Luke 14:5 Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”

The WordPower dictionary defines Sabbath as ‘a day of rest and worship…’.I’ll not go any deeper on Sabbath but two critical words in the definition are ‘rest’ and ‘worship’. Let’s settle on ‘rest’. Weekends are resting days for most workers except some businessmen who may see this as their peak time to make money since people are in a relaxing, carnival and spendthrift mood.

For those employed, the contracts spell out everything: days and hours of work, and leave entitled. Anything that contradicts this may see the employer on a collision course with the employees. And it’s right for them to get relief from work as per the contract terms. On some occasions however, the employer may be required to beg or sometimes demand the services of employees when they are supposed to be off. This may be mostly when a certain started project must end. A good example is the case of construction projects

-when deadlines must be met,

-when a mixture of building materials may crystallize and get spoiled if not used or

-when construction of a building must be done to a certain joint before halting.

Friction may sometimes flare up when the employer feels it critical for the employees to go on working. The inability of the employer to pay some astronomical overtime premiums may be a catalyst to the flare-up.

So, do employees in the above picturesque scenario leave the donkey lying in the pit?  The employees have the right to do so since they will be applying the contract terms to the letter. But in fairness of things, they should help out unless it has been proven that this is the habit of the employer. For if the donkey dies the employer may need to retrench some fellows due to reduced capacity. This is one reason why they should help. They should think the business as their own and this is true, they are in the business to earn. We saw in Ephesians 6:5-9 that whatever we do, we should do it as unto Christ. This is reason number two why the employees may need to help. All that is right may not always be righteous before the eyes of God. We may do things that are right according to contractual agreements but end up showing the face of someone else, not Christ. God is fair, just and full of goodness and would want us to do unto others what we would expect them to do to us!

– johnstone katuku