In this happy season of Advent, we prepare for the coming of the baby Jesus on Christmas. But since the church is also a human institution, many churches are also preparing for 2011's income stream, which comes from the gifts and the tithes of our members.
Envelopes have been coming into the church with people's pledges, their estimates of what they will be able to contribute to the church in the year ahead. Based upon this, the congregation plans our ministries and our giving. So we wait for Jesus but we also wait for those pledges. It's a funny time.
There is a place on the pledge card where people can add comments, and these always get forwarded to me as the Senior Minister. And this year, as in the last two years, there is one comment I see way too often. A person will write something along the lines of, "I would like to do more for the church but I am unemployed." Or perhaps it's their spouse who is unemployed. Or in many cases, someone is underemployed, working part time on various projects, piecing together benefits and insurance.
In church, we ask for prayers for all sorts of intimate things, like upcoming surgeries, or comfort after the death of a parent, or prayers for healing of mind and body and spirit. These prayer requests give me the pulse of the congregation every week.
But very few people will ask for prayers around unemployment, or underemployment. In the western suburbs of Chicago, where the homes are spacious and the yards well kept, the stresses of financial uncertainty can seem invisible. And so the comments on the pledge cards each year are my reminder that people in the church are really struggling economically.
There has been much talk by economists about the jobless recovery. Businesses that cut back have learned to do more with fewer employees. Hotel housekeepers are expected to clean more rooms than they had to a few years ago. And never mind if their backs get injured and they take Tylenol like it's popcorn. Corporations that have started making money again are using this time to make their contracts with workers worse. Folks in our church are starting to find part time consulting work, but it remains unclear if their full time positions will every reappear, as businesses have managed to make due with less. Profits are not trickling down to the working world, and so those gifts are not trickling down to faith communities, charities and non-profits either. The jobless recovery hurts us in so many ways.
As the media focuses on crowded stores and big deals on new products, the unemployed and the underemployed can experience Advent as one big let down. In this particular Advent season they have held their breath as politicians debated their futures, and at the same time considered tax breaks for the few folks who are doing well these days.
In the walk of faith, we are not to put our trust in material things. But it doesn't mean that money doesn't matter. The ability to earn, and to provide for others, and to give to your church are blessings not to be taken fore granted. But in the meantime, we await the birth of the Christ child, who as far as I can tell, spent his adult life unemployed and somehow changed the world. Dependent upon the generosity of others, Jesus was tough on the rich, gentle with the poor, and brave in the face of injustice. This Advent, I'm particularly eager for him to get here.
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This year, my guy is still out of a job and I'm part-time employed at a horse farm. I really can't get anything else as I'm severely bipolar and cannot deal with typical stress-filled, human-heavy jobs. If the farm gave me full time at what I'm doing, I'd take it in a heartbeat as I really like it, even though it's "lowly" work. This year, I made family/friends gifts from horseshoes.
Don't go to church and don't know where to go - I have to work on Sunday mornings.
Things are better this year, but they need to get better.
Rev. Daniel raises a critical point of dialogue that poor/middle class communities have engaged year round. This isn't just a sermon for Christmas. This is a social justice issue that must be addressed for all members of society--not just when Wall Street is crashing or when we can't afford to buy our overly priced Christmas gifts. Becoming an advocate for jobs is a worthy mission that must be front and center if we are to transform educational opportunities, reduce growth of prison systems and stamp out homelessness that arise due to unemployment.
I am thankful for this article. Would love to see the dialogue continue and would urge us to not view this as a seasonal matter, but a matter of class bias that is finally hitting home to those of us who probably turned our heads and pretended not to see those homeless folks with cups in hand at the traffic lights or on the corner. Now that this truth is impacting our wallets, some, if we are honest, must admit--we finally get it.Unemployment is not a myth or about those folks over there. It's real and it impacts us all.
It is the middle class that is the largest voting block. People vote their wallets, and don't let them kid you otherwise.
Issues, no matter the issue, goes out the door when it comes to money, that or starve.
We are a very generous country/people and should be proud of that, but we have abandoned our own, and they have abandoned us.
Patriotism has become a naughty word, and we are shamed for daring to speak it's name, and not by just our own, by the world at large. In the mean time, they demand more, and from us. And like fools we send it.
When certain individuals who will not be mentioned speak of patriotism, it drips with hypocracy.
Our government betrays us, and so do our religions. Progressiveness is great, but at what cost?
Well, we are finding out, and it ain't pretty. The country simply can't be all things to all people all over the world. They have to do their part, and yet many are so filled with corruption that our tax dollars don't help the poor, like we hoped, but enable the corruption and brutal tyranny against it's people..............and now our own are hungry, without insurance, and losing their homes.
How's that one world order working out for us? Not so great, eh?
One remarkable thing I have noticed is that unemployed people do so much around the church. They will often be willing to take time from their job search to take on really significant volunteer projects, often using the very work skills they are not currently able to use in a paying job. People are amazing and find many ways to give.
One thing I wonder about is why people don't get angrier about this whole "jobless recovery." It is so true it is not a "moneyless recovery," but I don't hear many people talking about that as I would expect.
But one place to hear more of that conversation is through the Interfaith Worker Justice campaign, "Faith Advocates for Jobs."
http://www.iwj.org/detail/news.cfm?news_id=262&id=80
They are like sheep that rather then being slaughter, got a clubbed on the head, then let go. They are now dazed and confused.
Billions and billions of dollars pour out of the country, yearly, and millions of jobs have gone too, all bread and butter jobs called manufacturing, and technology. We import immigrants, a great thing, but at a rate the country can ill afford it. We need immigration reform, but not the kind talked about because the lobbiests are powerful.
We were beguiled into thinking that we were going to be the technology capital of the world, but our educational system fell apart, hence we can't compete in that field. Millions to billions of stimulus funds went overseas to support the wonder child of progressives, green technology. No jobs here.
The moment a start up company becomes stable they move over seas.
Ross Perot warned us, when NAFTA was signed, that a giant sucking sound would be heard as jobs left America. Few listened. And then we were fed the lie regarding free trade, and the giant sucking sound became a tornado.
Millionairs became billionairs of the sweat of other peples brow, enslaving them.
The few remaining manufactures in the states can't compete.
Donald Trump has a good take on the subject.
Doesn't that beg the question, "Helps themselves to what?"
Yes, there are a lot of poor this year which begs the question, why, don't they have jobs?
It is a simple question, maybe a simple answer.
The republicans call them lazy, the democrats keep their mouth shut, offer no reason, but like their republican counterparts offer to jobs.
Why don't people have jobs, do you know?
Where did they go?
When the government doesn't act to protect and preserve "it's" country and "it's" people, yup, we are in dire straights, but then again Thomas Paine said, "The world is my country and good is my religion".
What shall the religious community offer? Jobs? Consolation?
We live in a country of separation of church and state, and it is not the job of the church to do the job of the government, rather, they clean up the mess.
And least we forget, many would accuse, "what poor", and call us greedy.
I read a story of a man who had lost his job, and his health insurance. He couldn't afford to pay the cobra insurance. Anyway, he starting having heart problems. Having gone to the doctors it was discovered that the batteries in his pace maker needed changing. The man didn't have the $10,000 demanded. He died, for the want of batteries.
If this is a divine conspiracy between church and state, they have dirty hands, no comedy, tragedy.
Yet it's not much of trickle-down unless you are a Hermes sales clerk or a waiter at Nobu or Delmonico's. But, honestly, we shouldn't expect members of our service economy to donate more and carry the burden of the wealthy for our social institutions? Oh, wait, I forgot service-workers ARE the only people actually working at the moment.
This is a made in North America problem and in particular between management and unions where unionised workers are involved. In Europe, corporations have union members on their boards so that when contract renewal time comes, the union reps can say to the workers whether the company can afford raises or not. This reduces and even eliminates strikes and both workers and management are happier. Would that North American culture -- especially American culture -- could become less adversarial and people could get back to work.
That said, many states, especially in the south, are right to work states where unions have little to no control, or influence. Why don't companies relocate to those states?
Greed. Nothing more and nothing less.
They can relocate overseas, pay slave wages, and even enslave people into cramped quarters, feed them next to nothing, work them up to sixteen hours a day and sell the products to Americans.
Unions helped maintain a sense of prosperity for some time in spite of job loses, but eventually the mathematics has to catch up with us. Now the unions, especially the trade unions, along with independent contractors are desperately looking for work.
It won't come until manufacturing is brought back to America. It will be hard to wrest the jobs back, if not impossible unless the government gets tough on freetrade in favor of fair trade agreements.
Innovation, ideas and knowledge are very important to changing the economic model rather than relying too heavily on manufacturing.
And, yet, as Pastor Daniel points out, our faith must balance our materiality - through times of unemployment, underemployment, and even plenty. While money still matters, it can’t buy everything, nor provide every answer. After all, the greatest gift was priceless: God’s only Son! Merry Christmas!
Was it nothing, or miserly would be other questions.
What he knows is that as he goes about teaching, there will those who reject, those who forget, those who die, and then there are those who heal.
They are as dependent upon his support, as he is upon theirs.
What is most important is context. We live in community where so many others share our situation. By being open we can support and help one another. Without this we are ships in the night passing not even realizing our commonalities.
To me this season is an opportunity to get at core values. Love, forgiveness, redemption. I am awed and excited by the power of these concepts and this reality.