Eager to get back to work? Well, maybe not eager but willing? I confess, I actually am eager, well, sort of. Sunday evening Diane and I discussed our plans for Labor Day. There’s plenty of work to be done, in the house, in the yard, catching up at the office, but we decided it’s a holiday, we’ll take it easy. We all know how using a holiday or weekend for work can leave you exhausted when you really need those exhausted energies for the job. So we did whatever we wanted to do.
To put that in a religious frame, we were recipients of God’s wise guidance for living. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work.” (Exodus 20:9-10) The divine pattern for people is work and rest. Jesus followed the pattern rigorously, not just observing Saturday as Sabbath but every day taking time away from His ministry to be alone with His Father. Or did He take His cell phone and brief case with Him when the “office” was closed? Jesus isn’t that stupid. He knows the blessings of alternating work and rest. In rest we can zero our thoughts in on God, the first great commandment. When we go back to work, like today, we put our energies into loving our neighbor as ourselves, the second great commandment (Matthew 22:34-40). The Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel said, “God manifests Himself in events rather than things.” (“Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity,” 83) By working for the good of others, events, we manifest the love of God to others.
Retirees often say, “I don’t know when I had time to go to work; I’m so busy now.” So many retirees are busy working for others, Meals on Wheels, volunteering at church, helping friends and families with their problems, and the like. Those of us who are not retired cannot pick and choose our works and, if we’ll but think about it, we should be glad for the nuisances that come with our jobs, the annoying things that someday we won’t have to do. In those times we’re reminded that we are not above our Master. “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet…. Servants are not greater than their master.” (John 13:14-15) But to get that servant mind for the nuisances and annoyances that come with work, we have to take time for reflection, weekly and daily.
The politicians are talking about big things but it’s in the small things, where you and I live, that’s God’s will is done, or not done, in the lives of people around us. “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” (Luke 16:10) To be faithful in work, we need to take time for help. “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” (Isaiah 40:30-31)
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