John 6:27

THE LABOUR QUESTION

‘Labour not for the meat which perisheth.’

John 6:27

The most pressing question of the day is the ‘Labour Question.’ Our Lord’s teaching shows us:—

I. The dignity of labour.—He worked with His own hand at a useful trade. He described His Divine office in the world as ‘working.’ In almost all His parables He pictures earthly labour. The old curse, ‘to eat bread in the sweat of the brow,’ He turned into a blessing. A blight has fallen upon the relations of employer and employed from the old pagan tradition as to despising him who serves. The ‘place’ of the labourer, the servant, is the place occupied by the Lord Jesus. The remedy for the dangerous gulf created between the ‘masses’ and the ‘classes’ is not more policemen, but in the noble teaching of Christ.

II. His sympathy with labourer’s fatigue.—Christ tenderly pitied the weariness of the toil-worn labourer; ought not His Church to do the same? There is a higher law of political economy than ‘to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest.’

III. The true object of labour.—‘Labour … for that meat which endureth.’ When life’s aim is for the life with God, all labour is elevated by it.

—Bishop Wynne.