This article contains mild spoilers.
“It’s—been a long month.”
“Ah. That bad?”
“No, it’s just—restaurants”
“Yeah, right? Why do we do this to ourselves?”
“Cause we’re crazy.”
You could imagine this raw interaction taking place between between two colleagues in any industry—cooking, teaching, stay-at-home parents, and even those in full-time ministry. In The Bear, critically acclaimed young chef Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) returns to his home town of Chicago after his older brother’s suicide, to take over his Italian beef sandwich shop, which he renames The Bear. In its exploration of the motivation and ideals of those who work in the restaurant industry, the third season of The Bear invites comparisons to work more generally.[1] As I was watching, I kept thinking about parallels to gospel ministry.
Work Is Hard
All work takes place under the curse of painful toil, thorns and thistles, struggles of usurping desire and overbearing rule, enmity, and ultimately dust returning to dust (Gen 3:14–19). These difficulties are variegated; the frenetic pace, high standards and tight margins of restaurant work is one experience; Christian ministry, with the special intensity of its moral and spiritual focus is another. Both involve a great deal of teamwork and the complexities of seeking to meet the wants and needs of a range of people with limited resources.
“How’s The Bear?” a staff member from another restaurant asks Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), the head of front of house at Carmy’s refreshed and relaunched restaurant.
“It’s a f***ing bear,” he replies.
She affectionately smiles and laughs as she says, “Yeah, aren’t they all?”
We have heavenly motivation for the gospel preaching and praying work we do in the Lord. We have eternal confidence in its enduring value (1Cor 15:58). But this labour in the Lord Jesus remains demanding, complex, stressful work. Gospel ministry can be a bear, too.
Work Is Fleeting
Christ will build his church and Christ’s mission will endure and succeed, for he remains with us to the very end of the age (Matt 16:18; 28:18–20). But this promise is not for every individual local church, parachurch or denomination, nor for the equal thriving of the Christian faith in every nation in every age. Like all work in this world, there will be times when ministers need to grieve the loss of good things.
In season 3 of The Bear Carmy learns a restaurant that was formative in his training as a chef will be closing. “How do you feel?” his sister asks him.
“Like I’m Etch-A-Sketched. I thought it would be there forever.”
“Yeah. Most things aren’t.”
We can feel the same when we hear a long-serving senior minister is moving on, or when a significant ministry declines or even closes entirely. Etch-A-Sketched: this disintegrating sensation points to the fragility of all the things of this world that we build.
But we don’t work merely for the institutions of this world—even the Christian institutions of this world. We work for the kingdom of God that will outlast them all. Remembering this can refocus our attention.
“Hey, you ever think about, like, how all the good s**t is gone?” Richie laments to a friend who works at the restaurant that is about to close.
“I think about how to keep good things around,” she replies.
Faithful Christian leadership does not get consumed by nostalgic mourning for the glories of youth, or a previous generation, but looks ahead to the gospel work needed for today and tomorrow.
Serving People
As we preach the gospel of the Son of Man who gave his life as a ransom for many, we should not strive to be first and lord it over our congregation, but rather to be their servants for Christ’s sake. Remembering the blessing our work can be to others provides a well of motivation.
“So, do you like the work?” someone asks Carmy’s older brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal) in a flashback.
“Um. I don’t know. I mean, I like the people.”
“Okay, but do you like the work?”
“I definitely do not like never not being f***ed. You know? I don’t like that you gotta make enough money every single day just to pay for yesterday. I don’t like it when, you know, sh** happens. The oven breaks or the sewer line backs up. I don’t like it when the delivery company forgets f***ing onions, you know? But, yeah. No, I do. I like the people, you know?”
“Then I guess that’s why people do it.”
“Do what?”
“Open restaurants.”
One of Carmy’s mentors, Thomas Keller (playing himself), shares advice he was given as a young chef:
“He came to me one day and he asked me, he said, ‘Thomas, do you know why cooks cook?’ And I’m like: ‘Okay, I’m trying to think’. He said: ‘We cook to nurture people.’… our trade is cooking, and that, to me, is such a profound profession because we get to really be part of people’s lives in significant ways.”
Keller then expands upon this lesson, pointing at the various spheres of influence:
“You’re nurturing yourself. You’re nurturing the team you’re cooking for. You’re gonna be nurturing our guests. We’re even nurturing our farmers, our fishermen, our foragers, our gardeners, who are bringing us all these wonderful ingredients … And so, just remember, right? It’s all about nurturing.”
Christian viewers will recognise biblical themes of servant leadership and the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbours as ourselves (Mk 10:42–45; 12:31). These principles apply to any good work we can turn our hands to, including the work of Christians ministry.
Leaving a Legacy
Christian leaders work to leave a godly and faithful legacy of correctly handling the word of truth. This is very much the concern of Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:17–38 and the instructions in his second letter to Timothy. Legacy is a major theme of the third season of The Bear. In a flashback, Thomas Keller emphasises this in his guidance to a young Carmy:
“So never forget that, right? We are here today because of those who came before us. And so this is your first day … You’ll have a legacy here in this restaurant, you know, and after you leave … And that’ll compound over the years that you’re here, and you’ll leave this restaurant with education, training, skills and a path forward.”
In another episode, titled ‘Legacy’, Carmy speaks of great chefs he has known:
“They would talk a lot about legacy … Who they would work with, you know, and what they would go on to do. Like, something would start somewhere, and then people would take that thing and then they would take it somewhere else. So, all these parts of an original restaurant, they would end up at a new restaurant … That would happen over and over again. And then all these parts of all these restaurants … they would find each other. And then new people would take those parts and they would put ’em into their restaurant. And the whole thing … It would start to happen all over again.”
Those who work in training ministries like theological colleges and MTS, or youth and young adult ministries experience this very tangibly. You can trace family trees of conversion, mentoring, influence, training, philosophy of ministry. Often there are traces of rhythms of speech, of names for ministry structures that give little clues to this legacy. The heart of a ministry legacy however, is not found in personal distinctives, but in the careful transmission of the gospel itself.
Gospel work can very painful labour indeed, and the visible products of our work fades away, sometimes even before our eyes. We need to keep drawing motivation from worshipping our Saviour God and serving our fellow human beings. We need to focus on a legacy that extends beyond our achievements and institutions we are associated with—a legacy written by the Spirit on the hearts of those to whom we have taught the word of God.
[1] Episode 2 makes this explicit, with an opening montage of workers in a range industries across the city of Chicago.
