We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.   —John 9:4

 

Next Monday will be “Labor Day” in  the United States, a day that perhaps mostly marks the end of summer in many people’s minds.  Labor Day was originally a day “dedicated to the labor and achievements of American workers” in the late 1800s. 

Not many words carry as much significance for people as the simple word, “work.”  “What kind of work do you do?” is a standard conversation-starter for people just meeting each other.  Our passions rise high around the word when we feel our own work being diminished or threatened, or when others promote their work as more important or better than our own.  Being out of work is plainly terrifying.

While it gets far less attention in most cases, there is a parallel conversation about work that runs through the Scriptures and the history of Judaism and Christianity.   In the very opening verses of the Bible, God is at work creating the world, and “on the seventh day, God rested from all God’s labors.”  The Sabbath becomes a weekly commemoration of the importance, but also the limits of working.  “Six days you shall do all your labor—but the seventh day is holy and you shall cease from all your labors, you, your household, your workers and your animals.” 

Work must not become an idol, a god of the work of our own hands.   “Salvation by works” is an even more searching expression of that ancient truth, so that we do not think that we can replace God with our own achievements or labor.

On the other hand, work is still a core experience of faithful living.  Rather than being a means to save ourselves or build bragging rights or even build personal wealth for ourselves, faithful work is about answering the call of God in the world.

The Reformed tradition speaks often about the importance of “vocation,” a word that means “calling” but which we tend to hear as “job.”  But the Reformers were serious about “vocation” being our life’s “work” in the sense that we are here to give our lives in service to the call of God, in all that we say and do.  That means “working hard” but it obviously changes the way we understand it.

The Exodus story is about people being tortured by hard labor.  That is clearly not the kind of work to which God “calls” us.  Rather, what the Bible and especially Jesus teach us is that God is at work in our world, and we join in that work.  In fact, “it is God who is at work in us, both to will and to do.”   Our lives are meant to be expressions of God’s grace, love and justice in everyday, workaday human life among real people.

I got up this morning because “I had to go to work”.  I had to go to work early, in fact.  That’s how I tend to think, and I don't think I’m alone.  “I’ve got to.” is the way we tend to plan our days.

But work is actually—believe it or not—an invitation from God to rise up and join in the life that flows from the Kingdom of God.  We rise up and move through the day by grace, to show mercy and love and to experience faith and joy, yes, even in our work.   

That’s not my conditioned response to “work,” but I know the difference in how I greet each day.  It’s worth it to spend Labor Day remembering such things—and “working” toward remembering them every other day of the year.   R