On this Labor Day reflection, we step away from Daniel for a moment to consider what Scripture teaches us about work and rest. Work was part of God’s good creation from the beginning—Adam was given a purpose and vocation in the Garden of Eden—but the fall brought toil, frustration, and difficulty into our work. Our work can give us purpose, dignity, and an opportunity to use the gifts God has given us, but work is not God. That’s why Sabbath is so important. God modeled rest for us, not because God needed to recover, but because we need to remember that the world doesn’t depend entirely on us. Sabbath reminds us that God is God and we are not. On this Labor Day, we’re encouraged to embrace the goodness of work while also learning to stop, rest, worship, and trust that God is still at work even when we aren’t.
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Well, good morning. I hope you’re doing well on this Labor Day Monday.
Wherever you are today, I hope it’s peaceful and quiet. I hope you’re resting. I hope you’re having a great day.
Many of you have been following these reflections for many years, and others of you are new. Now that I’m here in Starkville, I’m still figuring out my routines and patterns. I’m getting closer, though, and I definitely have a routine and pattern when it comes to these reflections.
One of the things I like to do on holidays is take a little break from whatever we’re studying and reflect on something that’s pertinent to the day. So today is Labor Day.
Labor Day isn’t necessarily a religious holiday, but I do think there’s something important that we can learn and appreciate from it.
I want to look at a couple of passages about work in Scripture and then unpack them a little bit here on this Labor Day.
First, let’s go back to the creation story in Genesis.
Genesis 2:15 says:
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”
And then in Genesis 3, after the fall, we hear these words:
“Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life... By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground.”
Now, I wanted to put those two passages together because I think there’s something really important here.
When God created Adam and Eve, we actually have two creation accounts in Genesis. In Genesis 1, God is big and cosmic. God speaks, and things come into being. God says, “Let there be light,” and there is light. It’s this huge, cosmic picture of God creating the heavens and the earth.
Then in Genesis 2, we see a much more personal and intimate picture of God. God forms Adam. God breathes life into him. God places him in the garden. And then God says, essentially, “Here’s something for you to do.”
God gave Adam a job.
He was to till the garden. He was to keep it. He was to care for it.
And that’s important because sometimes we think work is a consequence of the fall.
But work itself is not a consequence of the fall.
Toil is.
Work was there before sin entered the world.
Adam had a vocation before the fall.
The difference is that after the fall, work became harder. Work became frustrating. Work became filled with thorns and thistles. Sometimes work is exhausting. Sometimes work is discouraging. Sometimes work is just plain hard.
Whether you’re doing physical labor or what we sometimes call a white-collar job, every kind of work has some toil to it.
But work itself is good.
We were made to have purpose.
And one of the words we use in the Christian vocabulary for that is vocation.
We all have a vocation. We all have a purpose. We aren’t simply called to exist. We are called to do something good with the life that God has given us.
I think about David in the Old Testament. When David commits that terrible sin with Bathsheba, the story tells us that it happened in the springtime, when kings normally go out to war.
But David stayed home.
David got up from his bed, and that idleness became part of the context in which he made some terrible choices.
There’s something powerful about having a purpose and a responsibility.
Our work can give us dignity.
Our work can give us purpose.
Our work can give us a sense of identity.
There’s that old saying, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I’m not sure that’s completely true. Sometimes even if you love what you do, it’s still work!
But even when we don’t particularly love our jobs, there can still be virtue and purpose in our work.
Because we’re providing for people we love.
We’re contributing something to the world.
We’re using the gifts God has given us.
I come from a long line of people who worked. People who just worked.
And one of my mentors used to say, “Hard work covers a multitude of sins.”
Now, I’m not sure that’s actually biblical, but I understand what he meant!
There is something good about work.
There is something good about being responsible.
There is something good about using our gifts and abilities to accomplish something worthwhile.
Paul even talks about our Christian life in terms of work. In Philippians, he tells us to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
We have a vocation as Christians.
We have work that God calls us to do.
And we also have the practical work of providing for ourselves and for those we love.
Work is good.
But—and this is important—work is not God.
That’s where Sabbath comes in.
Listen to what the Ten Commandments say in Exodus 20:
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.”
And then the passage goes on to remind us that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh.
Now, think about that for a minute.
Did God need to rest?
No.
God doesn’t get tired.
God doesn’t need a nap.
The Bible tells us that God neither slumbers nor sleeps.
God didn’t rest because God needed to recover.
God rested because God was setting an example for us.
We need rest.
We need Sabbath.
We need physical rest. We need emotional rest. We need spiritual rest.
Our bodies need it. Our minds need it. Our souls need it.
And I often joke that Sabbath-breaking is the one of the Ten Commandments that it seems respectable to break!
And those of you who know me know that this is very much a “do what I say, not what I do” situation.
I’m not particularly good at Sabbath.
But we need it.
Because if we never stop working, we begin to believe that everything depends on us.
We begin to believe that if we don’t keep going, everything is going to fall apart.
And Sabbath reminds us that’s not true.
Sabbath reminds us that we are not God.
Sabbath reminds us that the world will keep turning even when we stop.
We can take a day off.
We can rest.
We can stop performing.
We can stop producing.
We can stop trying to accomplish something.
And guess what?
The sun will still come up tomorrow.
God will still be on the throne.
The world will still be here.
It will be okay.
And maybe that’s one of the most important things Sabbath teaches us.
It isn’t all up to us.
We need Sabbath not just for our physical well-being, not just for our emotional well-being, not just for our spiritual well-being.
We need Sabbath to remind us that we are not God.
God is God.
And we are not.
So on this Labor Day, I thought it would be important for us to have a little moment of reflection about work.
I hope that whatever you do—even if you’re retired—I hope you find some kind of work that gives you purpose and dignity.
And I hope you understand that work isn’t just about getting paid.
Adam wasn’t getting a paycheck in the Garden of Eden!
Work gave him purpose.
Work gave him something meaningful to do.
And so I pray that all of us, in our work and in our vocation, will find that sense of purpose.
But I also pray that we will learn to rest.
Work hard.
Love hard.
But rest.
Rest today.
Rest on Sabbath.
Find places and spaces where you can stop, breathe, pray, worship, and simply be in the presence of God.
Because when we rest, we are reminded that God can do more than we could ever imagine.
The work doesn’t depend entirely on us.
God is at work, even when we aren’t.
So have a good Labor Day.
Rest well.
Enjoy the day.
And tomorrow, we’ll pick back up in Daniel.
Have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow.