At St. Brigid’s, we often sing a lot of music from the collective Porter’s Gate. Although the musicians who make up the collective tend to be more on the conservative side, the music they compose together is beautiful and theologically sound. They have several great albums which include songs for justice work, climate action, and even a set to honour those who struggle with mental illness, partnered with Sanctuary Mental Health ministries.

 

I always schedule hymns from “Work Songs” and their more recent “Worship for Workers” for the Sunday of the Labour Day long weekend. One of my favourite pieces from “Work Songs” is “Wood and Nails.” The lyrics are powerful to me:

 

“Oh humble carpenter, down on your hands and knees;

Look on your handiwork, and build a house so you may dwell in me...

Oh loving labourer, with the sweat upon your face;

Oh build a table that I too may join you in the Father’s place.”

 

I adore this because it reminds me of my dad, who loved to build, but also, the image of Christ as labourer is something we don’t often explore in a great amount of depth.

 

Jesus is a fascinating character not just because of his miraculous birth or his profound and cryptic teachings. He worked, presumably for much of his adult life, as a carpenter or builder of some sort (the Greek is unclear). After his baptism and experience of temptation, he seems to have taken up life as an itinerant preacher, appearing to eschew his earlier profession entirely, and focusing on a different kind of work. The Gospel of John in particular incessantly mentions “the works of God,” and deep sense of awe and foreboding always blossoms in my heart when we read, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” (John 9:4). For John, Jesus’s greatest work is the work upon the Cross: we know this because Jesus completes it with the immortal, “It is finished.”

 

Looking at this in our era of union battles and the re-evaluation of Western work culture, exploring Jesus’s work as a wisdom teacher who relied on the hospitality of others is a powerful counterpoint to the prevailing attitudes about work being the ultimate definer of identity (and overwork and busyness being chief virtues). And even Jesus, who was about his father’s business at all times, took sabbath and private prayer time on his own, highlighting the divine commandment for rest.

 

As we contemplate all that we have gained through the work of those who came before (weekends come to mind!), may we rest in God’s love for us, knowing that God chose to embody solidarity with the full human experience.