It’s Labour Day weekend and for many it not only marks the end of summer but it is a day to recognise workers, especially employees in many different areas.

In Bermuda it can be challenging to work physically as the humidity and heat really make it hard. This week, my bride and I just spent several hours in our community garden, weeding and digging over the ground to get ready for the planting season. I can attest that it is tough to work outdoors in Bermuda, so I have the highest respect for all who work hard all day and all year round.

Our society can only function because we have people who are working in many different areas, and at the same time our society is not always fair in how we show our appreciation, especially for tough physical jobs. In the end the work of all different jobs makes society function and we all have to make ends meet and feed, clothe and house the family.

The Apostle Paul said the same thing about the Church as the Body of Christ, comparing it with a human body with different members.

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (NRSV) he writes: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

“Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.

“If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.

“If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’

“On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

“But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.”

At the same time the working world and with it our society is changing very fast. I know many people who work more than one job. Today, often both spouses have to work to be able to have a half way comfortable living as food, clothing, rent or mortgage, child care and education, as well as utilities, internet, smartphones and cars seem to get more and more expensive every year. For families it can be even harder than for individuals.

But the biggest change might still be coming because of artificial intelligence, AI. While some may see it as some kind of fun tool to create a funny video or doing your homework, AI actually is becoming a huge challenge for our societies.

The development of it is so increasingly fast, that it is difficult to keep up with it. AI will change our work world, especially in combination with humanoid robots, those machines that look a bit like people.

Those robots will soon be able to replace workers in many industries. They can pick an order and load it on the truck and deliver it without a human driver. They can take your order at the restaurant and serve the food, which another robot might have cooked to order. They can clean the roads, cut the hedges, pick up the trash, and help you as a sales robot find the right products. They can mount a tyre on your car and change the oil, do a service check and read the error codes.

Of course, AI can and already does replace book-keepers, cashiers, and even medical specialists, as AI can read and interpret X-rays, make individual dental crowns or dentures, lab work, eye glasses, weather forecast, write code and so on. The majority of employees will be effected in some way or another, because of AI.

Every time you use ChatGPT or other AI tools to solve a professional problem, you may actually be training your replacement. We are not talking about 20 or 30 years from now, but about the very next decade.

A robot will work faster and cheaper, and maybe even better. What looks like futuristic fun or a solution for unwanted work, actually will cause a massive change in our lives, and I can only hope that governments around the world will find ways to make sure that “normal people” will not end up unemployed without social fair distribution of the profits and without meaningful contribution.

Last week I watched an expert discussion on a European TV channel where one economist said working will be voluntary for many in the near future, we just need to find ways that all can have a living. He suggested that governments around the world look into this and act now and introduce some kind of “Robot Tax” to finance social programmes, so business owners won’t be the only ones who profit from a changing world.

One of the parables Jesus told 2,000 years ago could actually become a model how less work could be shared and paid fairly. It is The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-15 (NIV).

It is about an owner of a vineyard who needs day workers to bring in the harvest. He hires in the morning and agrees to pay the usual day worker wages of one denarius, enough to support your family. However, as the day goes on he realises he might need more workers and he continues to hire again and again even until one hour before the work day ends.

In the evening he pays the last workers first and gives them one denarius, which makes the others hope they may get more, but all of them get the one denarius as it was agreed on before. The owner just makes sure everybody can go home with sufficient income.

While the parable is about God’s grace that he can grant to all as He pleases (the last will be first and the first will be last), it also could become a model for a changing work world.

In this model, fair would not necessarily mean you get paid according to the amount or quality of your work, but fair is when everybody gets what is needed. Utopia? Maybe.

However, we need a lot of ideas on how to deal with AI in the workplace to protect and modify our society. This is not just an economic issue, it is an ethical one.

I guess churches, sociologists, unions, economists, business leaders, media makers and governments need to discuss these issues from many different angles before we face problems we can only react to.

Many of those changes can be blessings and may help with many issues, as we have declining populations as well. It actually is a topic worth praying about and asking God for wisdom how to move forward.

As a Christian I believe we are not just individuals who have to fight for ourselves, we are like one body with many different members, and for the sake of the body we can take care of all the members, because we all will live in the society we create, and we want one where we can feel safe, useful and cared for.

• Karsten Decker was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary United Methodist Church in Smith’s