Happy May Day everyone!
This Sunday, we will gather together to mark Beltane, a holiday rooted in ancient Gaelic and Celtic traditions that celebrate renewal, abundance, and the coming of summer. It is one of the eight festivals on the Wheel of The Year, observed by modern Pagans who look to the earth’s seasons and cycles for meaning and ritual. Sunday will be a joyful celebration of community—full of music, flowers, reflections, poetry and dancing.
May 1st is also International Workers Day, another day rooted in the solidarity of community and the hope for an abundant life for all. It is a day that honors the efforts of the labor movement and celebrates workers around the world. May 1st was chosen to commemorate the beginning of the 1886 general strike for an eight-hour work day (which led to the pivotal Haymarket affair in Chicago).
We don’t talk about work in church very often. Many of us see Sunday as a day for rest, community, and contemplation where we can leave our work concerns behind at the office. In reality though, our understanding of labor is deeply tied to our religious values. The very existence of a day for rest is tied to both religious practices and the advocacy of the labor movement! Just as there are well-developed theologies of rest (as I explained last week), there are also theologies of labor. Our faith tradition calls us to engage with matters of economic justice and fair labor practices.
As Unitarian Universalists, we hold a set of shared values, including equity, generosity, and interdependence. The language associated with equity reads, “we declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” This calls us to work for economic policies where all labor is dignified and paid fairly, and where all people have a chance to flourish. We also proclaim respect for the interdependent web of all existence. This value calls us to name the ways that greed and love-of-profit lead to working conditions that harm both our fellow humans and the planet we inhabit. These are just a few of the reasons why the Unitarian Universalist Association is a partner of May Day Strong, a campaign of worker solidarity calling on our leaders to center the needs of the working class rather than the needs of the wealthiest few.
And we are not alone. Many faith traditions have long been engaged in the struggle for economic justice and workers’ rights. In the Catholic Church, May 1st is the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker. It is also the anniversary of the founding of the Catholic Worker Movement, the newspaper and network of communities founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933 focused on care for the poor and the rights of workers. Dorothy Day wrote, "By fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute... we can, to a certain extent, change the world."
Modern practitioners of engaged Buddhism interpret the Buddhist precept, “Do not steal,” to have broader connotations, related to economic systems and social conditions. Mushim Ikeda-Nash, of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s International Advisory Council, writes, “we may not be robbing banks, or breaking and entering other people’s homes, but are we supporting exploitation of workers through the clothing, shoes, and food we buy?” Thich Nhat Hanh interprets the precept this way, “Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I vow to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals.”
And Jewish traditions often tie their commitments to workers’ rights to the Exodus story. This narrative from the Hebrew Bible, recounting how God helped the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt, shows God rejecting systems that exploit labor and choosing to side with the poor and oppressed in their struggles for liberation.
So this May Day, in addition to joining us for our Beltane service, I invite you to live out your faith by finding one small way to promote workers rights and economic justice. Maybe it’s participating in a UU Side with Love action, learning more about the intersection between faith and labor, advocating for a more equitable policy at your workplace, or trying out a sabbath practice that reminds you our worth isn’t tied to our productivity. This weekend, may you find moments of community, solidarity, and abundance.
In faith,
Rev. Danielle