Notes Toward a Johannine Theory of Labor

Jesus tells His disciples that they are being sent into a field to harvest where they had not sown or labored. “One sows, and another reaps” (John 4:35-38).

It’s a principle of ministry: Ministry starts in the middle. Even in a fresh mission field, the missionary doesn’t enter a place that is without God’s witness. God has not left them without a witness. He has already been at work. In many places, other missionaries have done their labor, and new missionaries are entering into their labor. 

For Jesus, the critical thing is that “he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.” As Paul says, one sows, one waters, one harvests, but God gives the increase. There should be no rivalry or envy: “He got to sow and I just got to water!” All rejoice together because it is all gift.

Perhaps we can extend Jesus’ statement about mission to other forms of labor. After all, not just ministry but all labor is an entering-into the labor of others. None of us starts from scratch; even Robinson Crusoe had tools and materials from his boat, the products of the labor of others. 

That means that the fruit of our labor is never exclusively the fruit of our labor. Any harvest we enjoy is the product of joint labor between ourselves and others, often others who are completely unknown to us. UPS could be useless without roads for the delivery trucks, but no one knows how many hands went into planning, building, and maintaining those roads. UPS enters into the labor of others, and its profits are the product of that joint labor.

That might seem to lead to the conclusion that UPS should enter some profit-sharing arrangement with road-builders, not to mention the manufacturers of trucks and truck parts, tire companies, rubber companies, the farmers who produce the rubber, with box companies, and oil companies and all the other companies that enable UPS to do what UPS does. UPS is reaping where they did not sow: What gives them the right to keep the profits they made on my road with my boxes?

Apart from the practical impossibility of this sort of profit-sharing, it violates the spirit of Jesus’ statement. The one who sows and the one who harvests should rejoice together, rather than glowering at each other in envy. The road-builders “sowed” and UPS harvests the fruit (among many other companies). Those who sow and those who reap rejoice together, and that is partly true because the road-builders, like everyone else, enjoys the goods that UPS provides. Besides, the road-builders as much as UPS entered into the labor of others: They didn’t make the materials or the machines that enabled them to make the road, much less the clothes and hard-hats that they wear on the job.

I invent something, and then some genius (quite legally) uses my invention to make billions and change life as we know it. I can spend my life in court trying to get my due; I can spend my life raging about the injustice. Or as the sower I can rejoice in another’s harvest, knowing that I entered into another’s labor from the outset.

The ultimate import of all this is that products of labor are finally resolved into gift. Finally, a producer has to let go of his product, let others use it to produce their own fruit. Finally, a producer has to give thanks that he has labored, and others have entered into his labor.