After Labor Day:

If you don’t work, you don’t eat.

(Second Thessalonians 3:10)

After Labor Day, we go back to work. This is never easy--“thorns and thistles” abound, always messing with our work. Nonetheless, God’s good creation needs our “cultivation and care”—our work. It’s our God given vocation to take our place of labor within God’s good creation.

It’s Luther who best teaches such things; never tires of honoring the work of the “maid who sweeps her kitchen” or the “cobbler working on shoes” or “haulers of manure, brewers of beer, and changers of diapers.” Work has to do with loving our neighbor in the place that God puts us. And, loving ones neighbor means doing right by them—to carry our load, and to treat others as we would like to be treated.

The Apostle reminds us, as well, that work has to do with putting food on the table. That’s a godly calling as well (1Tm 5:8). As the wisest of all mortals teaches us: “There is nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in your work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?” (Ecc 2:24-25)  That’s why we say Grace before meals.