Remembering the Missio Dei: Living in the Midst of Heaven

An Interview with Sadie Sasser. Sadie Sasser is a ministry fellow with Harvard Undergraduate Faith in Action (HUFA), a ministry supported by Christian Union. She holds a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary.

This essay was edited for length and clarity.

Lily: How do you define biblical work and rest?

Sadie: The root of biblical work and rest is the same: we are made in the image of God. Because of this, both our work and our rest is meant to reflect how God works and how God rests. In this sense, they're very similar. We often talk about work and rest as competing realities, but I think it's important for us to remember that both flow from the character of God and apply to us precisely because we are made in His image.

Biblical work, for me, begins with the idea that God has given us each something to do. The larger framework of this is God's work in this world—what is otherwise known as the missio dei, the mission of God. God has things He wants to get done on Earth, and He invites us to participate in them. At its core, biblical work is the task God gives us as we help bring His mission to Earth and participate in the fulfillment of the missio dei.

Biblical rest comes out of the idea of life before the fall. We have to think about rest and work as very, very good in and of themselves. God worked six days and rested on the seventh. Biblical rest images the Father, reflecting the creative work of God. Rest is a kind of celebration; it's a respite. It's this marking an end of something that's well done, and it is foundationally biblical. 

Ultimately, rest is delighting in God. It is the absence of work, but a movement toward relationship. God desires not only that we do things for Him, but that we be with Him. The missio dei and the kingdom of God, therefore, are not only about joining God in His work, but also resting with Him in communion.

Lily: How do you think the idea of eternity—the fact that Earth is not our permanent home—impacts how we as Christians should participate in the world and use our time?

Sadie: John Mark Comer is a pastor who started a nonprofit dedicated to equipping people in the practice of the spiritual disciplines. He also wrote a book called Garden City. This title comes from the book’s tying together of Genesis and Revelation—from the Garden of Eden at the very beginning of the Bible to the eternal city described at its end. In Eden, humanity begins as two people cultivating the ground. By the time we reach the final chapters of Revelation, we encounter a rich vision of what is called the new heavens and the new earth. 

Biblically, the garden becomes a city in the end. With this in mind, our understanding of eternity shifts away from an escapist view of reality—one that imagines leaving earth behind for a distant, ethereal dimension—and toward the belief that God intends to bring Heaven to Earth.

This vision of eternity matters because it means that the work instituted before the Fall has ramifications for us now, and the work we do now has ramifications for eternity, because God is not abandoning this world but renewing it. What exists now is not going to be null and void and forgotten about; rather, it will be transformed. 

The work that we are given today—the mission each of us receives from God as participants in His kingdom—will, in some form, continue in eternity. Now, does that mean that somebody who's an accountant will continue to be an accountant in the new earth? No, I think that vocation is a much bigger idea than just what I do to earn money and what services I offer my employer.

Because of this, we engage in the world with hope. Even in ordinary or seemingly mundane tasks, we are sowing seeds whose full meaning may only be revealed in God’s future. Thus, our understanding of time itself is expanded. Kingdom time is not the same thing as chronos time. 

The Greek language distinguishes between chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to measured, sequential time—seconds, minutes, and hours. Kairos, by contrast, refers to meaningful time: a moment charged with purpose, which may last seconds or stretch into an entire season. Kairos is about intentionality. 

With kairos in mind, we have to redefine how we go about spending our time. What do we believe our time is for? And how do we live faithfully within it? Christians are called to orient their time as they orient themselves toward God—learning to see their work through the lens of the kingdom and through God's eyes.

I think that we have an opportunity every single day to sow seeds in the kingdom, even through studying, going to a lecture and getting there on time, being respectful to classmates, and meeting somebody new in the dining hall. Those are all opportunities that are imbued with eternity. We are imaging God as we do those things, even when the task at hand doesn't always feel connected to God’s kingdom. 

Lily: Harvard has a distinct emphasis on busyness, accomplishment, and how we're using our time. How can students distinguish between working hard and relating to work as an identity or idol? 

Sadie: Very practically, a helpful question to ask ourselves: if I am going to do a task, who is this for? Who is this going to benefit? If I do well and everything goes according to plan, and I get the result, will the result glorify me or glorify God?

With investment banking, for example, multiple people would say, “This is going to make me a lot of money. It's a very competitive market, and this will put me at the top of the food chain.” I know a woman from HUFA who graduated and is working with Goldman Sachs. She's a trader, so she's in this cutthroat world, but she is a very mission-minded person. She seeks out opportunities to pray with co-workers and things like that. There's no neat way to parse whether something is going to benefit God versus self.

But how do you determine these things? You have to ask what the motivation is—is it for me? Is it for my desires, or do I feel like God is going to use me in this? The motivation, I think, is how we answer that question of distinguishing between the things of God and of our own desires.

This interview of Sadie Sasser was conducted by Lily Castello ‘29.