Hermeneutics

I have heard arguments to the effect that the Target employee should be grateful to have a job in the first place. But as Marilynne Robinson has argued, observance has become an “aspect of privilege”—those of us in better circumstances can have our weekends and holidays “set apart” if we want; those whose conditions are such that they must work on Thanksgiving or face running short on cash at best—or unemployment at worst—have no such provision made for them.

This doesn’t sound to me like the “large increase of freedom” Lincoln imagined was in store for Americans in his Thanksgiving Proclamation. Nor does it sound like something that our God—who commanded his people to give even their servants and animals rest on the seventh day—smiles upon.