18th Sunday C, 2007.
CLOSE THIS

We are now in the month of August and it is holiday-time for many people. Holidaying is an essential part of our life, an essential part of the rhythm of our life.
We should not be working all the time.

Social reformers fought to reduce the hours worked each week to the present 35 or 37.5 hours, which is less than a quarter of the hours in a week leaving three quarters of our time for other things.
This great achievement shows the universal recognition that work as a is not an end in itself but an activity to gain what is necessary for living.
The time between the end of one working day and the beginning of the next is not just meant for resting in order to be able to work some more.

The Bible shows that God was aware of the risk of overwork and therefore it was strictly forbidden to work on the seventh day of the week.
Even doctors were supposed to refrain from healing and as we know Jesus was frequently criticised for healing on the Sabbath.

There were also many feast days during the year when work was forbidden.
Even the land was given a rest every seventh year. They could neither sow nor prune nor reap for a whole year.

Some Israelites, who suffered hardship sold themselves into servitude to others and worked like slaves. These were set free every 50th year. Even ancestral property could not be sold permanently but had to be returned to the owners every 50th year.
There was always an end in sight.

Christian societies have also honoured Sunday as a day of rest and recreation and there were many feast days in the Church’s calendar,
which called for no labour but celebration.
Our May and August bank holidays are also intended to give people more time to live.

We must be free to engage in activities that are neither work nor respite from work, but activities that do not need to be justified to anybody. Only in this way can we build up our own life.

The rich man in the Gospel story had enough money saved not to have to work so he decided to eat, drink and have a good time. That is probably the first thing many of us do when we are set free from the bonds of daily labour.

Beyond that, there are many possibilities to fill our time with interesting activities and above all the practice of the teaching of Jesus.

 

CLOSE THIS