Endings and Beginnings (Pentecost 14C) 

In the late 1800s, most American workers toiled at least 12-hours a day, seven days a week in order to make a basic living. Children were also working, as they provided cheap labor to employers, and laws against child labor were not strongly enforced. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing in the late 1800s.

Due to these long hours and terrible working conditions, American unions became more prominent and voiced their demands for a better way of life: with an example being the first Labor Day parade which occurred on Tuesday September 5, 1882 when 10,000 workers marched from city hall to Union Square in New York City. Participants in this parade took an unpaid day-off to honor the workers of America, as well as bring to public attention issues they had with employers. As the years passed, more states began to hold these parades, but Congress would not legalize the holiday for another 12 years.

A two month strike that began in May of 1894 at the Chicago rail yard, thereby shutting off all train traffic in and out of Chicago, ended in rioting and bloodshed brought on by President Grover Cleveland's decision to send in troops in July of 1894. The government's actions broke the strike, but the strike and the violence that ensued in ending it, brought the fight for worker's rights into the public spotlight. Congress declared, in 1894, that the first Monday in September would be the holiday for workers, known as Labor Day. Although Labor Day is meant as a celebration of the labor movement and its achievements, over the course of the last 113 years, the holiday has come to be celebrated as the last, long summer weekend before Fall, and has lost a lot of its "labor" connotations.

For me, this last statement rings very true. For me, Labor Day has never been a celebration of unions and workers, but rather a signal of change: a signal that something has come to an end and something new is beginning. When I was a child, as Labor Day weekend rolled around, interrupting the wonderful and leisurely summer days of riding bicycles, climbing rocks, going to the beach, swimming, and in reality doing absolutely nothing but "play", a great sadness and dread would always come over me. Ugh, school and homework and early bedtimes. Ugh, a routine and structure and the start of shorter days. Those sentiments, I think, are pretty common place. Look at the linguistics of our culture: grown individuals begging off a weekday evening out because "it's a school night". And although the official year starts in January, many schools and most churches, this one included, start their program year in September. So it is fairly normal for that childhood feeling of dread to bubble up for me this weekend that, gosh, the lazy days of summer are over (even though this summer has been anything but a lazy one for me!). Something is ending and something new is beginning.