One Jewish scholar reflects on this passage, "When other nations follow their laws they are merely law-abiding; when Israel observes the Torah it is at the same time engaged in the praise of God."

What laws are we to follow? - (and on this Labor Day weekend I want to talk primarily about laws about work.) How are we to live our lives in praise of God? What laws are ok to break - whether they are Biblical rules or local ordinances? Are there any laws you always have to follow, no matter what? Are there any laws you always have to break?

I think that some of the "purity laws" of our culture are rules that need to be broken by people of faith, as Jesus broke the rules of his.

The rule that says you are defined by your work, that certain kinds of work are better than others, and that certain kinds of workers are better than others - that doctors are better than street cleaners and that both of them are better than the unemployed. You are not defined by your work. You are God's person and in that simple fact is all that anyone (including you) needs to know about your value - or anyone else's.

The rule that says that some people should be paid more than others because their work is more important. (In fact, that rule isn't even followed by people who believe it. If it were, surely nursing home workers and child care workers would receive salaries as high as the people who pay them get. Taking care of our children, taking care of our grandparents - what could be more important work than that?)

Look at the "Christian Principles for Economic Life" * [see below] in your bulletin. I find that sometimes I look at rules like those and fall into what a friend of mine calls a pious coma. They sound good, so what? But suppose these really were the principles our society believed in - believed in not merely with our lips but with our hearts? Suppose the Biblical mandate to share the gifts of God was really taken as a mandate, not dismissed as nice but impractical thinking to be indulged in only on Sundays?

Consider the first of those principles: the economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy. If that were true, there simply COULDN'T BE category of worker called " the working poor." In an economy that cared about the people in it, full-time work would of course guarantee you a living wage.

If all economic life should be shaped by moral principles, how are we to think about supply and demand, minimum wage, fair wage, taxes, tax relief? If there's a minimum wage should there be a maximum wage?