Celebrating the Gift of Work: A Devotional for Labor Day
Dear Friends,
Labor Day is a secular holiday, but one Christians might easily embrace and celebrate. Not simply because we desire a day off, but because within the scheme of God’s creation, labor is one of the primary ways in which you and I express our likeness to God and our love for neighbor as we participate in building out a world in which human beings thrive and flourish across all spheres of life. Admittedly, that feels more dreamy than real for most of us. We overwork, underwork, idolize work, devalue work and despair of finding the “right” work - to name a few of the ways in which we experience the ruin of sin within work life. Therefore, we aren’t surprised to hear that the workplace is often a source of disappointment and a context in which we experience profound expressions of human brokenness and selfishness, rather than joy and delight.
For many years I have been curious about Paul’s interesting conclusion at the end of his great chapter on the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15:58, “therefore...be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Paul isn’t talking primarily about his own work, or that of those who assisted him in ministry. Labor within the church fits within the frame, but the frame is larger. Paul is talking about the ordinary work of all the people that would have first heard the letter read in some context of worship - the wealthy and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. Our labor matters - ordinary and secular work matters. Jesus’ resurrection anchors our lives within a new way of taking up any type of work - as one in the Lord and in the way of the Lord.
I like the way Lesslie Newbigin sums up this truth at the conclusion of his book, A Walk through the Bible. He writes,
“In so far as I commit all that I do, imperfect as it is, to God in Jesus Christ...trusting that what has been committed in faith will find its place in God's final kingdom. The book of Revelation offers us the vision of a city which is on the one hand the perfection of all human striving towards beauty, civilization and good order, and on the other hand, the place where every tear is dried and where every one of us knows God face to face, and knows that we are his and he is ours. It is a vision that enables us to see the whole human story and each of our lives within that story as meaningful, and which therefore invites us through Jesus Christ to become responsible actors in history, not to seek to run away from the responsibilities and the agonies of human life in its public dimension. Each of us must be ready to take our share in all the struggles and the anguish of human history and yet with the confidence that what is committed to Christ will in the end find its place in his final kingdom.”
The Porters Gate Project has put this theological frame to music in their album titled Songs of Work. Amidst your celebrations, listen in. Celebrate the gift of work, and the gift of human labor - knowing that in the Lord, God has established the work of our hands - our labor is not in vain.
Blessings,
Tuck+
The Rev. Dr. Tuck Bartholomew is the Canon for Church Planting for the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic