Labor Day, 2020

Lectionary: 437

The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely to see if he would cure on the sabbath so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.

On this Labor Day the scriptures of "Monday of the 23rd Week of Ordinary Time" offer us a story about Jesus's labor on the Sabbath Day. 

Saint John's Gospel gives us a precise justification of his freedom to work, (John 5:19):

Jesus answered and said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also. For the Father loves his Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.

Even the Pharisees had to admit that God works on the Sabbath; birth and death are God's particular labors. Babies are normally born when they choose to be born, and people die at any time day or night, regardless of anyone's schedule. If God the Father does these works, then his Son may do the same, including healing hands, which are essential for nearly every kind of work. 

The Bible seems to regard work as problematic since the time of Adam -- 

Cursed is the ground because of you!
In toil you shall eat its yield
all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken....

But the Christian dispensation, celebrated by the Church, honors works as an imitation of God and of Christ. Before the Fall, Adam's first job was to name everything, an act which blesses all creatures with human meaning. "Dominion" of the Earth begins with naming. His second chore, with his wife Eve, was to "cultivate and care for" the Garden of Eden. These were delightful duties, as any gardener and many farmers will tell you. 

If the Roman world regarded labor as the work of slaves, a belief which prevails in the United States long after the Civil War, the fifth century Saint Benedict and his monks gratefully accepted the blessings of ora et labora (work and prayer.) Saint Joseph would emerge from the Gospels as the patron and model of industrious labor. 

When Communists began to celebrate May 1 as International Labor Day, the Catholic Church responded with the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. If we differed on many things, we agreed that labor is a blessing and everyone should be accorded their right to work. (a privilege sadly missing in the American Constitution.)

Since the 1960's we have seen a fading respect for work in the United States. Labor unions struggle to regain influence in a culture which celebrates the individual hero and fails to recognize the community which must support the individual. Many people want better working conditions and better wages but fear to surrender some of their freedom to organized labor. Inevitably, this lack of respect for labor leads to a shrinking middle class and the widening gap between wealth and poverty. One in six American children live in poverty, with inadequate access to education, health care, and security. This cannot be good. 

Hypocritical scribes and Pharisees are still watching closely to see if Christians support the right to work; they will demean the right as socialism or Communism. They often control the financial resources of Catholic and Protestant churches and insist that preachers speak only of "spiritual" matters and leave reality to them. 

On November 3 of this year, Americans again face an apocalyptic decision. Will they vote for the Carpenter's son or the scribes and pharisees?