I find myself thinking about rest as I read this gospel passage. The idea of rest is of great importance in the Christian tradition. The creation narratives of Genesis, of course, tell us that God rested on the seventh day. The gospels are full of passages where Jesus goes off by himself or with his disciples to rest. More recently, Catholic Social Teaching has emphasized that workers have the right to “sufficient rest and leisure” (Gaudium et Spes 67), so it is fitting, from an American context, that we consider this reading on Labor Day.

In today’s story, Jesus goes against the religious customs of his day by “working” on a day of rest. How can we reconcile this with the centrality of rest in other parts of Scripture?

I think the answer lies in understanding that work and rest, like all created things, are good insofar as they help us to do God’s will. St. Ignatius of Loyola writes that “we are to use the things of this world only to the extent that they help us to [praise, reverence, and serve God], and we ought to rid ourselves of the things of this world to the extent that they get in the way of this end.” Both work and rest can be idolized in such a way that they prevent us from doing God’s will. In contemporary American culture, work is often idolized to the point where we fail to see the importance of rest in living a holy life. In this passage, the opposite is true—the Pharisees’ idolization of the customs of rest prevent them from seeing how God wants the man with the withered hand to be healed, right then and there.

As many of us enjoy this day off in celebration of Labor Day, we are invited to take some time to reflect on work and rest in our own lives. I pray that we all learn, in our own ways, to use both work and rest to glorify God as best we can.