On Labor Day, we celebrate two things that are dear to Christian theology: work and rest. We recognize that we are the creative creatures of a creative Creator, a God who shapes and forms us like a potter (that’s Jeremiah, this Sunday!) and who made us in his image so we, too, could create. We recognize that at times, there is nothing more satisfying than making something real and tangible, and that this can be done in many ways and in many stages of life. The child’s wobbly tower, the carpenter’s perfect joint, the crocheter’s new knot, the baker’s warm bread—in every one of these, we transform the world around us into something new, and we see that it is good. And it is! Work is good.

But work is easy to turn into an idol. Management has been measuring labor’s productivity for centuries, since the early days of crop-picking quotas and early-factory piecework, if not before then. But the digital age has only increased the pressure. And the rise of remote work has meant that the precise quantifications once reserved for assembly lines and Amazon warehouses are now being applied to white-collar workers, even to therapists and hospice chaplains, with equally-brutal results. (If you haven’t seen it, check out “The Rise of the Worker Productivity Score” in the New York Times.)

If we say that meaningful, creative work is a good thing in the Christian view, we have to acknowledge that rest is at least as good. Rest and work are, and always have been, interconnected: God spends six days creating the universe, and on the seventh day, he finishes the work and rests from all the work that she had done, and commands us to do the same. And yet it’s tempting to ignore that invitation to rest. The fruits of constant, productive labor are easy to measure and quantify. You can see them right in front of you. The benefits of rest are less tangible, but no less important.

There’s a delightful irony to Labor Day weekend: we celebrate labor by taking an extra day off work! But of course, it was the labor movement that won us the right to have two-day weekends, let alone three-day weekends, because labor loses its dignity if there’s no prospect of resting from it.

So I pray this Labor Day weekend that you find a way to create meaningful work in this world, paid or unpaid, at home or outside it. I pray that you see the loving work of God our Creator reflected in the work you love. And I pray that you can find that Sabbath time to rest from all your work, and enjoy it.

A Prayer for Commerce and Industry (BCP p. 259)
Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ in his earthly life shared our toil and hallowed our labor: Be present with your people where they work; make those who carry on the industries and commerce of this land responsive to your will; and give to us all a pride in what we do, and a just return for our labor; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.