Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St Joseph the Worker, while in many countries we celebrate Workers Day. This passage suggests that in a certain sense, God is a worker too: creating, liking what God has done, and then resting.

Work. Reward. Rest. That is a pattern in this reading. It is not always the case in the world of work.

Work: there is either too much or too little – and for many, no work at all.

Reward: once again, there can be too much reward for what one does or too little in many cases for the time and effort. And often the sense of achievement of a job well done may be missing.

Rest: and again, often there is too little or too much. At very worst the ‘rest’ is enforced by unemployment and increasingly the disappearance of whole categories of work as the global economy keeps changing.

Especially during Covid-19 lockdowns, where work is limited – and many people go out of business.

There are no easy answers to any of this. Just as God’s creation is a balance of forces in nature, order and chaos, birth and death, so too must we work together to find balance in work itself – between markets and people, work and rest, and reward.