The Work You Have Given Us to Do

A Prayer About the Work We've Been Given

In the Book of Common Prayer, the Anglican prayer book, there’s a wonderful turn of phrase that comes in a prayer toward the end of the worship service: “And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.”

The prayers of the church found in the Anglican liturgy have sometimes been called “Scripture arranged for worship.” The poetic cadences are rooted in the words of the Bible, expressing the good news of life and salvation through Jesus Christ in a way that the church can pray together. There’s spiritual wisdom packed into the text; one of the benefits of praying the same prayers week after week is the chance to reflect on them with fresh eyes and ears and draw out more of that wisdom over time.

With this post, I’d like to do just that: Reflect on this simple prayer line by line, allowing the Bible and the church to teach us about the work our Father has given us.

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And Now

The larger prayer in which this phrase comes is given the delightfully plain title of “The Post Communion Prayer.” It comes after the people receive Communion.

The prayer itself also guides the people in the turning point between that Communion and the week that lies before them. The phrase “And now” pivots us from gratitude for how God has included us in his covenant family toward the work God has given us to do. Here’s the whole prayer:

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food

of the most precious Body and Blood

of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ;

and for assuring us in these holy mysteries

that we are living members of the body of your Son,

and heirs of your eternal Kingdom.

And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do,

to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.

To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit,

be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

There’s a rich theological assumption implicit in that “And now” pivot: First, God saves us; then, he sends us.

We see how God saves us in the portion of the prayer before the “And now”:

• God makes us “living members” of Christ’s body, a phrase that recalls Peter’s metaphor for our place in the church: “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5 ESV).
• God makes us “heirs” of his “eternal Kingdom.” As Paul writes in his teaching on justification by faith, if you belong to Christ, “then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29 ESV).
• God not only saves us; he also assures us of our place as members and heirs in the “holy mysteries” of the Eucharist. What the Eucharist ministers to us is our union with God in Christ, and our communion with each other, rescued together into his kingdom.? As Jesus taught his disciples, “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20 NIV).

Just after the people drink the wine and eat the bread, they give thanks to God for what he has done through the body and blood of their Savior. They remember that they are saved through faith, brought into union with Christ, made members of him, and established together as heirs of God’s kingdom.

Secure in that standing before God in Christ, the people are ready to pray “And now, Father, send us out . . .” Everything that God sends us to do flows out from his rescue of us through Christ. All the work that God has given us to do is rooted in our union with him in Christ. Nothing is earned. Everything is given.

In the security of that Communion with our Father and each other, we are ready for what comes next. The “And now” is immediate. It’s about what is happening here, today, as soon as we step out of the sanctuary and into the rest of life.

Father, Send Us Out

Back when I worked at a mortgage company, I was assistant to our president, Kevin. Kevin sometimes sent me to do things. I remember a hybrid meeting we had with an important vendor, where the Zoom call was beset by technical difficulties. Kevin said, “Chris, could you go get someone from IT?” He was being polite, but I walked with purpose and urgency. I was sent.

There’s a big difference between just doing something, and doing it because you were sent to do it. When you’re sent, you’re accountable to the one who sent you. There’s a purpose that’s bigger than you, and you’re stepping into it. Being sent imbues our work with meaning and direction.

So, we pray, “Father, send us out.” This part of the prayer grounds us again in our union with God as we address him as Father. But what comes next is a little unexpected. We don’t pray, “Because you are sending us out” or “as you send us out.” The request is phrased as an imperative; we tell God to “send us out.” Why is that?

This way of phrasing the prayer invites us to join our will, our agency, to God’s. It is true that God is sending us, but we are not helpless pawns in some divine drama that goes far over our heads. We can choose to embrace the direction of God’s movement in our life. We gladly ask him to send us to do his work, because of the way he has rescued us. What better work could there be for us to do than the work God sends us to do?

In the same passage of John above where Jesus teaches on union with the Father, he says this in prayer for his disciples: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18 NIV). Our “sent-ness” is grounded in Jesus’ being sent by the Father.

This prayer reorients our view of our week. Our gathering with brothers and sisters in Christ for worship is not some detail or addition to a life full of other concerns; it is the renewal of what is most central: Our life in God. The rest of the week comes out of that renewed center. We are assured of our salvation, and then we are sent out on a mission, until we return to be renewed again.

To Do the Work You Have Given Us to Do

But what is that mission?

The phrase that comes next is so reassuring and encompassing. We are sent “to do the work you have given us to do.” This prayer is reassuring because we are not sent to do anything other than what God gives us to do. We are not asked to do the impossible. We are not expected to prove ourselves. The work itself is a gift. Nothing is earned. Everything is given.

In the middle of our normal weeks, we often feel short on time, resources, and patience to do everything that lies before us. But we can rest in the knowledge that there is nothing that God expects us to do that he will not empower us by his grace to accomplish.

The prayer is encompassing because the work God has given us to do really is everything that we are to do. If it isn’t given to us by God, then we don’t need to do it.

We don’t usually think about our work in this way, in terms of being given us by God. There are other motivators that can feel much more immediate. We go to work to pay the bills. We do the dishes so we have a clean kitchen. We write a birthday card because we love our friend.

There’s nothing wrong with these motivations. But under and inside of them, we can also welcome each obligation as an assignment from God. Our ultimate allegiance is to him and him alone. We can trust that he will provide for us even when we have to say “no” to other expectations.

In an earlier version of the prayer book, this prayer was phrased as a request for grace to “do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in,” in a clear paraphrase of Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (ESV). Scripture teaches that God has gone ahead of us to prepare the way, so that we can step into the path before us with confidence.

We are sent to do the work God has given us to do, no more and no less.

To Love and Serve You

The motivation that most helps us in our work is our love for God himself. It’s not just that God oversees our true obligations, and that what he gives us to do is good and purposeful. We want to do it out of love for him.

As Jesus taught, the most important commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30 ESV). Everything we have and are can be brought to bear upon this one aim: to love the God who first loved us.

So, we pray: We are confident that the work you have given us to do is “to love and serve you.”

Because you are good.

Because you have rescued us.

Because of the work you have done in Christ.

We love you.

We want to serve you.

As Faithful Witnesses of Christ Our Lord

As we do this—as we work from a heart of love, serving God in the work he has sent us to do—we participate in a mission that is greater than ourselves. We love and serve God “as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.”

After his resurrection, just before ascending, Jesus told his disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8 ESV).

Those first-generation apostles were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The good news that Jesus had defeated sin and death was news that needed to be proclaimed. Because of what they had witnessed, the apostles were in an authoritative position to proclaim that news. As Peter and John said, “we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20 NIV).

That pattern is ours to imitate. A witness is someone who sees something, and then speaks about it. We are not eyewitnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection. But we are witnesses to his power in our lives and our communities. We keep faith with God and with each other when we speak of what we see him doing in us and around us.

In our everyday work, whatever it is, there will be ample opportunity to proclaim the good news of Christ by word and example. To be faithful to our charge is simply to welcome those opportunities as they come, to speak and do the fitting thing for each occasion as God gives us grace.

Because in the end, it’s really about what Christ is doing. He is our Lord. He is accomplishing his purposes through our work as we do it in union with him. Nothing is earned. Everything is given.

We only need to keep our eyes open, so that we can see him in the work he has given us to do.

Reflect and Practice

• You are a living member of Christ’s body, rescued into his kingdom. Take a moment to ponder and give thanks for this gift.
• Does it make a difference that first God saves us; then he sends us? What does that look like in your life?
• What is God giving you to do this week?
• Are there tasks that you don’t tend to think of as part of loving and serving God? How could you welcome the motivation of love for God in those tasks?
• What would it look like for you to be a “faithful witness” in your work this week?

Consider writing out this prayer by hand in a journal, using it as a prompt for further reflection:

And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do,

to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.

To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit,

be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Post photo by Max Di Capua on Unsplash.

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