A Lutheran look at Labor Day

On September 5, 1882, local labor unions in New York City encouraged people to take a day off of work to protest poor working conditions and unfair labor practices. The movement resonated with Americans so effectively that by 1884, under President Grover Cleveland, the first Monday in September had become a national holiday called Labor Day.

God clearly values labor. “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). “Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot” (Ecclesiastes 5:18).
God also wants us to know that his blessings come to us by his grace rather than by our labor. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9).

So, which is it? Do we receive our blessings by grace, without doing anything to deserve them, or through our hard work? Do spiritual blessings come by grace but physical blessings by our own hard work? No, that can’t be right. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). We are not on our own when building our lives and businesses. “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

In some comments about Psalm 147, Martin Luther offers a solution to the dilemma: “What else is all work to God—whether in the fields, in the garden, in the city, in the house, in war, or in government—but just a child’s performance, by which he wants to give us his gifts in the fields, at home, and everywhere else? Our works are the mask of God, behind which he wants to remain concealed and do all things. . .God gives all good gifts, but. . .you must work and thus give God good cause and a mask” (Luther’s Works, American Edition, 14:114).

Just as God has chosen us to speak the gospel to one another rather than having angels do it, he has also chosen us to serve one another in love with all of the resources that he puts in our hands. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).

So we celebrate the labor that God has given us to do, even when it is “painful toil” (Genesis 3:17) as a result of sin. We celebrate our labor because its results are the way God has chosen to bless both us and our fellow human beings.

Happy Labor Day!

By Rev. Paul Prange