Hard thing, “labor,” but not as bad as “toil.” But not as good as “work.”
Toil is punishment, not work. It can be a useful figure of speech though, in the sense that one has worked so hard that, to an untrained eye, the work would have seemed senselessly, gratuitously difficult, although actually the strenuous effort was necessary to accomplish a worthwhile goal.
“Work” is constructive effort and activity that enjoins the worker in a worthy cause and results in betterment of the worker.
One’s job might or might not include activities characterized as work in this constructive sense.
At many places, as little is left to chance as possible. An employee must adhere to a dress code. He is watched on camera all day, so not a single moment of his day is not recorded and subject to scrutiny and second guesses by management. An employee manual dictates exactly how the employee should perform in every conceivable situation. Individuality and creativity are expressly discouraged.
Work is a great burden for the majority. “Misfits are everywhere,” goes the Kinks song, and it’s really true. We constantly see commercials for fast food places I entirely avoid, because the reality is so depressing. I see the people who work there and the idea of going into that fast food restaurant and asking them to do something for me is thoroughly distasteful, because they don’t want to be there, wearing those silly clothes, making that lousy food, and I don’t want to add to their misery.
We are surrounded by people in those positions.
Grocery stores? When the employees go on strike, we hear about their miserable working conditions.
The single parents waiting on tables, a paycheck away from homelessness, dependent on tips.
Department stores, malls, gas stations, nail salons, all the businesses in strip malls, all those people working part time, without benefits, who can’t afford college and can barely afford their rent and car payments.
Everywhere, people who have wound up doing things for a living they never would have intended.
People who, every day, struggle to assert their dignity under difficult circumstances because they couldn’t possibly do otherwise.
Jesus was accused of many crimes by His enemies: blasphemy, breaking the Sabbath. “My father goes on working, and so do I,” He said.
So God wasn’t finished after six days. He is still working, because work is part of His identity. It is part of our identity as His children, created in His image.
Even if we can’t celebrate our paying jobs on Labor Day, we can celebrate the real work we do– all the constructive activity we undertake– being good, helpful, honest, compassionate people, having positive impacts– simply through being human.