Today is part of the Labor Day Holiday.  I found some useful information in an article that can be helpful for us to celebrate this occasion.  The first Labor Day parade was held in New York City on September 5, 1882.  Over the next few years the idea spread from coast to coast, and all states began to celebrate Labor Day. In 1894 Congress voted it a federal holiday, a day set aside to celebrate the value and dignity of work.

Today as we gathered for worship, we also have an opportunity to think about work and why it is so important in our lives.  In the book of Genesis we find God hard at work creating the universe and everything in it.  God calls it all “good.”  The Creator is so pleased with creation that he wants to share it. “So the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east” the Bible tells us … “and there he put the man whom he had formed. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden.”  Why did he place him there?  He put him there “to till it and keep it.”  It was work that brought fulfillment and happiness, much the way that those who have a flower garden love to tend to their plants.  But we don’t get very far in our reading before we get the idea that work is punishment: After Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they were kicked out of the garden and told by God: “With labor you shall win your food … You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow.”  Work would now be difficult and painful because they had disobeyed God.  Work had been changed from a blessing to a curse.  So which is it for us? Is work a blessing? Or is it a curse?

What can we do to insure that our work on this earth will be for us a blessing and not a curse?  John Wesley gave some simple principles that can be helpful in making work a blessing.  Wesley said, “Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”  The “gain all you can” and “save all you can” parts may be surprising ….but not when we consider the third part: “give all you can.”  It’s about balance.  Maintaining balance in our lives is vitally important to the well being of ourselves, our families, our church, and our world.  Secondly, Wesley said that we must make sure that work does not go against our conscience – it must be in line with God’s law.  Third, Wesley said that we are to strive for justice in the world and be compassionate and generous with others.  “We must not hurt others through indebtedness, nor by engaging in unfair competitive practices that price people out of business, nor by hiring their workers out from under them, nor by selling products or services that will hurt their health!”  These are very good guidelines.  What a different place this world would be if these guidelines were followed by workers all across the world!

And so, as God rested from his creative work, contemplated and saw that it was good, we also need a time to rest and contemplate. This is what Labor Day is about —and this is what today, which is our Sabbath, is about also.  God has placed within our hearts the desire to work and given us work to do.  In and through Jesus Christ, work is meant to be a blessing – not a curse.                   

In Christian love,
Brother Fred