Many of you reading this are enjoying a holiday – a day off from laboring for your bread by the sweat of your brow.  If you are off from work today, I hope you are making the best of it. 

I know that for some folks, a day off from paid work is an opportunity to do chosen work.  Some folks will sweat in the garden, bent over pulling weeds and dead-heading, wandering around dreaming of how to make next year’s garden just a little different, a little better.  Some will be laboring in the garage, bent over a fender, and turning wrenches on a pampered classic or just doing maintenance on the daily driver.  Others will toil with wood, bent over a saw or a plane, creating or repairing something around the house.  Some will be hovering over a stovetop or a grill, making something delicious for the family to enjoy.

Some of us will avoid even hobbies that smack of labor, but that doesn’t mean there will be no sweating.  All you golfers and runners and cyclists; you cross-fit tough guys and you stretchy practitioners of yoga may end up sweating more than the folks who are tackling a late summer project around the house or yard.

Even when we don’t have to, we undertake things that demand our strenuous efforts, our concentration and commitment.

As Adam and Eve are being evicted from the Garden, God tells Adam: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)  Because of this, people have sometimes concluded that work must be a curse – a consequence of human sinfulness.

But look back a chapter in Genesis and you will see that work is also part of the blessed, idyllic life of the Garden before anyone sampled the forbidden fruit.  Immediately after Adam was created from the dust of the earth, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15)  On the birthday of humanity, the gift God gave us is labor.

Labor is part of our original blessing.  It reflects our created dignity and the image of God imprinted on us.  In our work we exercise our power, our creativity, our purpose.  At least those are potential blessings of work.

Labor itself is not a curse.  When Adam is evicted from the garden, the curse is not that he will have to work for his living.  The curse is that his garden will be beset by thorns and thistles – factors that will deprive his work of the fruitfulness and satisfaction that he enjoyed in Eden.  Labor that is coerced and unjustly compensated is cursed.  Meaningless labor that brings no sense of purpose or fulfillment is cursed. 

All of us who labor (for pay or not) know that work is a mixed blessing.  Like so many things in life, work can be a gift we enjoy, a burden we endure, or a false god before whom we kneel.

God has commanded that our labor be punctuated by rest, that we might not slave away endlessly, that we might enjoy the fruits of our labor, that we might learn to rely on God and not on our anxious efforts alone.

Whether you are sweating it out today or kicking back, take a moment to give thanks for the gift of work and the gift of rest.  Remember in prayer those who long for a job that will support them and those who labor under oppressive conditions.  Inasmuch as you can, lend your efforts to support the dignity of all who labor.

Prayer for Labor Day: 

O God of Labor and God of Rest, we turn to you this Labor Day. We remember that you bring people out of slavery and call us to sabbath rest. We remember that you call those in power to compensate workers well and to give them rest.  

Bless those whose labors bring us comfort – bless farm workers and factory workers, bless delivery drivers and bus drivers; bless sanitation crews and restaurant workers.

Bless those whose labors keep us well – bless nurses and firefighters, bless hospital custodians and therapists, bless pharmacy techs and EMTs. 

Bless those whose labors are unseen.  

Bless those for whom one job is not enough to live. 

Bless those whose labor is care for children, elders, and people with disabilities – whether paid or unpaid.   

 Bless those who do their work with diligence and compassion. Bless those who do their work just to get by.  

On this Labor Day, O God, draw our attention to the labors around us. Open our hearts to the workers around us. Open our minds to the power we hold: to join together, to do right by those in our employ, to speak up. Remind us that we are accountable to one another and to You.  Amen.

(This prayer was written by the Rev. Emma Brewer-Wallin, the Minister for Environmental and Economic Justice at the Southern New England Conference of the UCC)