A Christian Word About Labor Day

Labor Day isn’t exactly the most meaningful holiday on the calendar. I would venture to say that most people view Labor Day as little more than a nice day off that marks the end of summer vacation. I have no desire to change this view (I subscribe to it myself), and yet I think Labor Day affords the Church an opportunity to say something meaningful about human work.

There’s a tendency to think of work as a necessary evil. This notion is not without basis in reality: most work, even that which is initially exciting and glamorous, becomes quite ordinary and even tedious when done for an extended period. This tediousness often gives rise to the (religious) division of work into two categories: sacred and profane.

The former category consists of work that’s expressly religious. Sometimes this is church-related work. However, in a largely secular society, the sacred category often entails some type of social service. Thus, jobs like nursing or teaching often fall into the sacred category. Meanwhile, the profane category consists of tasks that carry no outwardly religious association, say accounting or plumbing. (Of course, in a society whose god is money or running water, accounting and plumbing may fall into the sacred category. The categorization depends on the god.)

Why does any of this matter? It matters because such categorizing of work is abolished in the person and work of Christ. Said differently, the distinction between the sacred and profane – just like the distinction between the Jew and Gentile – is broken down in Jesus. (Cf. Ephesians 2:14-16) Therefore, it is a sin to maintain that these categorizations carry ultimate significance and affect our standing before God. Apart from Christ, all work is meaningless. (Cf. Ecclesiastes) But in Him, human labor is made good and holy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Acts 10, wherein God shows Peter that the profane centurion Cornelius has been sanctified in Christ: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” (Acts 10:15) Although this speaks of a profane person being sanctified, the same lesson applies to profane work. That is, the ordinary tasks of human life are made holy in Christ. Insofar as work is done in the grace of Christ – done in the Way of faith, hope, and love – it is lifted up into the realm of the holy. Sanctified work might look no different than unsanctified work, but indeed it tastes completely different to our souls.

The sanctification of ordinary work is a fundamental aspect of Christ’s redemption of this world. However, that doesn’t mean that every human work is redeemed. There’s an ancient Church teaching that whatever the eternal Son of God did not assume (take upon himself) in the incarnation is not redeemed. Christ assumed all of human nature, but he did not assume sin, which is foreign to human nature. Therefore, work which is sinful (done contrary to God's commandments) is not redeemed and remains unholy.

More importantly, Christ's redemption of the world means that ordinary work, done according to the will and in the grace of God, is no longer ordinary. Our daily tasks are holy tasks. Even and especially everyday things like sweeping a floor, balancing a spreadsheet, or changing a baby’s diaper: done in Christ – done in the Way of faith, hope, and love – this is sacred work. And so this Labor Day weekend, the lesson of Acts 10:15 is worth repeating: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”