Labor Day Weekend is huge in Toluca, my new home. Starting on Friday, a carnival is in town, with all sorts of rides for young people of all ages. Bands play each night in what could be the largest single beer tent I have ever seen. Toluca Idol, a talent contest runs dozens of local acts over the course of two nights. A friendly water fight is held on Saturday. The largest Bocce Ball tournament in the state of Illinois begins at 11:00am, and this year did not end until after 10:00p.m. In daylight they play all over town. By the end, they are playing in a lot up town under lights. And a host of other events and activities fill the weekend. The holiday culminates on Monday with a parade full of home-made floats, marching bands, tractors, horses--and even a semi-truck hauling a live band on a flat-bed trailer. There is tons of food, droves of people, and a lot of fun.
I never really thought of Labor Day before, but the way Toluca celebrates made me take another look. The holiday began in the early 1890s. It was started by worker’s unions in New York, and spread throughout the country within a couple of years. Labor Day was intended to mark and honor the hard work that people did every day of the year. The kind of hard work that puts food on the table, and makes the whole country successful and prosperous. Labor Day was a sabbath, meant for Americans to look upon their toil, and its fruits, and say: “It is good.”
A few days ago, I read an article from some periodical (I don’t remember which one because I read it online...and could you believe I can’t find it again). It may have been a blog that asked the question: “Is work good?” Briefly, the argument ran something like this: in the garden of Eden, humanity did not work. After disobeying God’s only rule (don’t eat the fruit), Adam and Eve were punished, sentenced to hard labor, and then expelled from Eden. After that fateful act, whenever Eve or one of her daughters bore a child, they would go into labor. Meanwhile, Adam was forced to toil in the fields for food, laboring all day long for sustenance. And so the question was asked, “Isn’t this a most un-Christian holiday? Should Christians celebrate and rejoice over a punishment and constant reminder of their fallen state? Etc., etc.”
My response is simply this: Yes. Labor Day meet and good. Giving thanks for our labors (and the subsequent fruits) is good. Rejoicing for such a reason is good and right, our duty and joy.
First, we need to establish the difference between punishment and consequence. The story in Genesis 2 and 3 tries to explain why we toil, why childbirth, a natural and necessary process, is so painful. Presumably, these things did not happen in the Garden. The humans did not work hard for their food, but gathered it. And childbirth probably wasn’t painless--it probably just was going to be happening. One could guess that Adam and Eve really didn’t know how to pull off the latter.
In eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, all that was about to change. Now, I don’t know anyone that thinks it is bad to know the difference between Good and Evil. I don’t know anyone that thinks knowledge is bad, even though knowledge always has consequences, always brings change. Of a sudden, Adam and Eve knew they were naked. Thus begins the road to being “fruitful and multiplying.”
All of a sudden, we had the capacity to weigh, compare and judge. Humans thus were forced into greater responsibility. Perhaps God realized that now that we could decide what is good and what is bad, we could handle more, well, life. Setting us free from the Garden, which had become too small a world for humanity, God gave us the opportunity to be co-creators. We could help change the face of the earth--recreate the world. Now we, too, could work six days and rest on the seventh, just as God did. And we would have the blessed joy of looking back on each of our days, seeing the work we have done, and say “It is good.” We would not have been satisfied in the Garden, but we are satisfied at the end of a good days work--despite the hardship of the toil. (At least, we have the capacity to be satisfied by such a thing.)
With our new abilities, gained from the forbidden fruit, we were able now to increase the population of humans on earth. We were given a greater share of the responsibility for keeping humankind alive on the earth. Oh, we are more dependent upon God for life and for the continuation of the species than we think we are today, but we have more of a role in that survival than we did in the Garden. Instead of waiting for the trees we did not plant to bear fruit to eat, we can intentionally grow plants for food. And we learned that meat doesn’t taste half bad (when cooked)--so we started to do that, too.
Our relationship to animals changed, too, because of our knowledge. Yes, some became more dangerous to us, since we were not protected within the Garden’s insulation. However, some animals became trusted companions. Remember that in the Garden Adam named all the animals, but he didn’t meet one that was anything near a companion for him. Outside of the Garden, we were a little more open to allies who looked and behaved differently. Because, all of a sudden, we needed help. And so we became co-workers with animals such as oxen, mules, horses, dogs, cats, birds etc. And we started raising (protecting, guarding, nourishing animals--as God did to us in the Garden) in order to use their eggs for food, their fleece for clothing, etc. It is true that these relationships were not mutual. We kept/keep some ultimately for their meat, which requires that we kill them. Whether or not this is, in itself bad (or good), I will leave to another blogpost. But early in the history of humanity, it was much more a part of survival, and it was not quite so brutally industrial.
So, with knowledge, our world needed to be expanded. We grew out of the Garden, and God was a responsible enough parent to recognize it and to act accordingly. Instead of holding us back, God propelled us out and forward. Yes, we disobeyed by eating the fruit. But I believe that God forgave that instantly, because forgiveness is the labor God loves most of all. I believe that every action afterward was not a punishment, but God preparing us for the new world that was ahead. God was telling us what it would be like out in the world--not to scare us, but to prepare us.
I could go on, but perhaps you get my trajectory in interpreting this text. Let me return to the main point. Should we humans stop and celebrate the work we do? Yes. Our toils are not a punishment, but a duty, an honor and a joy. Even God is proud of what we can do with knowledge of good and evil.
The important thing is this: as we rest on Labor Day, and celebrate the hard work that we have put in to building a life, to supporting a family, to building a prosperous nation, and all of that, we must keep in mind the Good. That is, as we celebrate our work, it is good to remember and celebrate God’s labors, too. Because God’s work has been for us. God created us, sustains us, forgives us, loves us (even when it is hard), equips us for all kinds of tasks, empowers us to participate in creation and creativity, and even went so far as to do the work of conquering death for us [which means that, in the end, God gave us the fruit of the Tree of Life anyway, even after setting the cherubim up to keep us from it].
Sometimes I think that God is a workaholic. Then I remember that even God rested and enjoyed the fruits of his labor. If we are made in God’s image, that means that the cycle of work and rest/enjoyment is something that we should do, too.
So every Labor Day (and more often even than that) it is good to remember and celebrate our work...and God’s labor, which makes it possible.
The work we do: it isn’t a punishment, but rather a blessing.
Thanks be to God for that.
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