9-12-21 Sermon Notes “Labor Union”

We just celebrated Labor Day – a day when we pause to remember…work and workers! “Labor” is our theme for September. “Labor Union” is the title for the message this Sunday. Don’t worry – I’m not going to try to sign you up for the AEA, or the IBEW, or any such. Instead, I’m going to ask you to consider what the Apostle Paul asked the church in Ephesus to “labor” at doing.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. 7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. (Eph. 4: 1-7 NRSV)
Focusing on v. 3 – “making every effort (laboring) to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Labor for unity. “Is that all?” we think sarcastically, rolling our eyes. Unity? Is that even possible? I met a pastor named Jeff from the state of Washington who was in the Free Methodist denomination. Not being familiar with that denomination, I joked, “Just how FREE are the Free Methodists?” He replied, without missing a beat, “We are about as FREE as United Methodists are UNITED!” Touche, Jeff.
Does laboring for unity mean that our goal is to have everyone agree on everything? To see eye-to-eye on everything? That’s not where we are going with this. We will talk about the sevenfold unity Paul describes in verses 4-6 of Ephesians 4. We will talk about John Wesley’s famous quote on unity: “In the essentials, unity. In the non-essentials, tolerance. In all things, charity (or love).”
See you Sunday,
Pastor Sam

The origins of the labor movement lay in the formative years of the American nation, when a free wage-labor market emerged in the artisan trades late in the colonial period. The earliest recorded strike occurred in 1768 when New York journeymen tailors protested a wage reduction. The formation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (shoemakers) in Philadelphia in 1794 marks the beginning of sustained trade union organization among American workers.