Faith and Labor: Pillar 4: Our Time

Several months ago, Father Mike and Rabbi Hillel commented on three of UAW President Shawn Fain’s “Four Pillars of Contract Negotiations. The other three are: Living Wage, Adequate Health Care and Retirement Security. This article presents the fourth and final pillar of negotiations: “Our Time.” You can read the other three parts here, here and here.

Labor unions gave us the weekend, but religious communities incorporated certain days off in a given week for worship and rest. The Jewish community began this practice with The Sabbath celebrated on Saturday. For most Christians, Sunday is The Day of the Lord, and Islam also has time set aside for worship and refraining from work.

This article will use “The Sabbath” throughout for purposes of consistency and recognizing the Jews were the first in history insisting on The Sabbath as a day of complete rest and worship of God. In addition, their tradition provides rich and beautiful spiritual writings on “the Sabbath rest”.

A Sabbath is not just for physical rest alone. As human beings, we are more than our physical needs; we also have spiritual needs.

We work all week for to support our families – this is both necessary and rewarding. But for one day a week, we set all that aside to remember that we are about more than our work, more than our physical selves. The Sabbath reminds us of something that may be easy to lose sight of during the busy week: that we are all created in the Divine Image; we are body, but we are also soul!

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most important religious voices of the 20th century, has pointed out that we often speak of God in space, in nature. But in the Jewish view, God is also present in time:

“Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is the day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel, p. 10.

Our bodies need rest, but so do our souls. In the end, that’s what a Sabbath is for.

This time of rest is essential for all people, regardless of their religious affiliation or if they have no religious identity. Everyone needs for a day of rest.

Our culture boldly insists that we “live to work”. Our work or employment is the most important aspect of life, and all other aspects of life must take second place to our job requirements.The Sabbath speaks counterculturally declaring that we “work to live” rather than “live to work”. There are more important aspects to life; our need to worship God, our relationships especially family, friends, and local community.

Our culture values us by what we produce and our efficiency producing. We are valued by our strengths and usefulness to others. The Sabbath proclaims we are valued simply because we exist. We are created in the image of God and therefore have dignity.

Our dignity is indeed manifested by our work and magnified by our work. But our dignity comes because “we are”!