The Four Smiles of a Young Graduate

Having been a staff worker in FES for several years, I have seen three kinds of smiles. The first is when my polytechnic Christian Fellowship (CF) students get accepted into the academic institution of their choice. The second is their graduation smile, when they receive their certificates and take graduation photos. They have reached their goal and are awarded with a promise of certainty, a degree without blemish, stating that they have met the requirements and are now eligible for a good job. Their academic institutions echo again the promise that they are now industry ready, equipped to contribute as productive members of our society.

Challenge of Uncertainty
Ironically, it is the feeling of uncertainty that accompanies graduation. The journey of compulsory education has abruptly ended. Deliberations over which primary school to attend and conversations around which courses would ensure employability have all come to a halt. They now find themselves travelling on career paths with many crossroads and no clear ending points. This becomes the setting for transitional stress, and whatever fear of failure accumulated in the life of the student manifests in full when they transition into working life. Instead of grades, the number on their pay check and the hours they clock at their desk now define how “useful” they are to society.

This is when the third smile appears, the “why was I crazy enough to do this” kind of smile. It is behind this third smile, the pained, delirious, tired smile, that they wonder, or worry: What is the purpose behind what we do? Which connections should I invest in? Am I burning out from overcommitment? Is my next step on the right path?

Challenge of Commitments
Besides the valuations of our labour, the pursuit of productivity has also affected our availability of time. Looking back, itʼs amazing how many commitments, hobbies, social groups, and even work gigs we juggled. But that was my time. I could move it around. I could reschedule meetings and skip classes. I paid my own school fees; I am the boss. Entering the workplace, your boss and clients move you around. Your boss pays for your time. The little time we have outside of work is thrown into what gives us a sense of freedom, control, and self-identity. It may be exercising, unwinding over games, spending time with loved ones, or serving in church. We try to regulate ourselves, but our availability is now capped by overtime and earlier bedtimes. No wonder there is a greater desire for work-life balance.

Challenge of Community
The campus is the common space and context where Christian students meet in fellowship to encourage each other, to be formed, and to engage the campus. But upon graduation, students who once shared the same convictions and connections are now uprooted and planted into disparate and distant landscapes. To be sure, these supportive friendships can still be maintained through mutual love, a repository of shared experiences, and at least one person with an administrative gift to organise meet-ups. But sometimes, even their desperation for companionship is drowned out by lifeʼs demand for their time. A community that had been a source of spiritual strength and comfort is thus lost.

Challenge of Purpose
Itʼs easy to question whether work, especially in its mundaneness, has any real meaning and purpose. Most graduates from CF would be familiar with the theology of work: that God is the first worker and he created humans to work in the garden. Thus, though we work in a broken world, we serve God through serving creation. Even after the fall, Jesus seeks “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth and in heaven” (Col 1:20). Yet holding onto these ideals proves difficult.

A graduate shared with me that he was inspired to redeem work and workplace culture, but after two years of work in the finance industry, he felt powerless to provide any positive change, and quickly felt jaded. He also lamented of fellow Christian friends who shared similar feelings and had stopped going to church. They are disappointed by both the promises of the academic institutions and the ideals of the Christian faith. While this is not representative of the experience of all graduates, it does call into question whether understanding and willingness are enough to sustain the graduate in living out their vocation.

The Curse of the Land
The challenges that graduates face remind me of the events leading up to the exile of Israel. I had always wondered why Godʼs people would collectively worship idols. Turning from the Most High to pagan gods seemed foolish to me. But behind what seemed like pure religious failure lies the influence of political and economic history. During his reign, King Solomon levied a tax to support building projects such as the First Temple and increased foreign trade. When King Rehoboam ascended the throne, he increased the taxes even after the completion of Solomonʼs temple. As an agricultural economy, a poor yield would have meant defaulting on the tax and accruing unpayable debts.

Government officials and money lenders then exploited the poor and took their land, turning landowners into farmers and debt slaves. The pursuit of wealth became the foremost priority of society, especially for the elite, who had built up business relationships. Thus, Israel turns to Baal, a deity of fertility. The decentralised worship of Baal within Israel then facilitated the channelling of agricultural goods from the poor to the ruling class via offering collections. Idolatry was a product of injustice and apostasy¹. Politics affects the economy, which in turn affects theology.

What drives our politics and economics today, and how does that affect our theology? Fertility cults are not in vogue these days, but productivity and return on investments are our new idols, a false image. And it starts from being brought up in a competitive environment. As a young parent, I try my best not to overvalue comparison. It has been shown that negative social comparison can lead to insecurity, leading to bullying behaviours. Injustice can happen even at a preschool age. Money is not yet involved, but self-image, the Imago Dei, is at stake.

The younger generations of today can afford more comforts, yet more burdens are placed upon them. We have no land the ruling class can take away, but as some staff have observed, year by year, the ability to read is taken away. The capacity to generate ideas is being replaced by technology, and our attention is sold away for clickbait and brain rot. Has productivity made us more like slaves?

A Sabbath of the Land
What should graduate ministry look like in this context? As witnesses, our goal is to reflect the restored image of God through Jesus Christ in work and in life, in antithesis to the false images of productivity and gratification. This includes understanding Godʼs image of justice, since injustice often has a symbiotic relationship with idolatry.

I believe a clue to resisting the idols of dominant culture is a comprehensive understanding of the sabbath. Leviticus 25 stipulates a sabbath of the land. Every seventh year, the land rests, the productive engine sits idle, and both natives and sojourners live off the produce of the land. Rest is providence, and rest is holy. The year of Jubilee further extends rest from slavery. Rest is freedom. While we are not in a position to bring our economy to a halt every six years, the concept of rest as holy and liberating can help us to re-imagine the quality of our work, our rest, and our relationships with our neighbours and the land. We might be far from an ideal outcome now, but we do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We remember from the fall of Israel that the failure to understand the justice and holiness of rest led to the distortion of their worship.

A Ministry for Young Graduates
Our duty then as staff and also graduates, is to take up the priestly role to help fellow graduates to use their God-given gifts to worship God in their work and their life, and not be lured into simply running the rat race, for if even if they do win the race, in the end, they are still a rat.

To this end, FES continues to develop its graduate ministry. To strengthen our graduates, we have been running workshops on topics like the theology of work and rest, money and vocation, and engaging workplace culture. We also ran small groups and retreats to provide communal learning and formation among young graduates. More recently, we have produced an Interns Devotional to speak specifically to the formative period of transitioning into work. Currently, we are working on a podcast series to be released in the future, in hopes of encouraging them on their journey in the workplace. We are also forming a think tank represented by fresh graduates, who lend their experience and voice to shape new strategies for the formation of Christian graduates.

Through these initiatives, we hope to see a fourth kind of smile: a graduate who has learnt to navigate the challenges of the workplace faithfully and whose journey continues to be a blessing to others and a worship to God. May his face shine upon us.

Gabriel Jiang is a senior campus ministry staff worker and also serves with the Young Graduate Ministry.

¹ Jerry Hwang, Poverty and Riches: A Biblical and Theological Reflection. Collected Essays of Alliance Bible Seminary Colloquium, 183-207