Photo Credit: Woodley Wonderworks
James 5:1-6
Neighbor, O Neighbor,
This is a hard Scripture to hear,
But I’m going to do something about it.
This week Glens Falls made the list again. This time, Glens Falls managed to get on the list of the 50 places in the USA that have been hardest hit by the recession. I have to say that I knew things have been bad, but I was a little surprised about this. I knew things were bad, but I’ve been hearing news that unemployment rates in our area have been finally been falling off. Comparatively speaking, foreclosure rates in Glens Falls are nowhere near as high as other places. Once a month or so, I see an article somewhere saying that real estate analysts are positive about Glens Falls potential for development, and that home prices are making a recovery here. “What’s going on?” I wondered.
As it turns out, though, if the Post-Star’s reporting is correct, it’s this last bit, strangely enough, that home prices have not been as hard hit, that is largely responsible for us being on the list. It’s that home prices have remained high, compared to average income, which is not so high. Which translates into a higher cost of living for a mostly working-class city where people’s income just can’t keep up with the rent.
And as I was reflecting further on that this week, it kind of makes sense. Why else would I get two or three calls every week in the office, from people who are wanting to know, “Does the church have a program to help with people’s rent?” I’d say that it’s probably the number one most frequent call we get in the office these days, after telemarketers.
The answer, is, unfortunately, no. We can’t help people with their rent most days. We have a small emergency care fund, of course, but at the $400 each on average that people need to make their rent, we could probably go through several thousand dollars every week by the number of calls we get.
And the shortage for rent, we know, places all kinds of other pressure on families in our area. So families have trouble finding the resources after they’ve paid the rent to come up with money to keep the electricity on, to buy food for their kids, and to get them to the doctor, or put decent clothes on them. It’s a kind of chain reaction that makes it easier to see how in hard times, more working class families fall off the edge of the economic plank we are all walking.
But what can we do?
We obviously don’t have the resources to bail all the people out of their rent problems. And yet, we have a nagging feeling that so many people stuck out of work or in low-wage jobs and slum apartments that cost a fortune to rent in this city just isn’t right.
That nagging feeling is right, of course. And the passage we have read in James speaks to exactly this issue. These verses could have been written this past week as an editorial next to the announcement that we made the top 50. James, in fact, was talking about the rich nobles and businesspeople in the days of the Roman empire. But his words could just as easily apply to the CEOs of Leman Brothers and even to the members of our local Chamber of Commerce who lobby to keep the minimum wage low. James’s editorial in this week’s paper would condemn equally a Congressman who campaigns on a record of bringing jobs back to the north country, while voting to send billions of dollars to keep our kids in a useless charade of a war Afghanistan — dollars that if only a quarter percent of which were devoted to rent assistance would more than cover the phone calls I get and then some. Not that the opposing candidate, who openly appeals to the rich to reverse the gains of health care and supports cutting taxes of rich folk and cutting unemployment benefits for poor folk, gets a better review from James.
“Come now you rich people,” says James’s Labor Day letter to the editor. “The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields,” who flipped your burgers, who groomed your golf courses, who waited your tables, who built your condos, who answered your office telephones, who crunched your numbers, who made your paper, who taught your children, who nursed your illnesses, who mopped your floors, who drove your trucks, who stitched your clothes, who picked your apples and tomatoes — James writes, “the wages of the laborers, which you kept back by fraud,” by passing unfair laws to your advantage, by breaking unions, by paying off the congressional hacks, by taking advantage of small print in big contracts — James writes, “the wages of the laborers, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.
These cries, the cries of the harvesters, they have gone up from our city, together with the crying of the blood of Abel the first brother to be murdered outside the gates of Eden, which when they reached the ears of the Almighty brought Cain’s eternal banishment. They have ascended to the throne of the almighty together with the cries of the oppressed Israelites whose cries went up from Egypt under the harsh lash of Pharaoh, which when they reached the throne of the Almighty, brought down the plagues that brought that world’s greatest empire to its knees and led to the freedom of God’s people. The cries of the laborers in Glens Falls who can’t pay their rent has reached the ears of the Almighty with the cries of the mothers in Bethlehem whose children Herod cut down in a vain attempt to hold onto his cruel reign against the in-breaking dawn of the Prince of Peace.
I am certain that God will not ignore the cries of the oppressed today any less than God did for those other generations, from Genesis to James, who cried out, and God heard their cries and answered, and brought justice rolling down like mighty waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream. I am certain, that God will have something to do about Glens Falls being on the list of 50 hardest hit places this Labor Day. God will certainly vindicate their cries. But the question remains, what role will God’s church and God’s people play in the action of God that is certainly to come?
Perhaps we will sit idly by and watch, as so many religious people in the temple did in the day when God’s justice came to the corrupt ancient kings of Israel, and the nation was swept away by the Babylonian invasion. Perhaps we will cast our lot with the rich, whose power seems so great, and depend on them for the crumbs from their luxurious tables like the Temple authorities did in Jesus’ day, and ignore the signs, until the day when the tides of empire turned and the temple was razed for a second time to the ground, leaving only the famous wailing wall to stand as a testimony to their arrogance.
Or perhaps, we will, like the average people God has called to serve the cause of justice in every generation, lift up our voices together and call for the Pharaohs of our age to let God’s people go.
Perhaps we will gather in houses all around this city and all across this nation and hold vigils of protest through the night when the angel of death passes over.
Perhaps we will gather in the halls of power and speak as Paul did in the marketplaces of the heathen, to announce that it is in God, not in the stock market that we live and move and have our being.
Perhaps we will commit our lives more fully to our community of faith as Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s community of saints in 1940’s Germany did and set their little Christian community to join the underground resistance to the Nazis.
Perhaps we will join a movement, like black churches across the south did in the 1960’s, to march and demonstrate and boycott and peacefully confront the Jim Crow oppressors.
Perhaps we will go to the walls of division with hammers and crowbars as the East German Christian movement did in the 1980s to bring down the Berlin Wall.
Perhaps we will write letters to the editor like James, condemning the complacency of our leaders and, yes, even our churches in the neglect of the poor of our city that has led us to our place on this top 50 list.
Perhaps we will invade City Hall and demand rent control. Perhaps we will picket Walmart and Target instead of shopping there.
Perhaps we will follow Jesus, instead of just talking about following Jesus.
What to do, this Labor Day weekend?
As it turns out, we cannot pay people’s rent for them. But there is plenty we can do to confront the conspiracy of the rich to increase their fortunes by the suffering of the poor. The cries of the laborers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts, and God is on the move.
There is plenty to do.
Only now the question is, will we?
