I wonder if Jesus had a similar feeling of dread as he walked to the pharisees' home to eat that Sabbath meal we hear about in today's Gospel. I wonder if he resented what he knew was going to be coming his way. I am pretty sure he knew something was ending and something new was beginning. The beginning of today's Gospel selection tips us off that Jesus is heading to hostile ground, as right after we are told Jesus was on his way to a leader of the Pharisees for a Sabbath meal, we are told that they were "watching him closely". When Jesus gets there we hear him give a two part lecture: one to the guests, about humility, and one to the host, demanding that a self-examination take place about the motives behind generosity. True humility and what motivates us to be generous are the themes we are given to consider this Labor Day weekend. That seems appropriate to me.

And both of these points by Jesus, on true humility and generosity, are polar opposites of how we operate in our culture. The social behavior of both guests and hosts to which Jesus pointed two thousand years ago still exist today, and we have all heard sermons demeaning and devaluing our cultural standards. Devaluing and threatening does not get us anywhere. But trying to look at life and the world around us with clear eyes, evaluating and taking appropriate corrective action is not so much devaluing and threatening as, what can be called, a "corrective course alteration".

Labor concerns existed back in Jesus' day, they existed back in the late 1800s with the founding of the Labor Day holiday, and they exist today. Take as one example the issues revolving around compensation. Having recently made a decision to voluntarily leave a fairly highly compensated position for a more modest one, this issue was the first that came to my mind. In particular I am thinking about compensation to chief executives of corporations. Over the past several decades those payouts have outpaced the minimum wage by an enormous extent. A recent study showed that if the minimum wage had kept pace with executive compensation, the minimum wage would be approximately $24 an hour. Now I'm not condemning free market economic practices, but I am questioning how things seem to have gotten so out of proportion: with the gap between rich and poor growing larger each and every year.

This is just one of the myriad of labor issues that dramatically impact all aspects of our society and culture. There are so many issues that complicate finding a way to respond to labor issues: from the lack of health insurance, to affordable housing, to increased and unreasonable work requirements, to name but a few. All complicated by immigration issues, and the internationalization of corporate governance practices... that can make us feel so overwhelmed that we do nothing, because we don't know what to do. Being frozen like that, although understandable, is not an appropriate or acceptable response when we think about Jesus' thoughts today on true humility and honest generosity. We need to act, both individually and corporately. We need to respond in some way. In our own way we need to bring about an end, and start anew.