Tag Archives: Economic Justice

Dehumanizing Humans

Lent

March 7, 2023

Scripture Reading: Exodus 17:1-7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

The problem with slavery is that it is designed to rob people of self-sufficiency. The slave spends their life trying to survive under the oversight of a master puppeteer pulling their strings until they submit to their master’s desire. I believe that innately humans know there is something very wrong with that, but if it is the only thing slaves know from birth, it is very hard to transition to be the person they were created to be. The exiles from Egypt were ready to return to slavery (Numbers 14:1–4) when they first faced self-determination.

While we may not have actual slavery in America, we do have a caste system that may be as bad, whereby people must learn and practice their place or suffer the consequences. For example, we cannot solve our “border problem” because it is financially more rewarding for businesses to “hire”  undocumented refugees fleeing danger. These businesses escape paying a minimum wage, providing workers comp, and providing Social Security or Medicare benefits for the undocumented. Our policing of such work practices is not directed at the businesses as much as at the undocumented. Fines placed on businesses are the cost of doing business if they get caught. The undocumented are deported back to face again the challenges they tried to escape.  I have wondered how quickly this problem would be solved if the business owners went to jail for their illegal acts and the undocumented were allowed to apply for legal entrance. If they qualified, they would be allowed to stay and work. There is a shortage of workers in some areas that immigrants could fill. The other people who are impacted by this system are US citizens who do the type of work for which the undocumented are being used but are not hired because they would cost more.

Prayer: Lord, help us see beyond our culturally judgmental viewpoints and recognize the potential in all people. Amen.

*For more insight into this situation, read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Economic Justice

Eastertide

May 26, 2022

Scripture Reading:

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. –Revelation 22:12-14

I just finished writing a report on the minimum wage including how out of date it is to the cost of living. Thus, reading the first verse above about paying people according to their work struck a chord with me and it was not harmonious. In the USA women still make 20% less than men doing the same work. Work generally identified as women’s work is routinely cast with lower wages than men are paid for like work. And what does the color of one’s skin have to do with anything related to the work one does?

What that scripture says to me is that God is a God of justice and God expects us to be people of justice. The work of the person who cleans the surgical theater is as important in keeping the patient alive as the surgeon’s skill. My paternal grandfather died from what was called blood poisoning at the time, we now call it sepsis. He developed it because the scalpel used by the doctor to lance a boil had not been properly sterilized. What determines the worth of each person’s work? How do we measure economic justice? When Jesus said the poor will always be with us (Matthew 26:11), I think he just recognized the reality that incomes always have varied, which continued to his time on earth. I somehow do not think, Jesus had in mind the current state of the USA economy where CEO compensation has grown 940% since 1978. Typical worker compensation has risen only 12% during that time (2018). (https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/)

Prayer: Lord, show us how we can do justice in a world that values wealth more than people. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.