Sundays sure aren’t what they used to be. Sundays used to be a day when people in Australia went to church. Businesses closed and families would spend time together.
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Culture, however, is like a living thing, it grows, changes and evolves. At some point, everyone seemed to realise that some fun stuff (like going out for a meal, watching a movie at the cinema, a trip to the zoo etc) would have to involve some people working on Sunday. The Christian understanding of Sunday has evolved over time. The Bible teaches that God rested on the seventh day of creation (Genesis 2:2).
In the Ten Commandments, God’s people are reminded to take a day off to remember who it was who created everything. We can sometimes forget how radical this would have been to the people at the time. God insists his people have a day off! It is in the same category as not killing people, telling the truth and not stealing things.
Nowadays, most Christian denominations don’t make a big deal about having to work on Sunday. It is still important to take a day off each week, but it doesn’t have to be a Sunday. In a sense, the recent furore over weekend rates has roots in at least three Christian traditions.
The first is that Sundays is not like any other day (as mentioned above). The second is rest is important. The third is that workers should be given a fair wage. In Jesus’ own words, “… the worker deserves his (sic) wages.” (Luke 10:7).
Politicians have a hard job trying to decide what works best for everyone and it definitely isn’t the job of the clergy to decide what a fair wage should look like, so this is a tough one.
Peter Singer (who has said some pretty outrageous things in the past) seems to have hit the nail on the head though on Q & A saying, “Couldn't that be fixed by adjustments in the minimum wage so that everybody, whether they work Sunday or not, ends up being better off?”
