Labor Day

1 Samual 25

I am reading the story of Abigail in 1 Samuel 25 as I prepare to preach a sermon about her this Sunday. Her story spans the entire 25th chapter, and it is not a well known story in the bible. I wanted to preach this passage on Labor Day because I think her circumstances provide an opportunity to discuss that which our celebration of Labor Day highlights every year: the achievements and the work that remains for people who labor and strive and work to also live life along their work.

Labor Day is a great time to talk about the United Methodist Church, too! Because the Methodist Movement in the US in the early 20th century was deeply involved with the labor movement at the time to stop child labor, institute minimum wage, and protect weekends and enforce maximum amounts of time a person worked each week. So much has happened worth celebrating every year on Labor Day! I don't know what I would do if I had to work on weekends, and I give thanks that children are not allowed to work and can live their lives as children instead.

I looked on the UMC website for a brief history of the Methodist involvement in the labor movement::

"The Methodist Social Creed, predecessor to the Social Principles, originated over a century ago to express concern over the exploitation of millions of workers in factories, mines, mills, tenements and company towns during a time of rapid industrialization and growing prosperity in the United States. Developed in 1908, the Social Creed was the first document of its kind written by a church.

Five Methodist Episcopal clergymen believed the denomination required an organization to lead it into social ministry. The five included Frank Mason North, mission and evangelism executive, Ohio Wesleyan University president Herbert Welch (who later became bishop and founder of the Methodist relief agency that became UMCOR), publishing house editor Elbert Robb Zaring, social service executive Worth Tippy, and Chicago pastor Harry F. Ward.

Ward, while serving as pastor in the stockyards district, conducted funerals for packinghouse workers killed in frequent factory accidents. He strongly supported the workers’ drive to form a union to improve their conditions. When Ward penned the Social Creed he was writing with these families in the forefront of his mind."

I am proud of this part of our history, but the story of Abigail reminds me of some of the work that has yet to be done. It might not have been strongly in the imagination of many in the '30s that women conventionally needed "labor rights" given how strongly gender roles played out in society, but today I think we can all recognize that we have a ways to go in acknowledging that women remain more underpaid than men, and that women also still are culturally expected to take on more labor than men in the workforce, especially if they choose to have children.

Abigail, in 1 Samuel 25, was married to a man whose name whose name literally translates to "disgrace" in Hebrew: Nabal. In 1 Samuel 25, Abigail single handedly prevented the slaughter of her entire household due to Nabal's reckless anger and pride when it, through his messengers, encountered King David's violent version of the same. This story of Abigail places her in the middle of two men who both have problematic behavior worth noticing: Nabal in his cruel selfishness, and David in his deadly desire for vengeance at being slighted.

And here comes Abigail, who single handedly diffused David's anger by executing deft diplomacy. Abigail saved the lives of all of Nabal' family, his servants, his workers, and everyone in his household. And yet, even in scripture, it seems that her only reward is to be lucky, I guess, as being counted as one of King David's multiple wives when her husband Nabal dies. Abigail took on the role not only of wife, but also diplomat and leader. The servants who knew of David’s anger didn’t return to Nabal but actually went to her to get help as they knew they might end up dying if they brought David’s reply to Nabal.

And yet I don’t see Abigail getting much credit. King David does celebrate her for staying his hand. But why isn’t this a story that gets told to children more often? The first time I heard it was in my late twenties. When I looked at my Bible (NRSV), I noticed that the name of the passage was “David and the Wife of Nabal.” Wife of Nabal? Really?! I think Abigail deserves more credit as a hero of our faith. Just like I think women deserve more credit for the lions share of the work that seems to be placed on their shoulders in our society.

I want to live in a society where we don't get caught up by gender when we decide who does the work that needs to be done (to say nothing about how Gender is problematic in and of itself). I want to live in a world where fatherhood and motherhood becomes more of a "parenthood" and children are raised by parents together with the load being equitably shared.

And I want to live in a society where work and "labor" isn't just about making money, but is something deeper. The Rev. James Lawson was a methodist pastor and close ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Lawson organized lunch counter sit-ins that helped end segregation in Nashville, Tennessee and cities across the American South. After the death of his friend and mentor, Lawson’s own ministry led him to organize low-wage workers and help the marginalized in society find their voice.

Here is something he said that is really sitting with me this week as we get ready for Labor Day and I want to end this post by sharing it with you.

“The laborer deserves his wages. I think wages of the people who do the work is an essential ingredient of justice and of community. I think the human species was created primarily to learn to work; physical work, intellectual work, artistic work, community work, social work. We have to work as human beings because it feeds our dignity. It feeds our sense of making a contribution. It feeds our sense of taking care of ourselves. And so, ‘All work has dignity to it,’ is what Martin King said, ‘All labor has dignity.’ And so, work is not primarily for wages, but we ought to be able to benefit from our work, especially the work that we do outside of the home and in the larger community. They cannot support the simple right of the ordinary man and woman in this society to have the full dignity of their work and their wages.”

May we strive to celebrate and uphold the dignity of labor, and not just the productivity of labor! And may our labor always be balanced with the rest God also calls us to take. I hope you all enjoy your Labor Day and find time to rest and reflect on how blessed we are--while also seeing the work we have left to do to make sure that everyone who labors has access to dignity and fairness and rest.