Faith without Workers is Dead!

Joerg Rieger

August 6, 2021

James 2:1-10, (11-13), 14-17

“Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead,” says James. But what kind of faith would have no works? It is well known that there are forms of religion, which are all talk and no action, as James notes in this passage. This is an age-old problem that does not seem to go away, and because it is quite common it gives all of religion a bad rap.

But Labor Day reminds me of another example of faith without works in the world of the economy, where many assume that wealth is best built in opposition to work. In this case, all that matters seems to be the faith of economic leaders, sometimes called their “vision,” which is realized at the expense of people actually doing the work. In this mindset, it looks like a corporation like Amazon was built by an individual like Jeff Bezos, who is now the richest person in the world. At the same time, the working conditions at Amazon were miserable even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon workers are not even afforded the basic human right to organize and to pursue their causes.

Paraphrasing James, we might say not only that faith without works is dead, but that faith without workers is dead as well. Economic visions that are not developed with the benefit of working people in mind are not only dead—they turn out to be harmful, just as religious faith without works has often proven to be destructive. In fact, in the case of Amazon and corporations like it, the lack of concern for workers has turned deadly, endangering the lives of those whom we have come to recognize as essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Honoring work and workers would transform both the economy and religion. For religion, this means that faith needs to be examined in terms of what it does and does not do. Religious confessions and rituals make sense only when they inspire people to work for the common good. As James says, work inspired by faith is about loving our neighbor as ourselves. Faith that ignores this is not only dead but a problem, as it makes the world a worse rather than a better place.

For the economy, honoring work and workers means realizing that workers matter and that their work is essential because nothing ever gets done without it. Moreover, work and workers matter because they make essential contributions to the common good—the most fundamental way to love one’s neighbor—which often go unappreciated. Applauding essential workers, as happened during the pandemic, is a start. But how do we translate applause into a deeper appreciation? Even conversations about a minimum wage and a living wage are only the beginning, as the value of work is likely much greater. And recognizing the value of work also means making sure that those who do it have a voice and some influence over what they do.

Labor Day may well be one of the most important holidays of the year, if James is right that faith without work is dead. There is still too much emphasis on faith and not enough emphasis on work in the United States, not only in religion but also in the economy. Labor Day reminds us that much remains to be done, but also that much is already happening where the working majority is making itself heard and where it is being affirmed. This affects more of us than we commonly realize, as 99 percent of us have to work for a living. It is time for religious communities to join in where new visions and new faith that is not dead are emerging.

Keeping the Faith and the Fight Alive (In Memory of Richard Trumka)

Vonda McDaniel

August 6, 2021

James 2:17 “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

I remember growing up in the church that I heard at least 2 or 3 sermons a year with this scriptural basis. In my recollection, I don’t recall a single time where workers and activism were part of these lessons. Especially this week with the passing of Richard L Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO and formerly elected youngest president of United Mine Workers. His life was dedicated to improving the lives of workers. To that end he used his skills and legal training to fight in the halls of Congress and the contract table to improve the lives of workers. He definitely worked in his Catholic social teaching throughout his life.

Our God-given dignity in community means that we are to participate actively in decisions that impact our lives, rather than only passively accept decisions others make for us. People should be involved in decision-making that directly affects their work. They should also be free to determine their lives independent on particular jobs. Public policy can provide economic and other conditions that protect human freedom and dignity in relation to work. Power disparities and competing interests are present in most employment situations. Employers need competent, committed workers, but this does not necessarily presume respect for the personal lives and needs of individual workers. Individual workers depend on the organization for employment as their means of livelihood, but this does not necessarily presume respect for the organization’s interest and goals. Management and employees move toward justice as they seek cooperative ways of negotiating these interests when they conflict. Because employees often are vulnerable and lack power in such negotiations, they may need to organize in their quest for human dignity and justice. When this occurs, accurate information and fair tactics are expected of all parties involved.

Justice demands that social institutions guarantee all persons the opportunity to participate actively in economic decision-making that affects them. All workers—including undocumented, migrant, and farm workers—have the right to choose to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining.

All work, paid and unpaid, is an integral part of the believer’s response to God’s call, the call to vocation in God’s world. Good work should reflect the principles of justice on which the church’s witness is based, and is described as full, fair, participatory and sustaining. Work is an expression of our faith. Our dear departed brother President Trumka learned this lesson early and now the baton has passed to a new generation.

Vonda McDaniel is the president of the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, Nashville, and was a professional fellow of the Wendland-Cook Program in spring of 2021. She is also a member of the Wendland-Cook Leadership Council.

Claiming Our Collective Dignity and Labor in this Organizing Moment

Rev. Francisco Garcia, JR.

August 6, 2021

Mark 7:24-30

For those who have a hard time accepting the full humanity of Jesus, this is a troublesome gospel. But if we are willing to stretch our understanding of Jesus as a person who was growing in the sense of his divinely-guided yet earthly mission, and the scale and scope of this liberation work, then this passage has much to teach us. Here in this story, Jesus—ever the preacher, teacher, healer and community organizer—is organized by someone else and compelled to healing action.

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, has said that “every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.” This seems to be precisely what the Syrophoenician woman of gentile background felt and believed at a personal level. Jesus’ encounter with this woman in the coastal town of Tyre, a significant distance from his native region of Galilee where he began his ministry, is quite out of character with his overall ethic of healing, justice and compassion. Desperate to save her ailing daughter’s life, the woman approaches Jesus and begs for him to heal her daughter. In a shocking response, Jesus basically says “it’s not your time yet” on the account of her gentile background and compares the woman and her daughter to dogs who eat scraps. How can Jesus say this?

Not willing to give in to the death-dealing situation facing her daughter, the woman persists, not attacking Jesus for his response, or walking away in hopelessness, but instead offering a clever retort: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” What happens as a result of her incisive response changes the life-circumstances of her daughter and also carries deep theological implications. All of a sudden, Jesus sees and actually hears her, and following this encounter, extends his ministry more fully in and with the gentile community, seeing the radical expansiveness of God’s reign of love and justice. The Syrophoenician woman had organized Jesus and pushed him past his comfort zone, cutting through cultural, religious, ethnic, and gender boundaries, in order to plead her case.

Working people in today’s pandemic context face a number of dire challenges to their livelihood. As Gustavo Gutierrez and other liberation theologians have asserted, “poverty means death” in many circumstances, especially when the economic and political structures favor the ultra-rich. But like the Syrophoenician woman, a growing number of workers are refusing to settle for just scraps—they are actively organizing in their workplaces and neighborhoods, forming labor unions, tenants associations, cooperatives—demanding that their human dignity be fully recognized in our economy. Workers on the frontlines of exposure to COVID, from rideshare drivers to healthcare workers are fed up, and while many are walking away from their high-exposure jobs altogether, and many, like restaurant workers in Nashville, are also uniting with their co-workers and organizing for better working conditions, and winning.

This Labor Day, those of us belonging to faith communities have an opportunity to deepen our awareness and connection with our fellow congregants, neighbors, and strangers who are laboring for justice, and are refusing to settle for second-class status—they are claiming their belovedness and belonging before God and society. And when all of us who labor for a living realize that despite our differences, we share much in common in the face of a profit-driven system that can eventually leave us all fighting for our basic survival, we can organize to create the kind of solidarity that points towards an expansive and complete liberation for us all. An economy and society that centers the human dignity of all who labor is one that can more readily ensure true equity and well-being. If poverty means death, then as decarceration activist Bryan Stevenson has said, “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.” May we labor on and claim this organizing moment for justice!

Quest for a Labor Equity Day!

REv. Stephen Handy

August 6, 2021

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

King Solomon makes the claim for labor rights and righteousness. We are reminded that God created humanity out of God’s imagination, which reflects God’s image! God’s imagination is for humanity to be integrated from a framework, which includes humanity’s bookends, equity and compassion. In the presence of God, the division of rich and poor are eliminated and is seen as a belonging and beloved community. One of the ways we celebrate Labor Day is an aspirational quest for equity in job classification and financial compensation. However, maybe we should call it Labor Awareness Day and educate ourselves on the conditions of the labor movement in America. Or even better, maybe call it Labor Equity Day with the intent of planning strategic ways of working toward an equitable process and wages for all people in the marketplace.

Without an intentional dose of compassion, equity and justice in the labor market, the division of inequality becomes the order of the day and Labor Day doesn’t become a day of conscious reconciliation and reckoning, but rather a day to rest from our labors when not everyone has the opportunity to rest. Morally, King Solomon espouses that “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail.1” Harm is being done to other humans when we “reap and sow” immorally, inappropriately and unethically, but there will be a day of reckoning and reconciliation.

However, blessedness is an option and it happens when there is a spirit of generosity as a outpouring of grace in relationships. God’s agency in us is to be a people of labor consciousness and compassion. Instead of just providing for the poor, God is calling and directing us to re-examine our treatment of the poor daily and to build systems of communal equity and monetary sustainability to ensure community.

God comes to the defense and stands on behalf of the poor, vulnerable and afflicted. As economic oppressors, taking advantage of people, this behavior is incongruent with the ways of the Lord. Labor Day should be a time of reorientation and shifting the paradigm and designing a pathway to economic justice for all people. This economic pathway to justice involves disrupting the center of inequity, the corruption and deplorable behavior of people and then creating spaces of communal and economic justice.

King Solomon offers the sharing of bread with the poor as another faithful step toward solidarity, but another future step for the formation toward the beloved and belonging community. This community happens when there is a faithful focus and design efforts for an on economic justice structure, community engagement through organizing, and a willingness to challenge the current capitalistic structure that favors the privileged, wealthy and those in power. God’s alternative involves flipping the script by starting at the table of reconciliation and reparations, offering amends to the least of these.

Kwanzaa, an African American celebration of heritage, offers seven principles, but three could be a starting place to relaunch Labor Day. These three (Trinitarian) principles could create an economic movement of equity and justice in the labor market. They include: 1) Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility); 2) Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics); 3) Umoja (Unity) all grounded in Imani (Faith), the faith in God! Now go and do likewise!

Rev. Stephen Handy is the lead pastor visionary, strategist and partnership collaborator of the gospel message of Jesus Christ at McKendree United Methodist Church in Nashville, TN. He is a passionate communicator that desires to speak God’s truth so people of different cultures, experiences, neighborhoods, and all of God’s unique diversity can be reconciled through the unity in Jesus Christ. Stephen is a strong advocate of restorative justice, serving the poor and needy, and participating in life groups for spiritual formation and accountability. Stephen and Shelley are married with three children and live in the Greater Nashville area. His go-to scripture is Philippians 4:13 “I can do all through Christ who strengthens me.”

The Power of Labor and the American Assumption

Aaron Stauffer

August 6, 2021

Isaiah 35: 4-7a

Isaiah 35:4

“Say to those who are of a fearful heart,

Be strong, do not fear!”

Much of my family hails from Kansas prairies. In July, when I was able to visit them, one of the first stories that I heard was about the Frito-Lay strike. My brother-in-law told me how workers had reportedly died while working and their co-workers were prevented from stopping production: the assembly line kept on rolling, as they moved the body out of the way, and put another worker in the missing place. This was the first in a list of nine other bullet points listing out horrendous working conditions that included no-hazard pay, unsafe working conditions, and a culture of prioritizing stock-holder profits over a fair wage. Other workers told reporters of marathon 12-hour shifts, 7 days a-week. I’ve never been the to the Topeka Frito-Lay plant, but I can imagine that such back-breaking work has a heavy toll on the workers’ bodies—they must often be aching, tired, worn-out. So, as one employee said, workers went on strike because management failed to pay attention to the voice and bodies of workers. These workers have been pressed down, silenced, deemed replaceable, and marginalized. But instead of trembling, they claimed their own agency. They have done what the prophet Isaiah encourages us to do: Be strong, do not fear!

Such biblical encouragement of strength is always easier read and spoken about than done. Our world is much more familiar with the first terms of Isaiah’s verses than the second. We are more often blind, deaf, lame, and speechless. What the reality of the harsh working conditions at the Frito-Lay plant teach us is that our world has little regard for the body and labor of everyday working people.

The general lack of concern for everyday working people and working people’s bodies, in part, may be due to what W.E.B. Du Bois called the “American Assumption” in his masterpiece work Black Reconstruction: that is, the “American Assumption” is idea that “wealth is mainly the result of its owner’s effort and that any average worker” can gain the white picket fence in the nice part of town (Black Reconstruction, 182-183). The “American Assumption,” in turn, depends upon the myth of American individualism—that is, the myth that any of us can be self-creating and self-sustaining. All of us come from communities that nurtured and educated us. All wealth creation—and especially the enormous wealth of today’s ultra-weathly—is possible only because of the labor of everyday working people. Consider the success of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. His wealth is possible only because the federal government created the Internet, the United States Postal Service delivers Amazon packages across federal interstates and U.S. highways that the American people have funded through their taxes. The very mediums that make Amazon’s business possible are funded by taxpayers. And yet, despite the reality that we are all deeply indebted to each other—that no person is an island— the “American Assumption” and the myth of individualism are still deeply held today.

Despite what we are unable to perceive and grasp—despite the blindness that Isaiah himself saw in his own time—he proclaims a message of hope. “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.” Isaiah’s message embraces the world’s brokenness, the reality of human frailty, and from this standpoint encourages agency. God is a god who welcomes us into relationships of agency as working and struggling people who are weak from the world. God’s message is one of encouragement and hope to those who are broken down by economic and political structures that silence and marginalize. It is a message of encouragement to rise up and claim our agency as humans and co-laborers with God in bringing about God’s cooperative commonwealth.

We need such messages of hope. But we also need evidence that such hope bears fruit. For the Frito-Lay workers in Topeka, their fight bore good fruit: a day of rest, a more just wage, and a larger say over their working conditions. In economic and political conditions that often dismiss our work and health, Isaiah’s message speaks of a God who transforms those conditions into just and loving relationships. Our call is to take up our roles in bringing about this cooperative commonwealth.

The Partnership of Worship and Labor

John Aden

August 6, 2021

Psalm 146

“Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too!” An iconic song and slogan of the women’s suffrage and labor rights movements of the twentieth century, “Bread and Roses” is a reminder that dignity is a matter of both labor and leisure, sustenance and beauty. A close analogy might be found in the perceived tension between justice work and worship in the Church. These two elements of the Church’s mission cannot be played off against one another, nor will one suffice without the other. Psalm 146 strikes this balance well. Many of us are rightly drawn to the “roses” of Christian life: heartfelt words of praise, beautiful visual art, soaring voices singing in unity. It would be hard to imagine a life of faith without these elements of Sunday worship. But to “praise the LORD, O my soul” (v. 1) without joining God in the work of “[executing] justice for the oppressed” (v. 7) is a hollow pretense of worship. On the other hand, labor and faith leaders are all too aware of the threat that burnout poses when activism is not balanced and informed by other modes of communal life, including worship and fellowship.

Psalm 146 is nothing short of prophetic on this Labor Day. Faith in the mortal “princes” (v. 3) of our time has not brought us very far. While billions of essential workers around the world have put their health at risk just to make ends meet during the COVID crisis, the infinitesimal population of U.S. billionaires added a combined $1.76 trillion to their wealth in the first 16 months of the pandemic. This wealth did not emerge ex nihilo; it was built on the labor of workers struggling for bread alone, as the roses of their productivity (and sometimes their even bread!) were siphoned up to a small minority at the top. One might reimagine Psalm 146:3 to read, “Do not put your trust in CEOs, in capitalists, in whom there is no help.”

And yet, in this situation of pandemic and economic injustice, we still praise a God who is nothing like the “princes” or CEOs of our world. The psalm tells of a God “who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry… [who] lifts up those who are bowed down” (v. 7-8)—in other words, a God who sides with workers and brings their oppressors to ruin (v. 9). What’s crucial about these divine actions is that they provide the ground for dignity and agency. For workers, being lifted up means more than receiving charity from the outside or being applauded for serving on the front line of a pandemic. True dignity and agency come about when workers have greater ownership and democratic control over their labor, as historical and contemporary movements of economic cooperation have long understood. Partnerships between faith and labor are critical for ensuring that the dignity of labor becomes a reality rather than a platitude, and with greater support from faith communities, things may have turned out differently in the recent Amazon union campaign in Bessemer, for example.

Faith today is a “both/and” way of life: bread and roses. When we sing songs of praise to the Lord, we are called beyond the moment of worship into deep solidarity with workers—a group that includes the majority of people in our pews each week. And this partnership of faith and labor goes both ways: when churches support the labor movement, people of faith may begin to see with clearer eyes a God who upholds the dignity of all who labor.

John Aden is a recent M.Div. graduate at Vanderbilt Divinity School, currently attending Yale Divinity School and working on program development with the Wendland-Cook Program.