Working for the Weekend

Directing our labor toward divine worship  

Wisdom 9:13-18B  Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the LORD intends? For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans. For the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns. And scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who can search them out? Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.  

          One of the blessings of my India visit was reconnecting with my cousins and now keeping in touch with them. Recently, though, I got busy and didn’t reply to one cousin for about a week. I texted him to apologize and said I had gotten busy. He texted me back saying, “You Americans work too much!” I texted him back asking, “And how many gold medals did India win in the Olympics?” I haven’t heard from him since. But he really made a great point: do we Americans work too much? Long gone are the good old days when people worked 9 to 5, and then went home. Sometimes we look down on those who don’t work as hard as we do, or can’t work.   

          Sometimes it’s hard to stop working even at parties. I recently heard of a lawyer and a doctor who were talking at a party. Their conversation was constantly interrupted by people describing their ailments and asking the doctor for free medical advice. After an hour of this, the exasperated doctor asked the lawyer, “What do you do to stop people from asking you for legal advice when you’re out of the office?” The lawyer replied, “I simply give advice to them, but I also later send them a bill.” The doctor was shocked, but agreed to give it a try. The next day, still feeling slightly guilty, the doctor prepared the bills. When he went to put them in the mailbox, he found a bill from the lawyer he had spoken to.  

          My cousin was right: we Americans work too much. But why do we work so much? The best answer I’ve found for that question was in a book by my favorite philosopher, Josef Pieper. In his timeless but little known classic, called Leisure, the Basis of Culture, he says: “To rest from work means that time is reserved for divine worship; certain days and times are set aside and transferred to ‘the exclusive property of the gods’” (p. 67). In other words, Pieper would agree with the rock-band, Loverboy, who sang, “Everybody’s working for the weekend!” We work so that we can rest and relax on weekends. But Pieper would be quick to add that on the weekend we should go to church and pray and praise Almighty God. You see, we work so that we can worship. That should be why we Americans work too much, because ultimately it’s so that we can worship God.  

          In the first reading today, the book of Wisdom explains what happens when work leads to worship; what happens, that is, in church. The ancient author writes: “Who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.” In other words, when we come to church on Sunday, not only do we step into the house of God, we also step into the mind of God. We begin to see the world like God sees the world, we begin to see our neighbor as God sees our neighbor, and we even begin to see ourselves as God sees us. Now, something strange happens when we see everything through God’s eyes: we also start to think like him, and to love like him, and ultimately to live like him, that’s how “the paths of those on earth are made straight.” You see, this is why we Americans work so much: so that our work can lead to worship, and our worship can lead to love.  

          This weekend we celebrate “Labor Day” here in the United States. How ironic that we should observe “labor day” by taking a day off from labor! But when you think a little deeper about the matter, the irony disappears. Why? Well, because work is for the sake of Sunday rest, and ultimately for the sake of Sunday worship, so that we might have the mind of God, not just the mind of man. But what will most people do this three-day weekend? What are you looking forward to most this Labor Day? Most will follow Loverboy’s advice: “Everybody’s working for the weekend, Everybody wants a little romance, Everybody’s going off the deep end, Everybody needs a second chance.” And so, we go to football games and to the lake and on quick excursions. And to be sure, that is all good and fine, nothing wrong with that.   But let me encourage you not only to step into Lake Ouachita, and step into Razorback Stadium, and step into your barko lounger, but also to step into the house of God so that you can step into the mind of God. In other words, go to Mass and receive the Holy Spirit of God, because only “thus the paths of those on earth are made straight.” That’s the best reply to my cousin, and to anyone else who accuses us Americans of working too much. We work so that we may worship, and we worship so that we may love and live as it pleases the Lord.  

          May I conclude this homily with the conclusion of Pieper’s book? His last line is a little long, but he succinctly summarizes his whole subject. Listen carefully: “We therefore hope that this true sense of sacramental visibility” – God’s vision – “may become so manifest in the celebration of the Christian cultus itself” – that is the Mass – “that in the performance of it man, ‘who is born to work,’ may truly be ‘transported’ out of the weariness of daily labor into an unending holiday, carried away out of the straitness of the workaday world into the heart of the universe” (p. 74). Did you catch all that? He simply means this: that we work for the sake of worship, and not just for the sake of a wild weekend.

          Praised be Jesus Christ!