Labor Day Reflections: Finding Christ in Our Work and Daily Struggles

Dear Friends,

I know it seems like the national holiday we’re celebrating this weekend is the start of football season, but that isn’t correct. This is Labor Day weekend, a holiday with origins in the labor movement’s fight for the rights of workers.

Interestingly, the Book of Common Prayer has a special prayer for Labor Day, even though Labor Day itself is not a special day on the church calendar. I believe it is the only day to have a collect without a corresponding feast…which in a way is fitting, right? For most people, work isn’t all that festive. But it is still worthy of our religious acknowledgment and attention. It’s the way that we, as eternal beings, eke out our temporal existence and leave our mark on the created world.

Many people experience a mismatch between what they put into our work and what they get out. That’s part of what the labor movement in the early 20th century tried to address (and so part of what gave us this Monday off).

Along those lines, I came across this prayer in a song on an album called Worship for Workers this week. The song is simply played and simply sung, the lyrics themselves are the thing. I leave them here in case you, young or old, paid or volunteer, need to hear them — to pray them — this Labor Day weekend:

When my work takes me places I don’t want to go, Christ before me.

And my heart aches with sorrow as I hit the road, Christ be with me.

When the care of my family takes all that I have, Christ within me.

When I’m tossed to the side and I wanna give up, Christ beside me.

When I work hard but someone else gets the reward, God’s eyes see me.

And I ask for a promotion and they shut the door, God’s ears hear me.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew