The Way of the Way at WorkНамуна

You’re reading this plan because you want to follow the way of The Way at work. But what is the way of Jesus?

I’d argue the best summary answer to that question is found in the Sermon on the Mount. While this famous speech does not represent the totality of Jesus’s teachings, I think the team at The Bible Project is right to encourage us to think of the Sermon on the Mount as a collection of Jesus’s “greatest hits.”

In short, if you want to follow the way of The Way at work, this is the single best block of teaching I know of to break down what that means. Which is why I will be dedicating the next few days of The Word Before Work to breaking down the sermon in full and applying it to the work you and I do today.

We begin with the show-stopping introduction of the Sermon on the Mount which contains some of the most countercultural words ever spoken then and now: the Beatitudes.

Commenting on this text, New Testament scholar Dr. N.T. Wright says, “We all too easily assume that Jesus is saying ‘try hard to be like this’. But that’s not the point! The point is that God’s kingdom is being launched on earth as in heaven, and the way it will happen is by God working through people of this sort.”

And that “sort” of people is the exact opposite of who the world says is blessed.

The world says, “Blessed are the confident and self-assured,” but The Way says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

The world says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for influence,” but The Way says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

The world says, “Blessed are those who minimize pain and suffering,” but The Way says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.”

Today, let me challenge you to follow Jesus’s example in calling out those living the good life of the kingdom by blessing the blessed. Send a note to someone you work with—an employee, a customer, a boss, a vendor, whoever—and say something like this:

I was just reading Jesus’s words in Matthew 5 that “Blessed are the [insert beatitude here]” and it made me think of you. I know the world doesn’t often celebrate this way of working. But Jesus does. Continue walking in his ways!