What Kind of Shortage?

Karl Marx called the Christian faith the “opiate of the people.” By that he meant Christian oppressors used the promise of heaven to keep the workers in their place, content with their lot knowing one day they would be rewarded. This works if one pulls certain verses out of the Bible and if one is able to convince the workers that service to the oppressor equals heavenly reward.

William Barclay expresses astonishment that the Christian religion could be called such a thing because he says there is no ancient book as concerned with social justice as the Bible. Far from being astonished, I think it fair to say one of the cornerstones of capitalism run amok is keeping the workers in their place.

As matter of fact, our text for today is disturbingly relevant to current economic realities. In a sentence, today’s lesson is relating James' warning about economic injustice to the labor shortage/pay shortage debate.

Examine the text.

The ultimate worthlessness of material things.

“Come now,” James says. “C’mon, man.”

Weep: Cry out loud, the emphasis is on the noise.

Wail: The KJV has it right when it translates the word howl. Barclay says it is the shrieks of the damned.

Scholars identify three sources of wealth in the ancient world:

Crops which rot.

Clothes which moths can destroy.

Precious metals which do not really rust but cannot buy one’s way out of judgment.

In the day of judgment, the rich shall be mocked by their wealth.

How James said the rich got rich.

Daily bread might have been a matter of trust for Jesus, but for most it was a harsh economic reality.

Most people in Jesus’ day were day laborers, a reality the Bible recognized.

To withhold a laborer’s pay was to deny them food for the next day.

Deuteronomy 24:14–15 LEB

14 “You shall not exploit a hired worker, who is needy and poor, from among your fellow men or from among your aliens who are in your land and in your towns. 15 On his day you shall give his wage, and the sun shall not go down, because he is poor and his life depends on it; do this so that he does not cry out against you to Yahweh, and you incur guilt.

Leviticus 19:13 LEB

13 “ ‘You shall not exploit your neighbor, and you shall not rob him; a hired worker’s wage you shall not withhold overnight until morning.

Jeremiah 22:13 LEB

13 Woe to the one who builds his house without righteousness, and his upper rooms without justice. His fellow countryman, he works for nothing, and he does not give to him his wages.

Malachi 3:5 LEB

5 “Then I will approach you for judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers, and against those who swear falsely, and against the oppressors of the hired worker with his wages, the widow and the orphan, and the abusers of the alien, and yet do not fear me,” says Yahweh of hosts.

While the Bible recognized and regulated this system of labor, it called for fair wages.

1 Timothy 5:18 LEB

18 For the scripture says, “You must not muzzle an ox while it is threshing,” and “The worker is worthy of his wages.”

These wealthy had gamed the system to make themselves rich; something the Bible thoroughly condemns.

Amos 3:10 NIV84

10 “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “who hoard plunder and loot in their fortresses.”

Amos 5:11 LEB

11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor and you take a grain tax from them, you built houses of dressed stone, but you will not live in them. You built vineyards of delightfulness, but you will not drink their wine.

Amos 8:4–7 LEB

4 Hear this, those who trample on the poor and who annihilate the afflicted of the land, 5 saying, “When will the new moon be over, so that we can sell grain? And the Sabbath, so that we can open the grain bins, that we can make the ephah small and make the shekel large, and can practice deceit with a set of scales of deceit? 6 That we can buy the powerless with silver and the poor for the sake of a pair of sandals, and we can sell the waste of the grain?” 7 Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds!

Isaiah 5:8 LEB

8 Ah! Those who join house with house, they join field together with field until there is no place and you are caused to dwell alone in the midst of the land.

Luke 6:24–25 LEB

24 “But woe to you who are rich, because you have received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are satisfied now, because you will be hungry. Woe, you who laugh now, because you will mourn and weep.

We can add to this the story of the rich young ruler and the parables of the rich man and Lazarus and the men with more crops than his barns would hold.

The cries of the harvesters and the withheld wages are similar to the cries of a dying animal.

Luxury and self-indulgence are indicative not just of wealth but of obscene wealth, all “earned” off the backs of countless day-laborers.

Ironically, James says, they have fattened themselves for slaughter like a pig eating in ignorance of its fate (although James wouldn’t have had a pig in mind. :-) )

People had died as a result of the economic justice these rich folk had perpetuated.

Relating the text to today’s economic issues.

The day-laborer system was intended to keep employees dependent on oppressive employers, much like the minimum wage today.

The minimum wage was last increased in 2008; what the dollar will buy since 2008 is 21% less now than then.

The tipped minimum wage has stayed the same, $2.13, for 30 years.

Employers are allowed to pay you the tipped minimum if you earn $30 a month in tips.

Theoretically, management must make up the difference between tipped minimum + tips and the federal minimum wage.

Also supposedly, tips belong to the server, but management often divides a server’s tips with other staff who are paid at least one minimum wage.

We talked to one server in Covington who has to pay other staff 10% of her sales. That means if she has a party with a check of $100 that tips $5 she has to pay the other $5 out of her own pocket.

If the minimum wage were linked to economic productivity, some economist say the federal minimum would be closer to $26.

Now we turn to something called the living wage.

MIT has a living wage calculator. A single parent in Butts County with one child to pay for food, housing, insurance, child care and the cost of buying and maintaining a vehicle would need to make $39,000 a year after taxes with no other expenses.

Both housing and medical costs for Butts County are more than what the model shows; child care and transportation might be less.

The current package in Congress seeks to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. If our fictional single parent were to make that today, his or her gross pay would be a little over $31K a year.

Before you start saying that’s just not possible consider the following:

Jeff Bezos... earns $ 2,489 per second, $ 149,354 per minute, and $ 8,961,187 per hour.

While Jeff Bezos’ case is extravagant, it is not unique. No major corporation’s upper and mid-level employees and stockholders are subsisting. They are doing better than well while many of their employees, including the ones making $15 an hour, often have to choose between food and medicine.

Why do you think American manufacturing went overseas?

Yes, but what about the poor small businessperson? Surely James has nothing to say to them.

Why does a person start a business?

Because a person wants to make a good living.

So, is the small businessperson okay with God if they make that good living off the backs of employees who can’t afford to live?

Any economic system where wealth is concentrated in the hands off a few while the many cannot afford even the necessities of life is doomed either to collapse or be kept alive though totalitarianism.

This is the lesson of history.

If we believe in the hope of heaven, we must of necessity believe also in the terror or judgment ad those who profit from such a system will be judged.

This is because while some are fattening themselves for the slaughter, they are slaughtering others through deprivation.

If wealth cannot keep one safe from a simple virus, what can it do in the face of God’s judgment.

As with any Bible lesson, this one should make us ask what it demands of us.

I think it should cause us to develop a sense of compassion. We should do the math and see why people make one choice over another.

A friend of mine used to believe people who were unemployed were just lazy and then his sons graduated from UK and could not find work.

We need to face the truth about our economic system.

It is broken and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is increasing rapidly.

The progressive Dems are trying to push through a bill to expand Medicare to include hearing, vision and dental. Joe Manchin points out that Medicare will be broke in 2026 and perhaps we should fix that first.

I think COM is already a sharing and caring bunch but we need to pick some battles and fight them.

We need to make some hard choices, and they are hard, about our own materialism because that is what drives this oppressive economy.