Ephesians 1:3-14
Just
this week the news reported that North Carolina now has the harshest policy for
helping the unemployed. A couple
hundred dollars a week for twelve weeks is all that the state is willing to do
to help hardworking people hold on while they try to find a job. Cutting back on money that would all
flow directly back into the economy makes little sense. And as you have heard me say before,
penalizing people who lost their jobs because of the immoral, criminal acts of
others who destroyed the economy goes against any notions of justice. It raises a question in our minds about
how people value the lives of other people.
What if a stranger were to approach you in this room
of people and point out someone, then ask you, “How much does he cost?” or
“What is his price?” Certainly it
is not a question you are used to hearing. After the initial shock, it would probably be an offensive
question. Buying and selling
Africans and their descendents remains close at hand in cultural memory in this
land.
Moreover,
it seems to our sensibilities a misguided question, a question that
transgresses our categories of reasoning.
We are well-schooled in markets and commerce, but not everything is
appropriate to a market. For us,
talking about costs or prices is a category mistake when assigned to people.
On the
other hand, if we take the question out of this hypothetical situation and ask
it differently, if we change the context around, if we do some critical
analysis of events in our world, we might uncover ways in which this kind of
question is being asked every day.
For
instance, the debate about making sure everyone has access to good health care
is one way of asking what is the worth of a person. Both of the major political parties are unwilling to support
the most efficient way to provide health care, a single-payer plan for
universal health care, because they know that funding it would entail changing
how we put money into the health care system. Instead of paying premiums to private companies, the money
would flow through a single system by means of taxes.
Ooooh, that dirty word taxes gets people all stirred
up. When someone starts talking
about taxes these days, people start feeling like they are getting their
pockets picked. Don’t bother to
explain that most be able to save money by using a single-payer system rather
than making their own private payments to for-profit insurance companies or
so-called non-profit companies knee-deep in cash that looks to anyone else like
big profits. Somehow the idea of
taxes to make sure that no one goes without health care gets people upset. Apparently, many people think that a
whole lot of sick people out here just aren’t worth the money it would take for
them to see a doctor or get medication.
I recognize that many people in Durham, and here in Mt. Level, work in the medical profession. I am not trying to make you out to be the devils in this story. What I am talking about are vast structures, powerful systems that enfold patients and medical professionals both. Strong and powerful interests and lobbies are more concerned about
controlling the clinics and machinery of health care than making sure there is
justice in how these resources get used.
Controlling the scanners and beds is worth more to them than the people
whom those assets can help. So the
perspective of both political parties and the rich donors to whom they listen
seems to be that a person is not worth the taxes it would take to provide
universal health care.
Any of you
who have been through a difficult illness and watched the bills come in would
know that health care currently calls for no small amount of money. After my beloved Everly spent over a month in the hospital
last year, we started seeing stacks of bills from hospitals, clinics, doctors,
and labs, and quite a few of them ran as high as five figures before the
decimal point. In the face of
winning or losing the battle for Everly’s life, I think you understand that all
of those bills together don’t even approach the value of her life. On the other hand, if we did not have
the insurance we have, one or more of those bills might have brought our
finances to ruin. Thanks to God’s
provision, I don’t have to stand here and beg for help. We’ve managed to keep up with our bills
because we are blessed with jobs that have insurance coverage. For the millions of other people
without health insurance now, an operation or a hospital stay may be all it
takes for them to go broke, to lose their homes, or to fall into endless
debt. They may rightly conclude
that their lives, their futures, have been sold out from under them.
A news
story stirred in my guts late last summer and pushed me toward asking today’s
question, “What is a person worth?”.
It is a story out of South Africa.
It’s a complicated story about the economic unrest in a land where
masses are unemployed and the gap between rich and poor is vast. But it is also a story that echoes back
to the harsh days of apartheid when mineworkers were fuel and fodder for a
violent, industrial machine. At
the largest platinum mine in the world, workers began to strike for better
pay. They make between $450 and
$650 a month, which is a wage many other unemployed workers would love to
have. You and I know it would be a
struggle to live on that amount. A
new, independent union is asking for $1200 a month. It’s a big raise they want. None of us would be surprised that the management does not
want to give the raise. As the
stakes began to rise, people on all sides of the disagreement began to
escalate. Management threatened
mass firings. Workers threatened
larger and longer strikes. No
doubt some people on either side showed some poor judgment and provocative
behavior. But what happened last
summer harkened back to the struggles of organized laborers in South Africa
under apartheid, of auto workers demanding better conditions and wages Detroit,
of millworkers trying to gain recognition and justice in Gastonia, and people
standing up for their worth in so many places. Armed police were ready for action. The conflict heated up. And in a few moments, 34 more
mineworkers lay dead. During a
week of unrest and violence some police had also lost their lives.
Why were people dying? The mining company was falling behind the goals their
management had set for production.
Every day they did not run their mines at full capacity, they lost
profits for their shareholders.
Police, also paid a worker’s wage, were brought in to risk their lives
for the company’s production goals, and in the process the mineworkers’ lives
were also put at risk. Police and
miners died for the sake of trying to get the mines back up to production. Mining production was traded for the
lives of forty-plus miners and police officers. Killing workers seems thrifty when for every job there are
hundreds more applicants who would work for less. The struggle for jobs in South Africa is so great that
competing unions get pitted against one another in these mining struggles,
leading to misdirected violence between groups of the disenfranchised. Death on the front lines of union
organizing is not so remote in US history, either. Is South Africa’s tragedy reminding us of the path that the
current world economy is taking us down?
Will US employers soon be willing to trade the lives of their workers
for profits in the same way?
In Mississippi, at the same time that these events
were unfolding in South Africa, autoworkers at the Nissan plant were laying the
groundwork to start a union.
Management threatened to close the plant if they unionize. Although the same Nissan company
operates with union contracts in many of its plants in other countries, they
tell their employees in Mississippi that their lives are worth just so
much. If it means the hard work of
their Mississippi workers would cost them a few cents more, then they would
rather shut down their plant and stop making all those cars and all that
money. They would rather go find
other desperate and beaten down people who won’t cost them so much, who aren’t
worth much. With automobile
companies raking in the profits, an experienced, loyal worker is still not
worth enough to have the company sit down at the table and arrive at an
agreement fair to all parties.
The Mississippi and South Africa stories remind me
of a pair of texts in Isaiah.
Chapter 58 echoes chapter 1.
The prophet proclaims that God is not happy with the show he is seeing,
a showiness of piety and outward worship.
The wealthy, who are putting on the show, are complaining that they have
fasted but God did not give them what they wanted. Isaiah speaks in the words of these unfaithful oppressors when he says, “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Then he gives them God's reply,
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,Oppressing workers, treating them violently—this was how the wealthy employers of Isaiah’s day were behaving. But we remember also from the first chapter of Isaiah that God offered a path to resolution of their sins for these people abusing their brothers and sisters. The KJV says, “Come, let us reason together.” The NRSV puts it more bluntly, “Come, let’s argue it out.” Sitting at the table, working out a path of mutual interest is what God would have us do. A solution to oppression is one that will be mutually agreeable to all parties and in accordance with the justice of God. Without it, all the dancing and shouting and fasting and praising turns out to be bad acting that makes God sick and angry with looking at us. God made us all, every one of us, because of love. God loves every person. God counts each one of us as good, as valuable, as worth being heard, being cared for, and being able to share in the bounty of this world. Reasoning that through in a way to be fair to everyone is what God expects. A person is worth that kind of effort.
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
"The Worth of a Person" is continued in Part 2, the next post.
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