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You have asked a great question--and reminded us why theology is good tool for good living. At creation, the triune God brought the order of creation out of a watery chaos of swirling darkness. Human beings were created as part of God's ordering. Humans were created as an image of God. And, being that image, they were to serve as priests.
It is no accident that the first pair was made in a temple garden atop a sacred mountain. Human beings image God--that is what priests do. But let us be more specific. Priestcraft is a complicated affair. Humans were to demonstrate the divine character to the created cosmos; think of personal and social ethics, political decisions, and judgments. They were to represent the needs of the cosmos before the creator; the first pair were intended to join the divine council. On the council, they would intercede and do the work we tend to think of as prayer-work today but far more openly. And they were to act as celebrants and lead all creation in worship before God.
That last function seems to capture more of what we think of when we use the word worship today. We think of an activity--worshipping. This is true. But I want to broaden it out. In a broader sense worship also involves reminding creation that it exists coram Deo, before the face of God, all the time. The sacrifice of praise is not only ecstatic song but reverent living in the details.
The sum total of this work--what occurs when human beings are acting in their capacity as imago Dei and doing the work of priestcraft--is shalom. They re-create the ordered harmony that God began in creation. This is what sits behind the creation mandate in Genesis 1.28.
God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.' God said, 'See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (NRSV)God gave humans the ordering baton: go out into the wild and order it. I like the word order better than subdue, as subdue has given license to some ecologically sinful acts, plus, order connects what humans are commanded to do with what God did in creation.[1] There is, perhaps, an even better word in the verb to garden or, taking a nod from Genesis 2:15, "to till it and to keep it." The big idea is to be priests over it. Bring its wildness and the nations that will come from your going into its wildness into shalom.[2] And in your ordering, the seventh day peace will be made possible. What must not escape is the connection between the ordering/gardening work that human beings are commanded to do and their priestly mantel of worship. The two--work and worship--are the same thing.[3]
Now, we know that the image of God in human beings was deeply marred and twisted by the fall of the human race into sin and rebellion. But, in Christ, our new Adam proleptically restores that image in those who are his. What this means is that the whole restoration is certain, but its fulness isn't immediate. The imago is not wholly restored in us in this age. But we, by grace, can begin to function by grace in our priestly duties; we can begin to act as image bearers again. That is Biblical theology that gives context for human life and work.
There is a connection here between priesthood, governance, and wisdom. Widom literature is about how to live rightly, how to judge rightly, and how all things are done as worship before the face of God. Work and worship are a correct ordering of things, a correct proportion, a correct judgment. Work at its core is governance. And worship puts all things in their rightful places. There is no Enlightenment separation between devotion and labor, Sunday and the weekdays. Thomas Carlyle said, "Laborare est Orare, work is worship." Both are done with wisdom before God.
Additionally, everything we do, because it images our maker, is missional, because we do it in this age and so demonstrate/announce God's foolish wisdom before the Principalities and Powers. We are guided by the moral law and bear the Spirit's fruit "for the healing of the nations." And what we do here continues into and is valued in the next age as well in a way that is not wholly clear.
So, then, the work of our minds and hands and the communities we make and live within are meaningful because they please and satisfy the divine will for us. Exactly what those will be for each of us personally is a hermeneutical process that requires wisdom. As we know, this gets very granular: a work, community, activity, or aim that is ok for one isn't ok for another. And this removes human reckoning of value from wealth or status or race or nationality--none of that matters. What matters is worship.
This is the framework we must keep in mind as we live our lives moment by moment in this age and into the next.
Addendum: Hospitality
Coming back to this post after a time, I wish to add a part that--incredibly--was missed. That is the reason for shalom. I talked a lot about getting to shalom, but said nothing about the purpose for it. So let me say that the purpose for shalom is hospitality. I made some comments to a friend the other day about hospitality. Let me reproduce them here: "Shalom is for the purpose of hospitality. Work itself has no purpose apart from it. Childrearing. City building. It goes and goes. Theology itself is ultimately governed by the eucharistic meal, not the sermon's rhetorical and logistical demands. Isn't priest another word for server? Isn't Pentecost a festival of first fruits? Missionary work is just a dinner invitation. Jesus died for hospitality. We say "for my sins" -- but that is what we are saved from. We say "so we can do good works" or even "so, as priests of the restored imago we can get about the business of good works or loving God and our neighbor or pursuing the creation mandate"--this is true in the way that cars are combustion engines. Until we get to the Eucharistic meal--until we get to hospitality--we have not yet arrived at what is meant by "a new heaven and a new earth" where God lives with people and where there is no war anymore."
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[1] A reader keeping their wits about them should not miss the connection to Jesus's Great Commission to "go into all the world and make disciples."
[2] There is a LOT to this word. Timothy Kellner, in his article for the NIV Study Bible, says, "Shalom experienced is multidimensional, complete well-being — physical, psychological, social, and spiritual; it flows from all of one’s relationships being put right — with God, with(in) oneself, and with others." He doesn't include ecological peace in his list, but he should. We should think of it as the arrival in time (the fullness) of the seventh-day restful order that God's ordering work of creation intended. The vehicle for bringing such order: the priestly Kingdom of God heralded in the first incarnation of the second Adam, Jesus (Yeshua). The Bible Project also released a short study on shalom.
[3] The Hebrew word here is עֲבוֹדָה – /ah-vo-DAH/ - combines what we might think of as work with worship (Ex 8.1; 12.31; Josh 24.15). בַד (ʿā·ḇǎḏ): v.; … work, labor, do, i.e., expend considerable energy and intensity in a task or function … give considerable energy and intensity to give aid to another (Lev 25:46; 2Sa 16:19); … worship, serve, minister, work in ministry, i.e., give energy and devotion to God or a god, including ceremonies (Ex 23:24, 25); cultivate, plow, i.e., work soil (with or without an animal) as part of the agricultural process (Ge 4:2; Isa 30:24); plowed, be cultivated (Dt 21:4; Ecc 5:8; Eze 36:9, 34 from Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc. See also Dr. Carmen Imes's discussion of this word in Exodus 3.12, 18.
