My Aunt Rela (REY-la) always treated me like one of her own. She looked out for me and even brought me back to the Mainland (China) during a Hong Kong stint. She bought me strangest, wackiest gifts for Christmas but I could feel the love. What a revelation it was to me, just a few years back, when I learned her name is actually “Vera”. Aunt Vera. OH. MY. That makes much, much more sense. (Typically, Cantonese speakers have difficulty pronouncing the “v” sound and the “r” sound. Who picked this name for her anyways?) Ever thought you knew someone but really didn’t?

This is the third and final reflection on the biblical foundation of fundraising. It is the life of the modern day ‘missionary’ and Christian non-profit worker. It is what I have called, “life without work,” when ‘work’ is used in the sense of earning an income. From the Levites (part 1) to Paul (part 2), we conclude this reflection on life without work by considering one Jesus of Nazareth. When it comes to thinking you know someone but really don’t, Jesus has always been on the top of my list and probably many others. With regards to work, interestingly enough, it is easy to forget that Jesus spent a significant part of his life ‘working’. He is referred to as both “the carpenter’s son” (Matt. 13:55) and a “carpenter” himself (Mk. 6:3). Carpenter and craftsman…what it would be like to see the work of those hands. 

The Son of God. The Son of Man. The Messiah. The Word…working. 

We forget that Jesus ‘worked.’ We also forget, oh, when that (inconvenient) call came to fulfill his mission as the Son of God and the Son of Man, that he relinquished the comforts and regularities of life in first century Palestine. Sleep on the same rock, bed, or town? Don’t plan on it. Prepare a meal? Don’t think so. Was it ever a problem? Not in the least. Having instructed the crowds, “do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on” (Matt. 6:25), His was a life lived out in full trust and obedience in the Father. But here’s is the kicker: racking up massive miles by foot all over the region, a band of mostly women followers, “provided for him out of their means” (Lk. 8:3). From what I would assume to be a very successful tradesperson, a working man, Jesus put those means aside and instead put his physical well being in the hands of others. 

The Son of God. The Son of Man. The Messiah. The Word…fundraising?

Maybe we were never supposed to notice this about Jesus anyways. Jesus didn’t come primarily to show us how fundraise just like he didn’t primarily come to teach us about morals or to guide us in wisdom. Especially as we approach the interwoven celebrations of Easter and Passover, we are reminded that this Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man, came primarily to give his life away as the supreme and final act of sacrifice for the sins of this world. “Behold,” proclaimed John the Baptist, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). In an amazing and yet utterly paradoxical way we are drawn to this slain Lamb…who in his sacrifice conquered death that we may have life.

I’ve been mighty suspicious of myself all along as I have written and reflected on this idea of ‘life without work’. How much am I conjuring up to give an excuse for asking for money? for not having a ‘job’? for my own existence? I’m still struggling to make sense of my vocation as a ‘missionary’ who will rely on the support of others…for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. But this struggle, I’m finding, is not just my own. ‘Missionary’ or not, we all have to struggle with this. 

You see, we’ve been fighting…fighting for our lives to know that we are significant, that we mean something, that we have a purpose, that we have value. And buried deep within us is that fear that, as we begin to tell people about our story and ask people to join us, not only will their answer be, “no,” but that all the answers above too would be no…no…no. And that, I’m learning more and more, is what we all struggle with – finding meaning, purpose, value, or, to put it another way, hoping that we are ‘worthy of applause’. We seek this from our families and our peers, from physical intimacy and so often from money. But nothing, not anything will satisfy those needs but our Creator. 

The paradox that we would be drawn in to this slain Lamb, Jesus on the cross, is matched by the paradox of us being called out from Him. Because in the grand scheme of thing He does not need us or require us. The work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be accomplished without our efforts, thank you very much. No, he calls us, He includes us, and He wants us. The greatest ‘Work’ of all has already been accomplished. Our job is to trust in Him.

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