Labor Day was established to honor workers and commemorate their contributions and struggles—past and present—to bring justice and dignity to the workplace and to society. The Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Labor Sunday, is an opportunity for congregations to lift up workers and issues of justice in the workplace.
Resources for Labor Sunday, August 31, 2008
Conditions and events at work absorb our energy, occupy our minds, and impact our psyches when we are both at work and home. Some workers confront particularly unjust situations—unsafe conditions, extremely low pay, racism, sexism, and other abuses. All workers, whatever their position in the hierarchy of jobs, may suffer from indignities, large and small, that cripple their spirit and hinder their journey to greater wholeness. The Church, the body of Christ, is called to seek out and accompany people wherever they are. So the church must also be in our offices, factories, stores, farms, schools, and all the places where people work.
As Isaiah reminds us, we are called "to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke" (Isaiah 58:6).
There are many ways to lift up workers and our work lives during a Labor Sunday service. Provided here are a number of Reflections as well as Worship Resources including Calls to Worship, a Prayer for Workers, Hymns, and Prayer of Confession.
A Mission Moment, Sermon, or Prayer could lift up low-wage workers, a particular local or national labor struggle, farm or hotel workers, Wal-Mart workers, workers at the Smithfield Packing Company in Tar Heel, North Carolina, or the problems of sweatshops in the U.S. and around the world.
You might want to invite a worker to give the Sunday message addressing issues of our faith from the perspective of workers and the workplace. This could be a member of the congregation or someone from the community, possibly engaged in a local labor struggle. If you want to locate someone within the community, Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) has good resources online to help facilitate this. IWJ also provides a variety of worship resources including prayers, sacred texts, responsive readings, bulletin/newsletter inserts, and theological reflections on worker justice and Labor Day from many faith traditions.
