Over the last few weeks the Lectionary Sunday Gospel readings have awakened our Sabbath rest imaginations. It seems fitting that this weekend, many of us will participate in an observation of Labor Day… a much-needed extra day of rest. I say “many” because there are still too many people for whom rest is not an option.
Jesus demonstrates God’s dream for Sabbath rest as intentional time and space to step back from the demands of life and from all that we are required to do, or produce to remember God’s liberative action. Once we were captive. Now we know free. God’s grace liberates.
To put it another way, Sabbath rest provides time and space in our everyday lives to remember our truest identity as loved children of God, as cherished members of God’s family, and as vital participants in God’s family mission… at least that’s who I understand us to be.
It also feels kinda fitting that in the days around Labor Day many experience a launch of a new season of school, ministry, sports, work, etc. Fall has a bit of a “new start” feel to it. We are ready for a new start. We are ready to co-create our new normal. We are ready to discover afresh the surprising ways God invites us to serve each other and our neighborhoods. We are ready to be together in ways that we couldn’t during the darkest days of the pandemic. We’re ready… New start indeed! Let our Autumn begin!
But this is Labor Day weekend. First we rest.
As you may know, Labor Day – which is celebrated in the USA and Canada – was established to honor and recognize the American labor movement which helped establish the 5 day/40 hour work week.
Everyone needs a rest. Even Seattle’s Hammering Man stops hammering on Labor Day. The Hammering Man is the 50-foot-tall sculpture by Johnathan Borofsky, standing in front of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). For 364 for days out of the year he swings his hammer, but not on Monday. On Monday, the Hammering Man rests. It’s a justice thing.
Everyone needs time to set their hammer down on a regular basis. And not only because we get tired. If a person hammers all-day, every-day a person starts to believe that all they are is a hammerer. Or that their only value is in how much hammering they can do. God didn’t create hammerers (is this even a word?). God created all people in God’s image and likeness. If one never hammered, not even once; God would love them just as much. God is not impressed by our hammering. Even when we hammer in religious ways. God doesn’t love us more if we can hammer better then them. We can not hammer our way to salvation. Life, worth, love are gifts of Grace, which all the hammering in the world could never earn.
So, on this Labor Day weekend, I invite you to honor your hammer, to thank God for the gift of your hammer, and to set your hammer down. I invite you to remember God’s liberative leading in your life.
By day and by night God has been guiding you from captivity to freedom. The world wants us to believe that our value comes from what we produce. I sense that God wants something even better for us. God desires we experience grace, to know that we are enough simply because we are God’s children.
As you pause this Labor Day weekend to intentionally engage in forms of Sabbath that rest restore your soul, invigorate your relationships, release your Shalomic imagination, and remind you of who you are… be mindful that not all free to rest. Rest is still a privilege for the few.
It’s interesting to note that on Labor Day 1993 a group of guerilla artists added a ball and chain to the Hammering Man… I love this! According to the Seattle Met, the ball and chain was later sold at action, removed in order to give the Hammering Man a more “positive” message.
It is for freedom that Christ set us free…
Peace, dwight
