..."A diverse, spirit-growing, justice-seeking community"   PAST SERMONS "Divisions of Labor" September 1, 2002 Rev. Lynn Thomas Strauss, associate minister at River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda, MD "There is no way to pretend to be a waitress: the food either gets to the table or not." -- Barbara Ehrenreich, from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Food is the bottom line when considering issues of class, money, labor, fair wages, and the complexities of capitalism and globalization. Who eats? is always a focusing question. When we eat in a resturant we participate in a division of labor. With the money we have earned by our own labors, we partake of the work of other peoples' hands. The server who brings the food to the table, the cook, the dishwasher, the manager, the truck driver, the farm-worker, the grower... unless we are eating from our own garden, every meal we eat, relies on a division of labor -- on the work of others. I love to eat out... and I love to be served. I work hard myself and when I'm very tired, and very hungry, I like to be waited on, and I like the food to arrive fast and hot. I'm lucky. I can afford good resturants. Or I can shop at Trader Joe's or Fresh Fields, though I'm most comfortable at Magruders. When I buy groceries, I can choose from an incredible array of fruits and vegetables, fish and meats, cheeses and breads. It is absolutely amazing, how much choice we are confronted with in the grocery stores today. I confess it isn't often that I stop and think of all the workers that have made it possible for me to shop and eat with such privilege. Sometimes I think I deserve it because I work hard. Sometimes I think I deserve it because I didn't always get enough to eat as a child. Sometimes I think I deserve it because when I was young I worked as a waitress and as a grocery store clerk. And sometimes, very rarely, I admit that it is much more than I deserve. That I eat at a level that is far beyond what I need. That I eat well because many workers, who I will never know have put in long underpaid hours. When I was living and serving as a minister in Knoxville, Tennessee, it was common to see people, families, co-workers, couples on a date, and in resturants, it was common to see them join hands and say a prayer before the meal. Sometimes I remember to close my eyes and give thanks before eating. I wish that it was acceptable in UU circles to be openly grateful for our many blessings. The premise of my message this morning rests on three ideas: First, We are all rich. Second, We are all poor. Third, We are all workers. The Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote, "All material riches belong in common to the whole human race." All material riches belong to all of us... here and around the world... to all of us. How often we lose sight of this simple wisdom. Property and possessions and competitive claims both righteous and false have blurred the truth -- that the world's resources belong to all of humanity. How the riches of the land are distributed has always been of concern to religious communities. Preferential option for the poor has long been a principle lifted up by progressive religious people. Suspicion of wealth and the responsibilities of privilege are as old as the biblical injunction about the rich man and the eye of the needle. Though it may be a place to start; giving thanks for the waitress, the cook, the truck driver, the farm-worker is not enough. If material riches belong to the whole human race, then what can be done to make distribution and access more fair. How have we become so divided? Why have we let our very labor divide us? Why do we ignore the struggle of low paid workers? Why do we try to insulate ourselves against seeing the starving person on the street corner, or remembering every night , the child who is going to bed hungry? Why do we intellectualize the pain of immigrant people, newly arrived and trying to make it in America? It's not as if we lack familiarity with their struggles. Many of us have been there, or are there still, or have relatives who are very much there. Why do we deny our essential unity with one another? Why do we accept the painful boundaries of class. Why do we let the kind of labor we do divide us? For we are all rich. We are all poor. We are all workers. Let me tell a bit of my own story. I have tremendous ambivalence about work and money, about class and privilege. About earning, and saving and sharing what I earn. I have so much more than I ever expected to have. My husband and I have worked hard all our lives. We have raised four children, three are through college, one is just beginning. I have so much more than I ever expected to have. Yet, I have trouble giving my hard earned wages away. I don't take my comfortable excess for granted. I feel I could lose it all tomorrow. But that doesn't scare me, cause I know I can get along on very little. That I have resources of spirit that would allow me to begin again. I have blessings of good health, I'm lucky enough to have a college degree, but, I also type, and I can wait tables, and I have enough self-esteem to get me through. But I know I may be kidding myself. Class matters and informs our perspective on these matters. Let me tell you about my blue collar roots, about how I am the only one of my family of origin to go to college, and it was city college and I paid my own way. Let me tell you about how my father was a member of the teamsters when he was driving a truck in Chicago, and how he got cheated by the musicians union back in the 60's. And had to retire early cause the bottom fell out of the entertainment business in the 70's. Let me tell you how my sister works for Land's End taking phone orders in a post-modern company town in Wisconsin. And how my brother-in-law is trying to organize a union in the small cheese factory where he works. Let me tell you about my brother, the salesman, and how he was let go of his last two jobs with no notice. Let me tell you about the years I was a public school teacher in Chicago and helped organize a boycott against our inner-city principal, and how the teacher's union sent someone to train me in organizing skills. I am a union supporter, but I have always been bothered by how much the union movement relied on divisions. The workers of the world ought to unite, but the managers, the owners, because of horribly violent and oppressive actions were always seen as the evil "other"... not as part of the brotherhood -- or even as part of the same human family. Demonizing one's "enemies" is never a road toward reconciliation. Finding ways to affirm that we are all connected and interdependent might serve us better. Why do we let the kind of labor we do divide us? For those of us who have much. Especially if we have more than we ever expected, it becomes difficult to be honest about it. We hide our wealth of resources even from ourselves. We pretend we are poorer than we are. Or we succumb to the pressures of consumerism, and though we have more than enough to meet even extravagent needs, we go into debt buying things that we most certainly do not need. But the culture convinces us otherwise. So, though we could be quite comfortable, we end up in debt. I believe we are all rich, we are all poor, we are all workers. Why then do we let our labor divide us? Another reason is that we are afraid. We doubt our own worth as a worker. We feel that our inadequacies may one day be discovered and we'll be out of a job. We fear that we will lose everything in some catastrophic event, either personal or global. The messages of the culture from insurance companies, to stock market analysis, to weather reports raise our anxiety about the security of our family. We fear we won't be able to keep food on the table. We have become a fearful, anxiety-ridden culture. We have lost track of our values, our priorities, what it is we really need. And we have come to think of ourselves as powerless, as pawns or victims of the system. This is why I think it's so important to acknowledge our essential unity. We are all rich. We are all poor. We are all workers. It is our values that are confused. And it is up to us to sort them out and lead toward a more just understanding of work and money and security. It is up to us to always consider the questions; who eats? Why is the labor of the waitress who serves me, valued less than my services as a minister? Why don't I tip more generously? Who made up these rules about tipping anyway? Shouldn't he or she simply be paid a living wage? Imagine what would happen if all of us privileged people who employ housekeepers and gardeners and handymen paid them much much more. Wouldn't that be a revolution? If we acknowledge our interdependence, if we used our personal and collective financial power to effect change in a system that gives now preference to the wealthy. What if all Unitarian Universalists agreed to do just that? I know, it's a Band-Aid, not a systemic solution, but stay with the idea for a moment. What if, we all began to tip and to pay a lot more for services rendered... and what if we went public about it? Thousands and thousands of UU's paying higher wages to those we hire in our homes and in our churches. What a debate might ensue! We might stop and really think about how much we have, how much we pay and how much we rely on low paid workers. If we paid more fairly, we'd also be witnessing to how valuable those services are. And to what is possible, if a majority of us followed our conscience. If we want a more equitable distribution of wealth, why not start by distributing our own? It is too easy to look to the government, or the market, or the politicians or the corporate executives to blame, and to carry the burden of responsibility for fixing things. There is much we can do if we look honestly at the questions, "Who eats?" Confucius writing in the Analects wrote, "To centralize wealth is to disperse the people; to distribute wealth is to collect the people." We are all rich. Whatever we earn, even in this precarious stock market, we are all rich. If not rich in dollars, then rich in possessions, if not rich in possessions, then rich in education, if not rich in education, then rich in leisure, if not rich in leisure, then rich in support structures, if not rich in support, then rich in personal resources, if not rich in personal ways, then rich in choices, if not rich in choices, then rich in simple pleasures of life. If you do not know yourself to be rich, then you are probably missing something. You are probably denying a truth about your life. When I say we are all rich, I do not mean we all have a lot of money. Or a own a lot of property. But I think we are all in possession of valuable resources. Our minds, our strength, our commitment, our character, our imagination, our energy. If we realized how rich we were, we might be more willing to share what we have, whatever it is. And I believe we are all poor. The poorest among us right now are the corporate executives caught in the scandals of greed and the baseball players and managers caught in an embarrassment of riches. We are all poor in spirit when we fail to share what we have. We are all the poorer for it when we compete and accumulate and possess more than a fair share. We are all poor on the inside when we put inordinate value on what is on the outside. The myth that everyone can become rich through hard work, has done tremendous harm. For it assumes that those who are not rich, are simply not working hard enough. And the myth keeps escalating. The bar keeps rising. It's used to be people dreamed of owning their own small business, now there are so many millionaires, that people actually expect to become a millionaire. I think all progressive people ought to support labor. All laborers. For we are all workers -- none more worthy than another -- we all do what we can, offer our skill, our unique talent. September 11th reminded us of the value of those who serve the public, those labors we take for granted. We all work hard and therefore should support one another. Supporting a living wage is most certainly one way. Supporting increases in the minimum wage is another way. Exercising our right to vote, and carefully considering where candidates stand on issues related to labor and class division is a way to support labor. Thinking carefully about the effects of globalization on the workers and supporting progressive policies is another way. We are all poor in spirit when we do nothing to stand on the side of the low wage, workers. When we fail to understand and act on a preferential option for the poor and oppressed workers around the globe. We forget so easily, our essential unity as human beings. We forget, so easily, how to share. An ancient Christian story reminds us. It's been told many times by many people. I heard it once something like this: It had been a long warm day. The disciples had been walking and greeting people and teaching for hours. It was getting late. They were ready to find a quiet place to settle down and grab a bite to eat. They were hoping Jesus would feel the same. They could see he was tired, too. Jesus and the disciples were grieving and they wanted to be alone, but the crowd would not give them rest. More and more people gathered. They just wanted sight of him. To hear his voice. To touch him. One of the disciples, tired and hungry, suggested that Jesus send the crowd away to go and get their own food. For they only had a little food, each disciple a small ration, hidden away and it would never be enough. But Jesus told the disciples to feed the crowd. And he had a plan. First he asked that all the food that anyone had brought with them be collected and brought to him. Each disciple went into the crowd with a basket, first they contributed from their own rations and then collected what the people had brought. Not very much was collected -- only five loaves of bread and two fishes. But Jesus wasn't worried. He asked the crowd to gather in groups and sit on the grass. And when all were seated an amazing thing happened -- the atmosphere changed completely. There had been a sense of fear and anxiety in the crowd -- hungry people pushing and shoving and being rude to one another. But once they sat down you could feel the relief, it didn't seem so crowded, people could really see each other and they began to talk and help one another. After a while people began to remember their hunger and how little food there was. Then Jesus spoke he asked them to bow their heads and pray. I don't know what his words were, but he spoke with gratitude. He offered a prayer of Thanksgiving... for the five loaves and the two fishes. A prayer of Thanksgiving. No petition. No prayer for abundance. No prayer for peace in the hungry crowd. Just Thanksgiving. Gratitude. Jesus had faith that they would have enough. He believed that by sitting together and hearing one another's stories, feeling the unity of their humanity, he believed they would create a feast. Tears touched cheeks and small hints of smiles crossed their faces as they sat in the radiance of so great a faith. A silence followed and people searched their hearts... and felt the hunger of the one next to them in their small circle... and they began emptying their pockets and layed fruit and meat in the basket alongside the bread and fish. Soon the basket was piled high. More food than they would ever need. People began to serve one another and all were soon fed. The sun went down and the crowds returned home. Later, the disciples learned that 5,000 people had been there that day. That was a day that changed them all. A simple prayer of gratitude had led them to share all that they had. A miracle of fellowship, of solidarity had occurred. And all had eaten. This is the kind of ordinary miracle that is possible if we act on the deep knowledge that we are all rich, we are all poor, we are all workers. This is the kind of ordinary miracle that can happen... if we all remember to ask, "Who Eats?" So may it be. Amen.