They come from labor dungeons, sewers, and greasy pits. Their calloused hands work the line in steel mills, cotton mills, and paper mills across the country. They build homes and businesses and keep them running. When those become obsolete, they tear them down and rebuild. They handle raw sewage, hazardous materials, and trash…lots of trash. They melt, smelt, unclog, frame, clean, connect, mow, and glean. Who are they? They are laborers. Blue-collar workers. Because of them we have food, clothes, houses, and leisure. They impact everyone’s lives, even other blue-collar workers. They make the world work.
Colored Collars
The workforce is composed of colored collars—white and blue. White-collar workers usually have more education, work in corporate offices, or as professionals like doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Blue-collar workers do the work. They get their hands dirty with physical labor. White-collars design buildings and, blue-collars build them.
Many people measure success by the color of their collar, often breeding disdain for lower working classes. This has created a workplace crisis. Fewer and fewer people willfully take the dirty jobs. Nobody wants to dig ditches or pour asphalt. Everyone wants the white-collar jobs—but someone still needs to clean the toilet.
The working class of societal servants should to be praised for taking on the hard, unnoticed, and thankless tasks. No one should suffer prejudice, disdain, or insult because of his working class, but sadly, many do.
Don’t hire out your spiritual work.
The collar caste system has infected the church too. Across the country, Christians from the professional sector have hired out their dirty work at home. Someone cleans their house, mows their yard, and washes their car. That is how the marketplace works, and there is nothing wrong with it until white-collar Christians try to hire out their spiritual work, too.
Christianity is a blue-collar religion, requiring every member to work. God created us to do good works (Eph 2:10). He calls us to model good works to the world (Titus 2:7). He challenges us to be zealous for good works (Titus 2:14). We cannot pay someone to do our evangelism, worship, or any other Christian duty. In Christ, every collar is the same shade of blue (Gal 3:28).
Christians serve.
The disciples debated their roles as servants. Once, while the disciples argued among themselves, Jesus asked what they were talking about. They were arguing over who was the greatest. Each of them wanted the white-collar job of leadership, but Jesus admonished, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). There are no white collars in his kingdom. Everyone serves.
The church needs workers, not managers. When upper class Christians transfer their secular status into their religious status, they jeopardize the work of the church. Jesus reported that “the harvest is plentiful” (Matt 9:37). Lost souls surround the kingdom, needing salvation. But too many Christians wearing white collars wait for someone else to go into the fields to harvest. Hence, after Jesus reported the potential of the harvest, he lamented, “but the laborers are few” (Matt 9:37). Then he added, “Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt 9:38).
We pray for ourselves.
The irony is, when we pray for laborers, we pray for ourselves. Jesus commissioned disciples to “go into all the world and make disciples” (Matt 28:19). That obligation falls to us. We are the harvesters. With sweat-stained blue collars we enter the vineyard. We work. We serve. We teach. We go.
The American labor crisis has given rise to illegal immigration, poor work ethics, and social prejudice. However, the secular crisis is a gnat’s breath compared to the spiritual work crisis. When Christians are above getting their hands soiled while sowing, souls die, churches fold, and salvation is forfeited. Let us all put on our work clothes and grab the plow. Living Christ demands blue collars, dirty fingernails, and a servant’s heart.
Preaching Minister
