Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying
It is more than the end-of-summer backyard barbecue, let alone the final day of the year on the fashion calendar to wear seersucker or, like the Fort Worth church that sponsored me to seminary, the last chance for the vicar to sport his summer-white cassock and matching biretta.
Labor Day celebrates the social and economic achievements of the American labor movement which gained strength in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.
Though once prosecuted as a “criminal conspiracy,” collective bargaining practices resulted in many things we may too often take for granted, such as higher wages and a safer work environment, health and unemployment insurance, a forty-hour work week, etc.
Since the 1880s America has marked this celebration of labor on the first Monday in September, and there are similar celebrations around the globe, some like Canada even on the same day.
At creation we were given responsibility for stewardship of the earth and tilling the garden. Scripture suggests that our work will never end but will continue even as members of a heavenly choir. From the beginning to the end, and beyond, labor or work is a universal and inescapable part of what it means to be “human.”
Yet our work is not always easy, does not always bring joy. We have not forgotten what God said to the disobedient Adam: “By the sweat of your brow you will earn you food until you return to the ground.”
I had a history professor who liked to call “work” the “dirtiest four-letter word in the English language,” which might lead us to think of the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs, where Mike Rowe, as an active assistant, endures a day of the discomfort and often malodorous stink of disgusting jobs.
But we know, some of us from painful personal experience, others from family and friends, that there is something more difficult than “dirty work,” and that is enduring a season of unemployment or underemployment, where the challenges of paying the bills and putting groceries on the table can be far less difficult than dealing with the psychological pain that the absence of suitable work can inflict.
As Christians we have been given the privilege to bear one another’s burdens, by our presence, our prayers, and at times our wallets, doing what we can to support those we know and love who are enduring a time of job-seeking and soul-searching.
Such times bring to the surface questions that lie deep within all of us:
Who am I? What am I supposed to do?
These questions are essentially two sides of the same vocational coin. “Vocation” is from vocare, Latin “to call.”
Who am I and what am I supposed to do with my life? What am I called to be and to do?
Unfortunately, when we hear the word “calling,” Christians are often programmed to equate it with ordained ministry, such as in the proverbial “Well, I was happily selling used cars when God called me to preach the Word.”
But scripture and history demonstrate that a “call” to professional religious life—or any call for that matter which requires a dramatic twist—is rare. Far more often, a call arises from one’s natural inclinations, interests, and abilities, comes out of what one truly loves, has a passion for, and for which there is often an “open door.”
When I was newly ordained, an elderly man shared with me that after high school he wrestled for months as to whether or not he should become an Episcopal priest, and he still recalled the day when as a freshman at the University of Texas he was walking down the sidewalk and was seized with a joyful epiphany, “I don’t have to be a priest. I don’t have to be a priest.” Dr. Moorman went on to follow his heart and become a surgeon.
Some have from their earliest memory a clear sense of what they are called to be, akin to being on an elevator that shoots them straight up to the skyscraper’s observation deck and its panoramic view, but I suspect far more of us find ourselves trudging up step by step, at times unsure as we stumble in the dark stairwell.
But we remember that a fall from the top can be quick and devastating, and the reality is that for most of us God’s call comes not through burning bushes or in heavenly visions but in the still, small voice of discernment, discernment that usually takes place within a particular community, often among those who know us best and yet are able to help us see new and wonderful possibilities, people who for us can be beacons of God’s own light upon our path.
But whatever our actual labor may be, our calling in life will most likely not found in any formal job description that we have at any given point. Our calling, our vocation, our true work is often more about the potentially transformative relationships we have with others, those for whom and with whom we work, and this is true whether or not we are paid for the labor.
These relationships with others have a way of revealing just who we are by what we actually do. And this is as true for the person long since retired as the student or the one who is entering or trying to reenter the workforce. These relationships—at times tremendously exciting and at other times tedious and exhausting—can actually be the work wherein we discover value and worth, find dignity and meaning, engage and reengage our calling.
These relationships are where character can be forged in the cauldron of compassion. These are the relationships that provide surprising opportunities for forgiveness that lead to new beginnings for others and for ourselves also. In these relationships love becomes a concrete, flesh-and-blood reality.
How we work with others is to be found what it is that we truly believe and just how closely that belief approximates what we say we believe on any given Sunday. Where we might discern any cognitive or spiritual dissonance, it need not cause for despair but rather a catalyst for repentance and renewal and for mercy for others who will from time to time disappoint us.
Except ironically for retail workers, Labor Day is day of rest, a timely reminder that after six days of work even God rested. Scripture reveals and experience verifies that a Sabbath rest is part of God’s design for our lives, not simply an optional post-factory add on.
As we celebrate our labor and its fruits with a day of rest, may it be a time of renewal and re-creation, so we can more fully understand and more fully engage God’s call to us in our work and our relationships.
Who am I? What am I called to be?
Student. Retired. Day Laborer. Night watchman. Beekeeper. Mom. Dad. Baker. Caregiver. Scholar. Construction worker. Physician. Sanitation engineer.
How can I more fully discover who I am? And then how can I use that to God’s glory and the betterment of others, including myself?
In the words of the Book of Common Prayer collect for Labor Day, let us pray.
Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.