God, Covenant, and the meaning of work

Imagine receiving this from your new employer.

Dear new employee,

Please find attached your covenant of employment. Please note that you are not required to sign this document. On your first day your Line Manager will walk you through the agreement. Please let us know in advance if you require a vegan covenant cutting ceremony.

Yours Sincerely,
Human Resources

I suspect no employer has ever offered to walk with you down an aisle formed by the halves of severed animals to seal your relationship to the company. (If you are struggling for the allusion, take a look at Genesis 15.) What difference would it make to be less transactional in the workplace, and instead reflect the relational and sacrificial elements of covenant?

A contract is a very familiar way of structuring relationships in our society – two or more parties make a set of time-limited commitments that enables each to further their own interests whilst respecting those of the other. The modern contract is a transactional arrangement, governed by the notion of reciprocity and limits to commitment. We use a contract to ensure that an employer gets the work required and the employer the credit due, safe in the knowledge that neither is getting the better deal.

Inherent in our notion of contract is a limit beyond which the commitment no longer stands. Not only if one party should break their side of the agreement, but simply if the cost of honouring the contract exceeds the cost associated with breaking it.

A feature of the ancient covenant, by contrast, is that the cost of breaking the agreement far exceeds the notional value of the commitments contained. In Genesis 15 we see a covenant in which the consequences of breaking it are akin to agreeing that “I should be severed as these animals have been” (pictured). Whilst we might argue about the practicalities of enforcement, this is about as far from a calculated contract as we could get!

Could do better

It is easy to see why a covenant between employee and employer would be impractical and unwelcome. Yet we do sometimes see organisations whose commitment to “their people” extends beyond the contractual, coming at a cost not sanctioned by notions of transaction and pure economic value. Where financial difficulty is not simply met by redundancies, but with the cost being borne by some (typically the more senior) in an attempt to protect everyone. Where decisions about an employee with long-term illness are not simply a matter of what value the company can extract from what work they are able to undertake. This is a part of culture in which Christians can stand out from the crowd.

Only God can do that

The most striking thing about the covenant ceremony in Genesis 15 is not that God would cut a covenant with Abraham (and thereby humanity) but that, in a shocking asymmetry, He takes on the whole responsibility for the covenant. A move that echoes right through the Bible: “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Here we see something that no earthly employer could or even should hope to match. It is a “whatever it takes” sort of commitment. It means that the Christian employee has a hope that nothing else can match, that when your company lets you down, you are not at the mercy of the world, but instead rest on the mercy of a loving Father.