This weekend we are celebrating Labour Day, a day to celebrate the advances made in workers’
rights. Labour
Day can be traced back to April 15, 1872, when the Toronto Trades Assembly
organized a demonstration for worker's rights. They were advocating for the
release of 24 leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union who were put in jail
for striking to campaign for a nine-hour working day. Unions were illegal then,
and striking was seen as a criminal conspiracy. Late that year, the government
backed down and made unions legal. My father was a union negotiator and fought
hard for his work mates.
My father believed that work is a good thing. He knew that we’re created to work, to take care of
God’s creation, his good and very good creation. Genesis 1 tells us who we are,
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in
our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in
the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.” Our World Belongs to God
confesses in Article 10
who we’re called to be as image bearers of God; we are “made in God’s image
to live in loving communion with our Maker, we are appointed earth keepers and
caretakers to tend the earth, enjoy it, and love our neighbors. God uses our skills for the unfolding and well-being of
his world so that creation and all who live in it may flourish.”
The Bible shows us that creation is rooted in God’s
creative power, but also that God has only
begun the process of creation and we’re to care for it and to develop the
potential that lies within creation. Creation is not a one-time event; we are
called to continue the creative process that God has begun; this is part of
what it is to be created in the image of God. Robert Kruschwitz reminds us that
the Bible is a middle-eastern Jewish book and the reference to us being created
in God’s image and being in his likeness refers to the role of kings and the
“statues that monarchs erect to remind their subjects of who is in power. So, our role is
to be living reminders of the Creator who is the King of the universe. To
understand “dominion” (from radah, “to tread down”), remember that Israel’s
king had covenantal responsibilities to care for those over whom he ruled. “Dominion,
therefore, does not mean to exploit or destroy,” Butkus suggests, “but
to exercise care and responsibility for God’s domain particularly in the
interest of those who are poor and marginalized.”
Being
in a province like Alberta, being in an agricultural area like Central Alberta,
creation care is part of living here. I’ve appreciated seeing the concern our
farmers have over animal care and land use; there is a recognition that wise
use and careful care of both animals and land leads to better yields and better
quality. It’s no different from business owners who recognize that respecting
and treating their employees well leads to better workers and better-quality
work being done. Work is good and even very good when it’s happening in an
environment that respects and honours creation and people.
Our
passage from Genesis sets our work in the context of Sabbath. Humanity doesn’t
go straight to work right after being created, the first day after creation is
a sabbath day, a day where God rests and enjoys what he’s made with his image
bearers. According to D. J. Reed, “Sabbath forces us to put aside our
own ambition and trust that our work is sufficient and that what needs to be
completed will be finished in due time. In essence, Sabbaths force us to trust
in God, the maker of the world, who owns the world. And when we can admit that
this world is God’s, we begin to let go and take our work less seriously. We
begin trusting less in our own efforts and instead trust in God’s.”
Work
flows out of our relationship and time spent with God, a weekly reminder
that ultimately everything we do is for God. The sabbath rest helps to remind
us that our identity is not in our work or careers, it’s found in God and
Jesus. Sabbath reminds us as Our World Belongs to God tells us in
Article 12, that “even now, as history unfolds in ways we know only in part,
we are assured that God is with us in our world, holding all things in tender
embrace and bending them to his purpose. The confidence that the Lord is
faithful gives meaning to our days and hope to our years. The future is secure,
for our world belongs to God.” Growing up, my uncles who were farmers would always keep Sunday for worship and family, even if the weather was good on Sunday and the forecast was rain for Monday. They both said that God provides and that they never had to leave crops standing in the fields. they were able to get as much done in 6 days as others did in 7 days. Our work is important as it contributes to
our community and to God’s purposes no matter what our work is or how others
see the value in our work. Our work is all part of the whole of the work of
others in shaping our community, meaning all our work has meaning, from being a
care-giver to a janitor, farmer, business owner, police officer, nurse, or
whatever else we may do to support ourselves and our families. Most work
happens out of sight, yet it all comes together to build up our communities.
Our
work isn’t just about what we do for a paycheque, work is so much
more, Our World Belongs to God, Article 11 reminds us, “Together,
male and female, single and married, young and old—every hue and variety of
humanity—we are called to represent God, for the Lord God made us all. Life is
God’s gift to us, and we are called to foster the well-being of all the living,
protecting from harm the unborn and the weak, the poor and the vulnerable.” This leads us
to James, where James is concerned that faith has become about saying the right
words but not following through on what they say they believe, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims
to have faith but has no deeds?”
Part
of being created in the image of God is caring, not only for creation, but for
everyone, who are also created in the image of God. When God tells Adam and Eve
to be fruitful, he means more than just having a pile of kids and then all
their kids have a pile of kids. When Jesus talks about being fruitful, he’s
talking about life and growing in our faith, in our character, and in our
relationships with each other and God our Father. I think about how often
political leaders will offer prayers and thoughts after disasters, but then do
nothing afterwards to ensure that similar tragedies don’t happen again. What
weight do your prayers carry and what kind of a faith do they reveal if you’re
not part of the solution and your only role is to sound as if you care? James
is hard on us here, reminding us that our work and deeds matter to God.
Robert
B. Kruschwitz writes, “Order is central to the creation. God brings
order, moral as well as physical, out of primordial chaos. Moral behavior is
required to maintain the harmonious working of creation.” He echoes Our
World Belongs to God, “God uses our skills for the unfolding and well-being
of his world so that creation and all who live in it may flourish.” Jesus
taught the importance of our responses to the injustices and hard times in
life, of walking and working together to show our world a glimpse of the
kingdom of heaven. Jesus takes the journey to the cross for us to take our sin
on himself, but to also bring in the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom shaped by
justice and mercy, by love for God and neighbour lived out in word and deeds. James
heard Jesus’ challenge that our faith is more than just right beliefs, it also
has to include right actions and work so the entire community can flourish.
James
throws in this provocative statement, “You believe
that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” James
is emphasizing in a more provocative way that belief in Jesus is not enough;
Satan is very aware of who Jesus is and what Jesus is all about. Satan is
distinguished by his work against Jesus; our work is for Jesus; “everything you do, do it for the Lord,” as Paul tells
the church in Colossae.
On
Labour Day, it’s good to honour work, to embrace that work is good and
necessary and that we’re created for work, but let’s not minimize work to being
only what’s done for a paycheque. Work embraces so much more than money, it’s
the volunteers who work in places like church, school, non-profits; it’s those
who help out their neighbours during snowstorms, with repairs around their homes;
it’s the visiting of those who are in prison, in the hospital and care homes;
it’s the persons who do all the little quiet things that make life and our
community better in a thousand different ways, it’s about investing in others
and helping them reach the potential God has placed in them, it’s about
exploring the creation and developing it in God honouring ways that reveal its
wonder and potential; and in living in this way, it all points us to Jesus.
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