Fighting for Sabbath rest

LES SILLARS: From WORLD Radio, this is Doubletake. I’m Les Sillars. Today, we have a guest podcast: Protecting Sabbath Rest.

In this special episode, we unpack an important Supreme Court case from 2023, about a Christian man who wanted to observe Sunday Sabbath.

Legal correspondent Jenny Rough brings us the story.

ROUGH: Alexa … can I order something from Amazon?

ALEXA: I can help you shop for everyday items. Try saying things like, Alexa, order AA batteries, or reorder paper towels.

JENNY ROUGH: Before Amazon was Amazon, it was Cadabra. Abracadabra. Order a book online and poof! It’s on your doorstep.

But for too many customers, Cadabra wasn’t calling magic to mind … it was calling dead bodies to mind, cadavers. So founder Jeff Bezos renamed Cadabra after the world’s largest river.

Amazon.com went live in July 1995.

Book sales became CD sales. Then tool sales. Toy sales.

Today, you can order 353 million different products. Practical items, like light bulbs or a toothbrush. Impractical items like pink blobfish slippers or a belly button lint brush. Expensive things, like $66,000 diamond earrings. Or at the other extreme, a $0.99 cent emergency poncho.

I’m placing an order specifically for this story:

ALEXA: What are you looking for?

ROUGH: A set of two ivory taper candles.

ALEXA: Set of two, cream candles, one-inch. … You can say ‘buy it now’ or ‘what are the reviews?’

And … an accessory to hold them.

ROUGH: Alexa, order black taper candleholders.

ALEXA: It’s $15.99. With delivery by tomorrow.

Delivery by tomorrow. That … and about 1.6 million other packages by tomorrow. A typical day for Amazon. Even on a Sunday.

One last request: —

ROUGH: Alexa, could I order a linen bread bag?

ALEXA: Linen bread bags for homemade bread … 

All this ties into our case today: Groff versus Dejoy. The case came before the United States Supreme Court a couple years ago, during its 2022-23 term. But it’s one of those cases worth a deep dive. Not only for its legal significance, but for the story that gave rise to it, a story worthy of deeper thinking.

Here’s what led to the lawsuit: About a decade ago, the U.S. post office realized it needed help fulfilling its delivery obligations. So it contracted with Amazon. The deal included Sunday delivery.

For one mail carrier in particular, that caused a problem.

GERALD GROFF: My name is Gerald Groff. … Born and raised in Lancaster.

Groff used to work at the U.S. Post Office in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, south of Lancaster. When he took the job, the post office was closed on Sundays. That suited Groff just fine because he doesn’t work that day. Groff is a Christian and observes Sunday Sabbath, a weekly day of rest from work. He says it’s his way of honoring God.

GROFF: The Lord’s Day is saying, I’m taking a breath, taking a beat, from regular life and saying, this day, I’m setting aside for God to say this is His. I’m going to honor Him first, so that I kind of center myself to face the rest of the week at work. Like this is a holy moment for God, for me to worship Him. I mean, it’s also a day a rest. It’s a day of saying I am disconnecting from regular life, I am taking a day to rest. God created us. He made our bodies, and He understood that we needed a moment to rest and have a break.

But after Amazon entered the picture, Groff’s practice clashed with his work responsibilities. Groff asked for an accommodation: Sundays off. The post office refused. The conflict snowballed into an employment law dispute that ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

AARON STREETT: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court.

When oral argument in Groff came before the Supreme Court in April 2023, attorney Aaron Streett argued on behalf of Gerald Groff. The dispute centered on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. That statute protects employees from being discriminated against on the basis of things like race, sex, and religion.

Under the law, the post office is required to reasonably accommodate Groff’s religion … anybody’s religion. In other words, the post office has to give Groff Sundays off unless by doing so, the post office would suffer an undue hardship.

Streett argued that wasn’t the case here.

STREETT: Employees should not be forced to choose between their faith and their job. … The court can and should construe undue hardship according to its plain text.

Elizabeth Prelogar, who served as Solicitor General at the time, argued for the other side, the United States government. She said Groff’s requested accommodation did cause the post office to suffer an undue hardship.

ELIZABETH PRELOGAR: Petitioner’s job specifically required him to work on Sundays. Exempting him from work each and every Sunday would have violated his coworkers’ contractual rights at the post office …  and his absences created direct concrete burdens on other carriers who had to stay on their shifts longer to get the mail delivered. … That is an undue hardship under any reasonable standard.

Well, before moving on, let’s back up to 2012. When Groff first took the job in Quarryville, Pennsylvania.

GROFF: So in the morning you just take all the mail that came from the distribution center … and you put them all up in that case in sequential order from the beginning of your route to the end.

The day I met with Groff, he described his old route … and the next morning, I drove it myself.

I began at the post office on West State Street.

GROFF: Take it out to your car and load it. … Put all your parcels and whatnot in there and you hit the road and deliver.

To hit the road, turn out of the parking lot and take Route 372 West.

SOUND: [Car driving out of parking lot and turn signal, driving the route]

GROFF: A typical mail route is between 500 to 800 mailboxes.

Groff’s job title was Rural Carrier Associate, RCA. A part-time, flexible job. RCAs cover shifts for full-time employees … they work on an as-needed basis. The post office was often so strapped for full-time employees, so it relied heavily on RCAs. Groff sometimes worked as many as six days a week. But on average, he worked four.

He didn’t drive one of those boxy trucks with the eagle logo.

GROFF: I drove my own vehicle. … I drove it from the passenger seat with the mail stacked in the driver’s seat on the left side.  

I bought a Honda CRV that doesn’t have a console in the middle, enough that I could get my left leg across, my right arm across, reach through the steering wheel, and flip the turn signal.

[PAUSE]

SOUND: [horse and buggy]

Lancaster is Amish country. Acres and acres of green fields without machinery or tractors. 

SOUND: [Train on tracks]

The Strasburg steam train chuff-chuffs its way along the railroad.

SOUND: [Train whistle]

Groff often drove dirt roads to the Amish farms. And sometimes would give candy to the Amish children who ran out to greet him. Oh, and he has been bitten by a dog.

GROFF: Yes, I did. Twice. Once just got my pant leg. The other time, actually hung off my arm for a while and drew a little blood.

In 2015, three years after Groff started his job, the post office began to offer Sunday deliveries under its agreement with Amazon.

GROFF: When I started there was no such thing as Sunday Amazon delivery. I thought it was a safe job.

Groff’s boss expected him to rotate in some Sundays.

GROFF: From the very beginning, I told my postmaster, there’s no way I can work on Sunday as a Christian. I just won’t do that. You’re going to have to figure something out. And she never really told me anything.

For about a year, Groff’s boss accommodated him. He got Sundays off. Other employees filled in for him. But in the fall of 2016, Groff’s boss delivered some bad news. Groff recaps it this way.

GROFF: I’m going to tell you the truth of what happened in the sense that it’s not pleasant. … She said, “I’m not going to be putting up with your [bleep] again this year.” And so it was kind of a slap in the face of wow, okay. It worked pretty good last year. What changed? And so, I didn’t get into it with her. I just thought I have to find a way…

And he did. He transferred to the Holtwood post office, about 10 miles away. Same job. Different location.

GROFF: And they were so small, they only have three routes. They didn’t have Amazon delivery on Sundays at that point. So, I was actually able to get through the second Christmas, the 2016 Christmas, without having to do Sundays again.

But in March of 2017, that post office also began Sunday deliveries. Once again, Groff was told he would need to start working Sundays. Once again, he requested an accommodation.

The post office tried to compromise by offering Groff a different day off.

GROFF: So having a Sabbath or a Lord’s Day on a Wednesday, well, I would miss church. I would miss the chance to do what I want on Sunday. So it wouldn’t be the same.

Let me quickly add that I did request an interview with the post office, to hear its side of the story, but it turned me down. When I crossed paths with mail carriers in Lancaster and asked to speak with them … they said they couldn’t comment. The American Postal Workers Union, who filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the post office, also said no. And the National Rural Letters Carriers’ Association didn’t respond to my requests.

In their own court briefs, the post office stated that it struggled to fill Groff’s Sunday shifts. At times, the Holtwood postmaster himself took on the shift.

Groff’s superiors took a series of disciplinary actions against him. But eventually, Groff felt his only option was to resign. So he did. And filed a lawsuit alleging the post office violated Title VII.

MARK CHUMLEY: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the most well-known anti-discrimination statutes.

Mark Chumley is an employment law attorney and the host of the Practical Employment Law Podcast. He didn’t work on Groff’s case, but he’s handled similar cases. He points out that Title VII protects employees from discrimination based on any religion.

CHUMLEY: So it could be a Muslim needing certain days off to observe a festival of some kind. It could be a Jewish employee needing time off to observe the Sabbath.

And not only that.

CHUMLEY: Title VII goes on to say that religion includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.

But what exactly does that include? Well, typically when an employee requests an accommodation, the request falls into one of three categories … or buckets.

Bucket 1: a request to accommodate dress and appearance. For example, a case from 2013 involved a Sikh woman who worked for the I-R-S. The Sikh religion requires its members to wear five articles of faith, including a kirpan, a small knife. She lost her job over that.

Here’s employment law attorney Chumley again:

CHUMLEY: They were required to carry a ceremonial dagger or a knife, and that violated the company’s policy against weapons and knives in the workplace. So that would’ve been a request for an accommodation to allow them to carry that because it was part of their religious observance.

That case settled. And today, companies generally do accommodate such requests … unless the request would pose a real safety concern. A steel mill employee wants to wear a skirt for religious reasons. Probably not allowed if it raises the risk of getting tangled in the machinery.

Bucket 2: The employee requests an accommodation to express a religious belief.

CHUMLEY: You know, they want to keep a Bible on their desk, or they want to put a certain sign in their work area that has a Bible verse or something. And maybe another employee is somehow offended by that and you end up with a workplace conflict. Then there’s a request for the accommodation to put that in their work area.

Again, an employer generally must accommodate the request.

But Groff’s case doesn’t involve dress and appearance or expression. His case falls into Bucket 3: a scheduling accommodation. And this type of request … unlike the others … is no drop in the bucket. Because a scheduling accommodation usually means the person misses work.

CHUMLEY: The requested accommodation in this case was having the entire day off on Sundays. I think the employer would have granted sufficient time for the employee to attend church service if he’d been willing to report for at least part of the day on Sunday. … Many Christians I think would say, “Hey, I just need to go to church on Sunday. I could come in in the afternoon. All I need is time to go to my church and afterwards time to change my clothes and get to work.” … Now obviously you have to go with your conscience on these types of issues, and I don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Groff is not sincere. … So I think whatever the outcome, it’s important for Christians to approach this issue with the correct attitude and remember who you ultimately serve when you’re at work … and remember that we need to be a good employee, and we do have an obligation to do that as Christians.

So while Groff rested and worshiped on Sundays, other employees filled in for him. Amazon delivered its packages.

Speaking of … I got mine, too!

AUDIO: [Beeping, door opening]

ROUGH: The Amazon person! Hi, I’m Jenny.

TRAVIS WASHINGTON: Jennifer Row?

ROUGH: Rough

WASHINGTON: Rough. Okay. I’m going to get you to sign.

The Amazon delivery guy’s name was Travis Washington. He was in a huge hurry. Racing around to get customers their books ... or shower curtain rings … or in my case, candles, candle holders, and bread linens.

Washington had only been with Amazon for a month, and he does work Sundays.

ROUGH: Do you think it’s worth it that we live in a society where we can get anything we want and have it delivered? Or do you think we should get a day off? Like no deliveries on Sundays?

WASHINGTON: Yeah, no deliveries on Sundays.

ROUGH: Why?

WASHINGTON: Football!

Football. Watching football, playing football … both can be honorable things to do over the weekend. As can mowing the lawn or taking your kids to the park. But Title VII doesn’t protect the rights of individuals to organize their schedules as they wish. Again … it protects religious beliefs, observance, and practice.

Taking a day of rest on Sundays … also known as the Lord’s Day … is a common practice for some Christians.

To understand why, it helps to know a bit about Sabbath … the Jewish day of rest. The ten commandments in Exodus 20 say, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor … but on the seventh day … you shall not do any work.”

And many believe that commandment is universal to all mankind … because it’s rooted in the beginning of time.

To learn more about it, I lit my candles…

AUDIO: [Striking match]

…and called up some friends in Israel.

ANJA: [Singing in Hebrew]

Anja and her husband, Dan, live north of Jerusalem with their three little boys.

ANJA: [Singing in Hebrew]

Every Friday evening, the family of five gathers around the dinner table for a meal.

ANJA: [Singing in Hebrew]

They start by lighting two candles before sunset.

ANJA: Amen.

Dan opens his Bible. He recites blessings as he pours the wine.

DAN: My first pages of Genesis are stained with wine, because the Bible is always next to the plate. … And my grandfather always used to overfill it to let it drip over. So I do the same.

Dan reads passages from Genesis.

DAN: And on the seventh day, God ended his work, which he had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work, which he had done.

That rest is the first hint of Sabbath in the Bible.

DAN: The rest is shabbat. That’s where you get the name from. … It means ceasing from work.

Finally, Dan blesses the bread. Two loaves of challah.

DAN: Blessed are You our Lord, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. ... Now we add another blessing to say thank you, God, not only for this bread but also for the true bread that came down from heaven, our Messiah, Yeshua.

Dan grew up in a Jewish family. Today, he’s a Christian. Or, as he prefers to say, a Messianic Jew. He continues some Jewish traditions, like Sabbath. In the Jewish faith, Sabbath begins sundown Friday night with a meal and ends sundown Saturday. That’s because in Genesis 1 … when God established a pattern of six days of work, and one day of rest … it’s worded this way:

DAN: We look at the end of every day of creation, it was evening and morning. It doesn’t say it was morning and evening, day one, or morning and evening day two. It says evening and morning. So the reckoning of days starts from sundown from the evening. And so Sabbath is for us what you’d call Saturday, we call Shabbats.

Christians tend to cease from work on Sunday instead of Saturday because Sunday is the day Christ rose from the dead. So that’s the day they gather to worship.

With that understanding of where a day of rest came from, let’s get back to Gerald Groff. He grew up in the Mennonite faith. And his roots run deep in Lancaster.

GROFF: My ancestors, the Hans Herr family, has a home here. It’s not called the 1719 Museum … So I grew up going to Mennonite school and going to, you know, Mennonite church when I was young. … I grew up always observing the Sabbath.

The Mennonite faith came out of the 16th Century Reformation in Europe. Hans Herr was a Swiss immigrant who fled religious persecution. And he settled in Pennsylvania for a reason. Namely, because of another man who had done the same.

GROFF: William Penn, you know, founded Pennsylvania. He created kind of an experiment.

The Holy Experiment. Penn was a Quaker who wanted a place for those being persecuted in Europe to start over with a new life of freedom.

On my trip to Lancaster, I wandered around the property that once belonged to Groff’s ancestors. The museum was closed that day, but I bumped into the executive director.

Jean Kilheffer Hess says the Mennonites view Sabbath as a day to pause and give attention to their faith.

JEAN KILHEFFER HESS: Or even the pause itself just enables us to think about what matters in life and what Christ calls us to as far as how we engage with each other and the world. … Being together with family or church community I think is key.

What activities are allowed … going to church … and not allowed … work … may seem clear. But a lot falls in between that and the permitted activities can vary widely, depending on the religious tradition.

HESS: In general, Mennonites … are very earnest Christians. So figuring this out is important.

Groff grew up in that earnest faith. When he was 18, his grandfather died. A dramatic and unexpected death.

GROFF: He was up in a tree, and he was trimming. … his neck touched the line somehow and he was electrocuted on the spot. And my father witnessed that. And he was only 63. So it was tough to bear.

Groff was just about to graduate from high school.

GROFF: That was a real turning point in my life. His funeral was so powerful because so many people came to pay their respects because he had made such a difference in our community by living his faith, and that’s what motivated me to say, that’s the kind of life I want to lead and legacy I want to leave to make a difference for God because I love Him.

After his grandfather’s death, Groff served as a missionary in Africa on and off for years. Eventually, Groff migrated away from the Mennonite tradition and now attends a nondenominational Bible church.

His Sundays start there … at church:

GROFF: And then you have lunch with your family, and then you spend the afternoon doing something that’s not your job. You know, usually, it’s just playing a board game, whatever it is you enjoy doing with your family. But the point is to disconnect from your regular six days a week.

Groff’s single, never married. And lives close to his parents.

GROFF: I watch NASCAR with my dad because for me that’s about spending time with my dad. It’s something he enjoys.

He’d run an errand on a Sunday…

GROFF: If we needed milk or something, my mom needed that to make mashed potatoes, I think I would grab her a quart of milk.

But when it comes to paid work, he abstains. That prompted me to ask him this question during our interview.

ROUGH: I was reading through some of the briefs. There was this woman who was filling in for you and her car broke down or something. Is this ringing any bells?

GROFF: Mm-mm.

ROUGH: Okay, she was filling in for you and her car broke down. And the postmaster guy was like okay I don’t have anyone today. It was a pain for him. So my question to you is: If you had known that that happened would you have been like, okay, this is a situation where I’ll go in because it’s kind of an emergency? Or are you like, there’s just no way, there’s no circumstances where I’d ever go work on a Sunday.

GROFF: For me my conviction is that real that I just had to say no. Even though I understand the awkwardness of that situation. It’s about obeying God for me.

I wondered if a car breakdown was the equivalent of an ox falling into a well. The example Christ gave when talking about the trap of legalism. Presumably, most Christians, including Groff, would be pretty unhappy if they got into a car accident … and then discovered nobody was staffing the hospital emergency room because it’s Sunday.

And that brings us back to his lawsuit. He lost in lower court. And appealed to the Supreme Court.

Now as a reminder … this is a Title VII anti-discrimination case. In general, under the statute, the post office must reasonably accommodate Groff’s scheduling request to take Sundays off. But … there’s that exception. Here’s Groff’s attorney Randall Wenger:

RANDALL WENGER: You’re supposed to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs unless it causes undue hardship.

The undue hardship exception.

And that’s at the heart of the lawsuit. What qualifies as an undue hardship? The Supreme Court had tried to answer the question once before, decades ago.

WENGER: There was a 1977 case, TWA versus Hardison, where the Supreme Court said, well, anything more than a de minimis burden is an undue hardship.

Meaning, all that’s required for an employer to prove it would suffer an undue hardship is to show it would endure a smidge more than a de minimis burden … a trifling inconvenience.

WENGER: That doesn’t sound to me like a good interpretation of the statutory language.

Undue hardship … de minimis burden … … they do seem to be on opposite ends of a spectrum.

Ever since the 1977 Hardison decision—

WENGER: There’s been talk about how do we fix this and go back to the standard we’re supposed to have? … Go back to the standard that was originally intended by Congress?

At oral argument, Aaron Street … Groff’s other attorney … pointed out that nobody seriously argues that de minimis is the correct standard.

STREETT: Hardison’s de minimis test makes a mockery of the English language, and no party truly defends it today.

It’s true. Even the post office agreed … the de minimis test cannot stand alone. When Prelogar argued for the government, Justice Neil Gorsuch confirmed that.

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH: De minimis can’t be the test in isolation, at least, because Congress doesn’t pass civil rights legislation to have de minimis effect, right? We don’t think of the civil rights laws as trifling, which is the definition of de minimis. The law says since time immemorial, the law does not concern itself with trifles. So is that common ground as well?

PRELOGAR: Yes, it’s common ground.

So if both parties agree that on its face undue burden doesn’t square up with de minimis … or trifling … what does undue burden mean? Here, the parties could not find common ground.

They argued for different tests.

Groff’s lawyer Streett said the Supreme Court should adopt the exact same understanding of undue hardship already at play in another anti discrimination statute. The Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA says an undue hardship means a significant difficulty or expense.

That’s what the employer would have to prove to deny an accommodation.

Streett went on to say that some lower courts have already transplanted the ADA test to Title VII cases.

STREETT: That’s why we like the significant-difficulty-or-expense test, because you have New York and California and other states already applying that test for religious accommodations. There’s case law out there. It’s workable.

Streett also pointed out that not using the same test for both the ADA and Title VII would result in nonsensical outcomes.

STREETT: Thus under the government’s test, a diabetic employee could receive snack breaks under the ADA, but not prayer breaks under Title VII. An employee could receive weekly leave for pregnancy checkups, but not to attend mass.

But Chief Justice John Roberts had a concern. Government employees have a wide and diverse array of religious backgrounds. So he wondered if government employers would receive a lot more requests for religious accommodations under Title VII than a disability accommodation under the ADA.

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: There are differences between ADA cases. … They apply to a fairly discrete category of individuals. Title VII obviously has a broader scope.

Attorney Andrew Hessick filed a friend of the court brief in support of the post office that made that very point. Hessick filed the brief on the behalf of three organizations that consist of local, city, and municipal governments.

Local governments tend to have a fair number of religious employees.

ANDY HESSICK: Studies suggest it’s about one and a half times more religious. I don’t know exactly why, but it does suggest there’s just a high correlation between being religious and being a local government employee, and so there’s going to be more occasions where there could be a potential conflict between requirements of the job and religious practices.

Lots of different faiths.

HESSICK: There’s just a huge variety of different religious practices. They come in so many different forms, and so accordingly, there are also a huge variety of different requests for accommodation.

Remember the three buckets: dress and appearance requests like the kirpan; expression requests like posting a Bible verse; and scheduling requests like time off for Sabbath.

And if a court made it easier for employees to get all sorts of requests, it would lead to higher costs for the employer.

HESSICK: If they have to provide more accommodations, they have to build it into their cost structures, and it could affect the services that they provide.

But if the court agreed and didn’t adopt the ADA’s significant difficulty and expense test, what language should it use to define undue burden?

How about looking to the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? That’s what government attorney Prelogar argued. Keep the de minimis test but apply it using the EEOC’s regulations and guidance.

PRELOGAR: Our basic pitch here is that this is a context-based inquiry that necessarily requires the application of a standard like that to a particular fact pattern.

She insisted the lower court here properly applied the law.

PRELOGAR: If you look at the Third Circuit’s decision … the court carefully parsed the evidence in the case.

She went on to say the burden on the post office wasn’t only financial. Groff’s request caused discord among the other employees, and that’s burdensome, too.

PRELOGAR: People quitting, people transferring, there was a threatened boycott on one Sunday, and a union grievance filed.

But Justice Samuel Alito had a hard time believing lower courts have got this right.

JUSTICE SAMUEL ALITO: We have amicus briefs here by many representatives of many minority religions, Muslims, Hindus, Orthodox Jews, Seventh Day Adventists. They all say … that Hardison has violated their right to religious liberty. Are they wrong?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh honed in on a footnote in the Hardison decision. The footnote expanded on the best way to define undue hardship in Title VII employment cases.

JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH: I think Hardison has to be interpreted in light of Footnote 14, which talks about not de minimis costs but substantial expenditure or substantial additional costs. … So if we just say substantial costs read Footnote 14, substantial costs, go forth courts?

In the end, that’s exactly what the court did. Justice Alito wrote the opinion, not Kavanaugh, but it was unanimous. The Court said the lower court was wrong to take the de minimis language in the Hardison case as authoritative. Instead, it held that Hardison’s additional language in footnote 14 of substantial costs and expenditures is the correct standard.

So when all was said and done, the Court issued its opinion in favor of … well, it’s hard to say.

The Court didn’t adopt the ADA language Groff wanted, so in that sense he lost.

But the Court vacated the lower court’s decision siding with the post office. It sent the case back so it could be looked at in light of the clarifying standard. 

After the Court issued its opinion, I talked with Groff’s lawyer, Aaron Streett. He said even though the Court rejected the ADA’s significant difficulty or expense test—

STREETT: We were perfectly happy with a substantial increased costs test. We view that to be essentially the same thing. The reason we shied away from using that language is because the Solicitor General, who was defending the postal service … interpreted that language to mean something that doesn’t sound like substantial costs to us. We disagreed with the Solicitor General about how that test should be applied, and we were glad the Supreme Court wiped out that understanding.

More recently, I also talked with Groff’s attorney Randall Wenger. He says as of the New Year, 2025, Groff is still awaiting a trial date.

WENGER: The post office is still taking the position they didn’t do anything wrong. … Yes, the standard has changed insofar as the de minimis standard is gone. But … it just gets rid of a misleading term. And that’s not right. That’s not what we fought for. … [5:50] They still feel justified in what they did. If you liken it to scripture, I think about, Pharaoh’s heart is still hard.

But the decision is alive and well elsewhere. It’s helping HR departments across the country. Helping them rethink how to better accommodate Americans living out their faith.

WENGER: So the effect of the decision has been great. We’ve seen it used in over 100 cases in the past year. … And I just think … I walk often into our state capital, and I read Penn’s words about Pennsylvania becoming a holy experiment in religious liberty to become the seed of a nation. And I look at the outcome in this, this is what America should be, that we respect each other enough to let each other carry out our religious conscience, our duties before God. That’s what we ought to do. So it seems like the experiment is alive and well, even if the post office didn’t get the memo yet.

Both Wenger and Streett said it was an honor to represent Groff. Here’s Streett:

STREETT: I have been inspired by Gerald’s example and his sincerity and his faithfulness. …I think American culture and history traditionally had a very strong Sabbath tradition. And whether it’s Sunday, Saturday, or whatever day of the week you may observe it, it certainly should be a day we spend with our families and try to spend in fellowship with believers and worshiping the Lord.

Dan … the Messianic Jew from Israel … said it’s easy to shift away from that. Whether it’s American culture today, or the children of Israel looking for manna in the desert on the day God told them not to … people strive to be self-sufficient.

DAN: We have this term even in English, breadwinning, you know, winning the bread is supplying the house with its livelihood.

But the truth is, all we have is from God. Our life, our money, our work. And perhaps our ultimate job is to be a good steward of the gifts God has given us. And that means trusting His instruction.

DAN: He says, I provide your livelihood. I provide it. … Trust me, every day you will have exactly what you need. … Trust me, you can take that day to rest. … God rested, and we should at least emulate Him. If He could afford to rest, we could afford to rest.

For WORLD Radio, I’m Jenny Rough. I reported and wrote this story. Nick Eicher edited it, along with Paul Butler who also produced it. Special thanks to Gerald Groff, Mark Chumley, Travis Washington, Dan and Anja, Jean Kilheffer Hess, Randall Wenger, Andrew Hessick, and Aaron Streett.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.