Explosive Creativity!

We're heading in to the Labor Day Weekend, and I wanted to do something that picks up on that theme.  I have a problem with a particular view of "work", a view promulgated in no small part by an unenlightened reading of "the fall" in Genesis 3.  In that pericope, the man - "ha-adam" in Hebrew, not the proper name "Adam" - is sentenced to toil daily for his food upon a cursed ground (Gen 3:17) due to his alleged disobedience to God's commands concerning life in the garden.  And to drive the point home still further, God reportedly says, "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken..." (Gen 3:19)  For some of us, that was our first introduction to the nature of "work" - what a despicable picture it presents!

In contrast to this is the beautifully poetic description of the explosively creative work of God in Genesis 1, whose oft-repeated refrain, "And God saw that it was good", evokes the celebration of work, not its cursing. And on the seventh day, God didn't collapse from exhaustion, God "shabbated" (the first occurrence of the term for Sabbath in the Scriptures) - God "stopped" or "ceased from His creative work" - because all had been accomplished.  The poet of Genesis 1 says, "God saw everything that he had made and, indeed, it was very good" (Gen 1:31, NRSV).  I love the way the New Living Translation treats this phrase; it has, "...it was excellent in every way" - a great translation of the Hebrew, in my opinion.

What a great way to approach Labor Day Weekend, it seems to me!  We are taking a weekend at the end of the summer, originally timed, no doubt, around some harvest in the agrarian cycle, to observe a holiday - how about "Holy Day"? - celebrating the gift of work as it can be.  Hopefully, our work approaches this ideal more than it diverges from it.  Often times, work can be a drudgery, but I wonder if how we look at it makes the bigger difference in how we experience it.

If we look at our work as being connected with the explosive creativity of God, I think Labor Day Weekend can be one of the most meaningful holidays we observe.  Come to worship on Sunday at Ft. Collins First United Methodist to get a taste of the gift that work can be for us.  And then, observe a Sabbath rest as celebration rather than collapse.

May the blessings of the weekend be yours,

Steve
><>