Ecclesiasticus 38:24-end
Do we hear a hint of defensiveness in Ben Sira’s-the author of Ecclesiasticus- admonition to the craftsmen, that work is prayer? Ben Sira was a scribe and conscious, no doubt, that his much of his activity was not economically productive, and that he relied on a society- a city- in which most people worked hard with their hands while he, as it might well seem- sat around all day having improving thoughts. Ben Sira is concerned, from a rather theocratic and oligarchic standpoint, to assure the workers on whom he relied, that they had an important role in the economy- in the widest sense- of the city and that “their prayer is in the practice of their trade”.
This reminds me of St Benedict’s dictum “laborare est orare”-to work is to pray, and vice versa St Benedict as the regulator, if not founder of the monastic movement in the West, may perhaps have had the same twinge of conscience as Ben Sira. Some must have asked, and still do, what was the point of holing yourself up in a monastery? What did praying practically all day (as it would seem) actually achieve? In fact monks and monasteries seldom do distance themselves effectively from the concerns of the world and many monks became important political figures and many monasteries became phenomenally successful business enterprises, although at the price of allowing a big divide, as great in medieval monasteries as in 2nd Century Jerusalem, between the working masses and the praying elite; those who worked all day in the fields or the forge and those spent it chanting in the choir or puzzling out jurisprudence. To redefine prayer as work and work as prayer was convenient answer to cynicism and critique.
Similar feelings are prevalent today; of course, many atheists think prayer, or any religious observance an irrelevant or dangerous nonsense. Even Christians have a tendency to think praying and going to church are things out of the ordinary; things that priests do, or things that you do on Sunday, and mostly, not every Sunday. Even regular churchgoers, or many of them, have a strangely divorced attitude to the church when it comes to paying for it; we’ll happily pay rather more for a meal in restaurant, or to see a football or cricket match or an opera, than we would think of giving to the church each month. Religion is in a different box from the rest of life, and different rules apply.
I said Laborare est orare was a saying of St Benedict. In fact doing some lazy research on the internet, I found this, written by Dom David Knowles, the great historian of English monasticism. He points out that Benedict never wrote the phrase and “Moreover, the saying is surely neither theologically nor psychologically correct. Laborare, [by which Benedict] always means manual work or toil, is a natural activity; orare, the lifting of the mind and heart to God, is, in a Christian context, always inspired and assisted by grace. Work may be necessary, beneficial, meritorious and even the accompaniment of prayer, but it is in itself neither the equivalent of prayer nor a substitute for it.”
I think he is wrong; Ben Sira’s and even Benedict’s motivation may be suspect, but surely they are right that human beings, and human societies are a whole and we can’t divide economic toil from unworldly prayer. Knowles suggests prayer requires grace to work; but that says very little, as grace will always be forthcoming, and no prayer, even insincere prayer will be unheard- although not always perhaps as the person praying understands or intends. And is not prayer, like labour, always, , for our own wellbeing, whether spiritual or physical, or for that of our fellow creatures or creation? We praise, and thank and say sorry because we are worldly beings addressing our maker. We pray, like we work, because as creatures we have to, because that is what we are for. We could not be whole human beings unless we did both.
The important implication of this is perhaps not so much that we should be more worldly about church (although, as I have hinted, that would ease the church’s cash finances), but rather that we shouldn’t see our daily lives, or jobs, or homes as something distinct; we should try, in whatever we do, however mundane it may seem, to act as creatures responsive and responsible to our maker; we should living out our prayer and praying out life. Amen