Sabbath and Labor
Sabbath and Labor
Exodus 20:8-11
This is Labor Day weekend. If this were a normal Labor Day weekend, football fans would be revved up for college football and the NFL. Though football may be played (I will believe it when I see it!), the thought of football with no fans and no tailgating is almost as unimaginable as the thought of 100,000 people packed into a stadium and yelling at the top of their lungs during a global pandemic. If you are a fashion driven person, Labor Day traditionally marks the end of wearing white or seersucker. (Hence, I left my seersucker blazer at home!) If you are school aged and live in a farming state, you probably don’t start school until after Labor Day because your labor is needed on the farm. If you are in Minnesota, Labor Day is normally the last day of the state fair because kids need to be able to show their 4H projects. If you live pretty much anywhere in America, on Labor Day, you’re likely to picnic with friends and recognize that summer is basically over.
Of course, all of this is like talking about the meaning of Christmas by talking about home decorations or retail sales goals or traditional Christmas foods. All of those things are a part of the culture around Christmas but they are not the heart of Christmas. Even if we asked about the core meaning of Christmas, though, we would get different answers: the birth of the Christ-child in manger; the annual rebirth of generosity and giving; the reconnection of extended families for sacred time together.
If we ask about the core meaning of Labor Day, which most of us never do, there is a history that we can uncover. There is disagreement here, though, too. One crew of labor leaders wanted May 1 to be Labor Day. In 1885, the American Federation of Labor passed a resolution declaring that on May 1, 1886, the norm would be an eight hour work day for all laboring people. The push for Labor Day to be on May 1 was intended to be a celebration of this achievement. However, May 1 was too close for most people’s comfort to the anniversary of the Haymarket Riots which happened on May 4, 1886. This was a radical moment in labor history, marked by riots and anarchy.
The first Monday in September emerged as a more moderate choice. From the start, the intention was to pick a day off for laborers where the weather would likely be good enough to enjoy a parade and a picnic. Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official public holiday in 1887. After being recognized by 30 individual states, Labor Day became an official federal holiday in 1894. However, as late as the 1930s, labor unions were still having to strike in some places for workers to get the day off.
Now, as with any movement, there is always an underside to the story. There are the initial problems that the movement rose to solve. There are defining battles that are fought and foundational victories that are won. At the same time, when a movement becomes an institution, there is almost always corruption. Labor could collect and funnel a lot of money and a lot of votes. There was a lot of power to be grabbed. We should remember this on Labor Day, too. It is just as important to tell the truth about corruption in the labor movement as it is to tell the truth about corruption in the church. Average people put their trust in institutions and there is a generational “sting” when those institutions betray that trust.
And yet…just looking at the labor movement at its best, there are some things that we should feel compelled to affirm. In a nation that generally opposes the concentration of power and prefers instead to try to balance powers or counterbalance them between competing groups, the labor movement was a singular way for workers to have a voice. Without their power in numbers, we likely would not have seen child labor laws or work place safety laws or an 8 hour work day or a 40 hour week. Not only do workers have the labor movement to thank for overtime pay but they can thank some of the same people for the notion of “time off” at all.
Certainly, plenty of folks can drop Jimmy Hoffa’s name and tell tales of corruption or spin the tale of the work project they were trying to oversee, only to run into union regulations that seemed to be about everything but actually getting anything done. Again, it’s not hard to discuss the worst of government and politicians or the worst of the church and priests or pastors. Institutions are human and broken. However, the government you complain about also builds roads that you drive on. The church that can break your heart is also the source of sacred moments that can make your heart soar. I just think we should remember that whether you’ve ever belonged to a union or not, the fact that you have weekends to enjoy and health care in some form and reasonable expectations about safety in public places probably means you’re indebted not to the worst of the movement but its best. We should not overlook this truth.
Another truth about work this year needs to be spoken, too. I’ve always thought that I’ve known two kinds of people: people who live to work and people who work to live. I grew up in a blue collar world where people worked to live. Work wasn’t thought of as meaningful in and of itself. Rather work was a means to an end. You put in your time at work and enjoyed the fruits of that work when you weren’t working. My friends had spouses and kids and homes and boats before I was out of graduate school. That all worked fine until whole industries began to move overseas. Most of us are probably from the “live to work” category. We searched hard to find work that had intrinsic meaning to us. Work, itself, not just the fringe benefits of our work, held meaning.
During the pandemic, I think much of this understanding of work has been challenged. We’ve asked questions about who are our essential workers. The early choices were obvious: doctors, nurses, other health care workers and research scientists. Gradually, though, such lists started to expand to include folks who make sure we have food (from truckers to the people who stock the store shelves to the checker at the store to the Instacart person who will shop for me if I can afford it.) Some of the most essential workers—the sanitation crew at the hospital or in our schools, the day care provider who takes care of the medical workers’ kids, the mass transit worker who keeps people moving—are also some of the lowest paid people in our society. As a society, we have been invited to rethink the value of people’s work which is a really significant invitation to change. There is an opportunity before us.
At the same time, almost all of our experiences of what our own work means to us have been challenged and changed, too. For a lot of people, the question of whether I work to live or live to work has been changed to the simple statement that it now feels like I live at work. With remote work and remote learning, the comfort of “I’m at work vs. I’m at home” or “I’m at school vs. I’m at home” has been lost. Instead, we vacillate between feeling like we’re working all the time or not really working or like we’re at school all the time or just doing some weak, watered-down version of what we know school to be. The boundaries and the structure that we took for granted that provided the rhythm or our days have disappeared. The temptation is to just try to stay afloat in this murky world without boundaries and structure at all.
That’s the notion that I would like to challenge on Labor Day weekend, 2020. The very best of the labor movement involved people examining their work lives and setting boundaries and limits and creating structure. Here’s how long we will work. Here’s what’s acceptable and unacceptable at work. Here’s how things are going to work if someone has a complaint. People realized that they were going to have to come up with workable answers to such questions if they were going to have shot at making things work in a sustainable way.
Our ancestors in faith struggled with some of these very same questions. They had been slaves for generations—renowned in the world for making really great bricks for the Egyptians. Their lives in Egypt had all sorts of structure—mostly involving the men working all the time, producing as many bricks as possible. The women’s job was to give birth to the next generation of slaves and raise them to do the job. This wasn’t a great life but people knew what to expect. (We all have to admit these days what a powerful thing knowing what to expect is for human beings.)
When our ancestors in faith were liberated from Egypt and made their way into the wilderness, they had more freedom than they ever imagined possible. In fact, as a group, they had the collective experience that most of us have had glimpses of individually: the day when we are so free that we don’t have a clue what to do with ourselves. (Again, I suspect that none of us have avoided this nauseating experience of freedom in the last few months.) After having had Pharaoh tell them how to Iive for decades, they had to figure out how to structure their lives and set boundaries for themselves.
So, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments and Moses shares them with the people. Those commandments are full of boundaries and limits: no murder; no committing adultery, honor your mother and father. If you try to take your neighbor’s wife or his cattle or if you overlook your father and mother’s needs, all hell will break loose! There are just certain things you need to do and certain things that simply should not be done.
My suspicion is that most of us have had moments of renewal when it comes to such essential things. I talk to my folks every day. I didn’t before. I am grateful for my wife and my kids every day. It’s not that I wasn’t before. It’s just so much more obvious how essential they are to me these days. Aside from toilet paper or gardening supplies, most of us probably covet less stuff these days. We maybe have a little better sense of the difference between a want or a need. So, the principles for living that God gave our ancestors in faith remain guideposts, for us, too.
Here’s the thing that I want to challenge you to see, though. Perhaps the most radical notion in those Ten Commandments for our ancestors would have been the notion of Sabbath. Slaves who had done nothing but work were told that they had value apart from their work—so much value that they should set aside a whole day in which their goal is to accomplish nothing. Spend time with family and friends. Worship God. Relax and enjoy the gift of life. This is the radical notion I want to put before you. Set your own limits and boundaries. Practice the things which remind you that life is God’s gift. If taking walks and watching the birds and gardening has been sacred for you, then get the right winter clothes now so you can walk and care for the birds and garden your way through the winter.
No one should have to work all the time. It’s un-American. It’s sacrilegious. It’s an offense to the God who worked hard and then saw that the work was good and took a day—a whole day—off.