In one of the churches I served in Ohio, I lived near a small town called, Cedarville. Cedarville is known as the birthplace of the Labor Day holiday because of a man named, James Kyle who was born there in 1854. The town has a historical marker that honors him as the father of Labor Day.
James Kyle started his career as a pastor after he graduated from seminary. In 1890, when he was 36 years old, he decided to enter politics eventually becoming a US Senator. His main political achievement was that he ended up being one of the main sponsors of a bill to create the Labor Day holiday.
The reason that he sponsored the bill was because he was known for how he strongly supported the rights of workers. That new Labor Day holiday proposal recommended that people observe it each year with a parade and then a picnic.
So, during your picnic this weekend, remember to thank James Kyle from Cedarville, Ohio for giving us this long holiday weekend. And the reason he suggested this 1st weekend of September was because it would be halfway between July 4th and Thanksgiving.
Today is a good day for us to be especially grateful for people who work in jobs that we often take for granted. Like when we bite into that hamburger or dig into that potato salad at the holiday picnic, to remember the many people who had a hand in providing this food for us often times for very little pay and poor working conditions.
I also think that the Labor Day weekend offers us an important opportunity for us to reflect on the work that we do whether it be working as an employee, working as a student in pursuing a degree, or volunteering in our church and community. All of us are involved in some kind of labor.
Our appointed scripture readings for today invite us to connect our labor with our faith. What does it mean for us to live out our faith through our work, or through our studies, or through our volunteering and how we use our time? Or maybe a better question for us to ask this weekend is how does the faith I profess on Sunday make a difference in the way I live during the week?
Our New Testament readings these past several Sundays have been following the Apostle Paul’s letter to Christians who were living in Rome. And as I mentioned last Sunday, this letter can be broken into two parts.
The first part is chapters 1 through 11 in which Paul is describing why Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is good news for us. And the second part of the letter is chapters 12 through the end of the letter, chapter 16 where Paul offers practical ways for us to live out the good news of Jesus in the church and in our everyday lives.
And in today’s Romans reading, Paul is emphasizing the importance of being loving in all that we say and do. So, he writes beginning in verse 11, “Love should be shown without pretending.” People can tell when we are pretending that we are loving when we’re really not. People can see right through that.
And the good news is that why would we even think about pretending when Jesus’ overflowing love is in our hearts? If Jesus’ love is in our hearts, then how can we not allow it to overflow into the lives of the people we encounter in our everyday lives, even with people who might not be loving in return.
Paul goes on to write, “Love each other like the members of your family. Be the best at showing honor to each other. Don’t hesitate to be enthusiastic – be on fire in the Spirit as you serve the Lord!”
And then down in verse 14, Paul writes, “Bless people who harass you – bless and don’t curse them. Be happy with those who are happy, and cry with those who are crying.”
I don’t know about you, but this seems like too big of an ask of me, because who wants to bless people who aren’t nice toward us? Have you ever noticed how hard that is to do?
That’s why Paul continues, “Consider everyone as equal and don’t think you’re better than anyone else. Instead, associate with people who have no status. Don’t think that you’re so smart. Don’t pay back anyone for their evil actions with evil actions but show respect for whatever everyone else believes is good.”
Now, before we throw our arms up and kindly tell Paul that this is simply an impossible task, let’s remember the first 11 chapters of Romans where Paul describes for us what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. We can love others because of Jesus’ love for us through his life, death, and resurrection.
In other words, we will find it almost impossible to live out chapters 12 through 16 of Romans if we forget about the first 11 chapters. Our labor of love at work, at school, and through volunteering is only possible because the love of Jesus is in our hearts.
It’s so appropriate that on this Labor Day weekend, we are celebrating the Sacrament of Holy Communion. This holy meal always reminds us of Jesus’ love when he died on the cross for our sins.
And this leads us to our Gospel reading for today where Jesus is explaining to his disciples what it means for them to be his followers. In their minds, they were thinking that Jesus’ mission was to overthrow the mighty Roman Empire from their rule over the Jewish people. They were ready to fight and maybe even be given high positions of power in Jesus’ new kingdom.
But Jesus’ ways are so different from our ways. Instead of through positions of power, Jesus was saying that to be God’s people here on earth, it means taking up our cross and following Jesus.
Taking up our cross means loving others who may not love us in return. It means not seeking revenge when people hurt us but forgiveness and reconciliation. It means not exerting our power and control over others but by humbling ourselves and thinking of others first.
The disciples didn’t know it at the time, but being one of Jesus’ disciples will mean walking with him to Jerusalem where he will end up dying on a cross for the sins of the world. It will mean offering their own lives in humble service for the sake of others.
Someone shared with me that they remembered a Christian board game from the 1950s that was called, “Going to Jerusalem.”
The playing pieces of this board game were tiny plastic disciples which had different color robes, beards, and sandals. Players would move across the game board, starting in Bethlehem where Jesus was born, then rolling the dice and looking up corresponding Bible verses. The goal was to roll the dice so that you would be able to make it to the city of Jerusalem before the other players.
And by getting to Jerusalem faster than anyone else, it would mean that you were able to bypass landing on spaces that had demons or angry Pharisees trying to set you back. The goal was also to avoid landing on the spaces of Jesus’ arrest, trial, or crucifixion and to always land on the spaces that had the nice bible stores that would lead you straight to the Palm Sunday triumphant parade in Jerusalem.
That Christian board game totally missed the point of what it means to be one of Jesus’ disciples. Being a disciple of Jesus means taking up our cross, not avoiding the cross. It means loving others who may be unloving. It means being willing to offer a healing presence for those who are hurting. It means as the Apostle Paul says in our other reading, “Consider everyone as equal and don’t think you’re better than anyone else.”
The goal of our work life isn’t to beat others to the finish line to win. The goal of our work life isn’t to store up treasures on earth at the expense of others. It’s not to make ourselves look better than others. It’s not about avoiding the pain and brokenness that we see in our communities and in the world.
The goal of our work life is about living out our faith by taking up the cross in our jobs, as students, in our volunteering, and in all of our daily encounters with others. It’s about living out the good news of our faith through our work and in all of our relationships.
And thankfully, we have examples of people who see their jobs as a labor of love and not just as a job to do or as a way to just get ahead. These are people who seek to follow Jesus by living out the good news of their faith by taking up their cross and loving others.
Following a school assembly that was held in the cafeteria of one of Penny’s elementary schools, I was helping one of the cafeteria workers clean up the leftover trash from the event.
And as she was spraying the tables and wiping them down, with a big smile on her face, she said to me, "Pastor, I'm a Christian. And I know that I'm not suppose to push my religion on any of these students. That's why I simply try to sow some seeds of my faith here and there with these kids. They call me 'grandma' around here because of my age and I think they feel that they can talk to me if they're having a problem."
"Our community needs more people like you,” I told her as I was leaving the cafeteria. And as I drove home from the school, I thanked God for the people he places throughout our schools and community who "simply try to sow seeds of their faith here and there with others."
This dedicated school employee truly sees her custodian job as a labor of love.
Jesus said, “take up your cross and follow me.” The Apostle Paul encourages us to “love each other.”
So, let’s roll up our sleeves and let’s get to work in being the people God has called us to be.
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