of products or states of affairs that satisfies the needs of [the] working individuals or their co-creatures…” (Volf, 10) Leland Ryken offers something similar: “At the most elemental level, work is a means of providing for the needs and desires of life. As such, it is basically utilitarian.” (Ryken, 22) 

In this train of thought, it may be helpful to think of work as “a means to an end that lies outside the activity itself.” You do the thing not primarily because you love doing that thing, but because in doing it, you get something else. A word of clarification is due here, though. This is not to say that the ultimate end of work ought to be the accumulation of commodities – a shallow outlook Christianity cannot endorse.

Dorothy Sayers’ take on the question is that “work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God. . . . It is only when work has to be looked on as a means to gain that is becomes hateful…” Sayers’ vision is an affirmation that work was designed for our good – for a measure of satisfaction in what it means to be humanity created in the imago Dei (image of God).

As we continue to explore this theme, I think it will become clear that Volf and Ryken’s definitions are not incompatible with Sayers’.

The Work/Leisure Continuum

It is, at this point, worth seeing how the “means to another end” definition relates to specific activities we undertake. Ryken explains that “[w]e can divide… between activities that are obligatory and those that are discretionary – between those we have to do and those we choose to do. These should be viewed as two poles on a continuum, not as two separate columns of activities.” (Ryken, 20)

The idea that all our activities sit somewhere on a continuum instead of fitting neatly into two categories is an important aspect to grasp here, lest we arbitrarily bifurcate our lives into things that we do that are exclusively “work” and things we do that are exclusively “leisure.” There are obviously many things we do that fall somewhere in the middle. These have sometimes been called “semileisure” activities. 

Volf clarifies that “what distinguishes pleasant work from a useful hobby is that work must be either necessary to satisfy needs… or be not primarily done for its own sake. . . . The same activity can be both work and leisurely activity, depending on whether a person does it primarily as a means or as an end in itself. . . . In some situations it will be impossible to make a distinction between the two.” (Volf, 12, 13)

This means no kind of activity is inherently “work” or “leisure” for all people in all circumstances. Is painting your house work? Is gardening leisure? Or is it possible for painting in the summer breeze to be experienced as leisure and tilling rocky topsoil to be experienced as toil? In real life activities, the distinction is not always clear.

This can be an empowering framework, because it means our relationship to our actions is not determined by our employer or our culture. Our attitude has a greater effect on our experience of life than we often acknowledge. “For many activities in life, it is up to us whether they will be experienced as work or leisure. To move work toward the right side of the scale and to enlarge the sphere in which we feel the spirit of freedom and choice is a laudable goal. Christianity does not endorse masochism or gloom. Even leisure in work becomes possible if we approach work in the right spirit.” (Ryken, 21)

Defining “Leisure”

Moving further then, leisure can be thought of as discretionary non-work. It is activity free from obligations. Leisure is related to “play” in that the activity is done not to get something else, but because the activity itself is fulfilling. This typically includes such things as recreation, entertainment, hobbies and crafts, cultural pursuits (theater), social activities (picnics or birthday parties). It includes everything that is not essential for basic provision. It might be important for you to look at that list again before proceeding, because most of us have a lot more leisure time than we think. How many of us spend every waking minute sweating to meet our basic provisions? (Western affluence has left us confused about what are our “basic needs.” More on that later…)

There are times that we set aside for leisure (this is the quantitative aspect of leisure), but there is also a quality about leisure that can spill into all activities we do (I’ll call the qualitative aspect). Leisure in its qualitative sense includes an inward calm, receptive mind, sense of celebration and joy. Leisure is more than doing, it is being. “[L]eisure is a matter of the individual’s perception rather than rigid time-based or activity-based definitions. It is rooted in enjoyment.” (Ryken, 33) Because this quality is so life-giving, Ryken wants to “encourage us all to upgrade the quality of our leisure pursuits. There is a terrible tendency to drift into mediocrity in our leisure life by default instead of actively choosing the excellent.” (Ryken, 34) Ryken says that our work and leisure activities help to shape our identities. They are part of who we are. You are a musician as much as you are a mother. You are a gardener as much as you are an anesthesiologist. 

Although “free time” can be used to compensate for the strain of our day jobs, Christian thinking about leisure should not reduce it to an instrumental activity (that is, it exists only so that we can improve our work.) It’s not simply re-charging our batteries so we can work better  – it is designed for more than that. In leisure, we experience the joyful stillness in knowing God as our father. When we are at rest in the deepest and truest sense, we reflect the image of God. 

Leisure was created by God for our good to develop us as human beings, and to teach us that we are finite creatures dependent on him. Jesus ensured that his followers made time for leisure. “The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:30–31) Solomon tells us that because our God sovereignly cares for us, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” (Psalm 127:2) Lastly, Qoheleth reminds us “Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life…” (Ecclesiastes 10:19)

What do work and leisure have to do with humanity made in the image of God? Both homo sapiens (man, the thinker) and homo faber (man, the worker) find their telos in understanding we are in all that we do homo adorans (man, the worshipper).

Resources:

Leland Ryken, Work and Leisure in Christian Perspective (Multnomah, 1987)

Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (Wipf and Stock, 2001)

Dorthy Sayers, Why Work?

Paul Heintzman, Leisure and Spirituality: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives (Baker Academic, 2015)