By Pastor Marcia Sietstra

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Psalm 1

Luke 6:17-26

2/15/04

This is one of those Gospel texts that help us understand why Jesus got himself killed. It’s called the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s version of what is called the Sermon on the Mount by Matthew. The gospel writers differ in the details about these lists of sayings attributed to Jesus. That’s not surprising because the gospel writers wrote decades after Jesus’ died, so they were relying on collections of the memorized words of Jesus.

We’re more familiar, and more comfortable with Matthew’s version, which is more spiritualized and goes like this: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.’ These words could apply to any of us, who at one time or another, feel poor in spirit. But Luke, who is always an advocate of the poor, puts Jesus’ words in a different light. He says ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled’ Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God.’

Luke isn’t talking about being spiritually filled, he means real poverty and real hunger that is alleviated with real food. Luke, throughout his gospel, saw Jesus as a social prophet who was talking about economics, politics, and society. Luke consistently describes the Kingdom of God to mean what life on earth would be like if God were king and the rulers of this world were not it would mean enough food to go around, says Luke.

Well, so far, we can agree with Luke fairly easily too! We know that God’s will is for everyone to be fed. Nothing controversial here. We pray almost weekly, Our Father who art in heaven’ your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. But it’s the last remark of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain that tends to give us a bad feeling in the pit of our stomachs. He closes by saying: Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.

‘Wait a minute, Luke! It’s not my fault they’re hungry! Just because I’m full doesn’t mean I’ve done anything to deserve such harsh words! Woe to us who are full now, for we will be hungry? This is one of the verses we tend to skim over. Why would Jesus indict the rich? Marcus Borg answers that question so well in a recent essay:

‘To understand we need to ask who the rich were in that society. They were not simply people who had worked hard and acquired a comfortable standard of living. Rather, the rich were the economic and political elites of the day. They were the wealthiest 1-2% of the population as well as the ruling class. The rich were the power elites at the top of a domination system.

Into the hands of the wealthiest 1-2% flowed somewhere between half and two-thirds of the annual production of wealth of the society. How did that happen? The answer is simple: The people on top structured the economic system (taxation, debt and foreclosure, acquisition of land, and so forth) so that they system worked in their own narrow self-interest. Elites in every society have been very good at doing that.

Thus, in the world of Jesus, the poor were poor because the rich were rich [underlining is mine]. In a very direct way, the rich the power elites at the top of an economically exploitative and politically oppressive domination system were responsible for the destitution of the poor.

The issue is therefore politics and economics, not individual ethics. Jesus did not indict the rich because they lacked virtue as individuals; elites can be very fine people.

Nor is the issue charity, as if the rich should simply have been more generous in sharing their bounty. The issue is neither individual virtue nor charity, but social justice. The issue is the domination system itself.’ [end quote]

Jesus despised the domination system that powerful people used to keep themselves rich at the expense of the poor. He follows in the tradition of the prophets of the Old Testament who, one after another, indicted Israel when that nation was at the pinnacle of its wealth, but failed to address the needs of the poor.

Well, isn’t this a relief? We’re off the hook, you and I. We may be well-fed, and rich by the standards of the rest of the world. But we wouldn’t support a domination system in which the rich are rich at the expense of the poor’ or would we? Do we?

Here is a piece of clothing out of my closet. The tag in it says, Made in Cambodia. Any idea why Cambodia? Because American corporations related to the fashion industry hire workers there for 25 cents an hour. Their workers don’t have unions to insist on decent pay. And don’t fool yourself; 25 c/hr isn’t enough even in Cambodia to survive decently. One might argue that a low paying job is better than one. But simple respect for humanity suggests that American companies could lower the profit margin just a little and pay these workers a livable wage. The British human rights group O’fam says that every time American corporations squeeze to get lower production costs, the workers in countries like Cambodia (primarily women) are forced to produce more in a shorter amount of time, working faster and faster and longer and longer days. The poorest people with the least are making sacrifices for those of us who have the most, so we can buy even more stuff at the lowest possible price. I’m quite sure that everyone here would be willing to pay a little more, even if it meant we could buy fewer items, if we could be guaranteed that the workers producing our clothing weren’t working in sweat shops.

Since becoming aware of this, I’ve been reading clothing labels. [Read more.] Do you know how hard it is to find clothes that aren’t made by some desperately poor person in Southeast Asia! So now I make a point of asking clerks if they have any Fair Trade clothing. Fair Trade is a campaign supported by over a dozen human rights organizations that sets rules for companies that claim Fair Trade on their label. They have to demonstrate that they treat workers humanely and pay them a decent price for their labor and materials. What if Target and Penneys and Marshall Fields clerks were inundated with requests for Fair Trade clothing? What if we, as a congregation, wrote letters to the managers of these stores insisting that they carry Fair Trade clothing, certified that it was produced humanely. What if every Christian church in America did that; you can bet the public pressure would change the way these fashion corporations do business in third world nations.

If you don’t believe this is possible, let me tell you what happened with coffee recently. Last week you heard me tell the children that coffee is second only to oil as a cash product sold around the world. Large American corporations in South and Central America dominate coffee farming in those countries. Small coffee farmers are at their mercy because of the power differential. Add to that the fact that trade agreements between the US and these weak, small, and impoverished countries favor foreign investment. Coffee farmers are forced to sell their land because they can’t get a price for the coffee beans that allows them to support their families. That is, until the Fair Trade organization helped them.

Fair Trade is an organization based on the belief that everyone has the right to a decent existence, regardless of the color of their skin, or the country in which they live. Recognizing that the law of the strongest works to the disadvantage of the poor, the Fair Trade organization organizes farmers and trains them to form cooperatives. Then Fair Trade directly sells the coffee, cutting out the middleman (usually an American corporation). Instead of getting 52 cents/lb for coffee, the farmer gets over a dollar/lb for their crop, the difference between desperate poverty and an income on which you can feed your family. Fair Trade will only sell products produced under good working conditions. For example, they won’t sell products produced by the exploitation of child labor, or at the expense of the environment.

Recently the public pressure to buy Fair Trade coffee resulted in Proctor and Gamble, one of the big 4 coffee corporations, agreeing to buy a certain percentage of their coffee beans from Fair Trade cooperatives. It will be sold under the Millstone coffee brand, so watch for it in your stores. Here in SF you can buy Fair Trade coffee at Great Plains Coffee in the mall, where they grind it fresh every Friday. Karen and I are part of a group that has just recently formed, which will be spreading the word about using Fair Trade coffee, to churches, colleges and the general public.

Just think, if every Christian in the U.S. asked their supermarket to carry Fair Trade coffee, if every church started serving only Fair Trade coffee, and if we all served it in our homes, how soon the message would get to other corporations that sell coffee the message is this: We are willing to pay a little more for our coffee and our clothes and everything else we buy if that’s what it takes for you to treat your workers decently, to pay them a fair wage that allows them to live with dignity and enough to eat.

Does this sound impossible and idealistic? It’s not; Proctor and Gamble’s decision came about because of public pressure. Responsible business practices are winning ground the word is getting out. Visit Oxfam.org on the internet; the address is on the yellow handout you received today. Along with over a dozen other human rights groups, Oxfam is pushing for an International Right-To-Know Law. This law would force companies to inform citizens about the impacts they are having on the environment, workers and human rights. The international trading system is not a force of nature. It is a system of exchange managed by rules that reflect political choices. We can influence those choices so they prioritize the interest of the most vulnerable in society or the wealthy and powerful, which is the domination system of our day.

It’s great that we send the school kits prepared in Sunday School today to Guatemala, but we will address the real problem in Guatemala only when we change the domination system that keeps these people poor by helping the rich stay rich. And by rich, I mean corporations but also us for we are the consumers whose buying habits and voting records enable the corporations. Are we willing to pay a little more, even if it means we will have a little less, in order to insure that others have enough? Once we understand that need, I’m confident we will have the resolve to do something about today’s domination system, the kind that both Luke and Jesus criticized.

Let us pray:

Our Father/Mother who is in the heavens, may your name be made holy, may your dominion come, may your will be done, on the earth as it is in heaven. Give us and all people today the bread we need; and forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors; and do not put us to the test, but rescue us from evil. For yours is the dominion, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.