1/27/19 “55 Years Later” by Nancy Petty
Text: Luke 4:14-21
You know how some movies and TV shows begin with a warning. It will come up on the screen and say something like: Warning! Some viewers may find the following content disturbing and offensive. Well, I feel like I need to start this sermon that way:
Warning! Some listeners may find the following content of this sermon disturbing and offensive.
Commerce Secretary and millionaire Wilbur Ross on Thursday downplayed the ongoing partial government shutdown’s impacts on federal workers, claiming they should simply take out loans to cover the costs of necessities. Ross, a wealthy former banker [and former billionaire until he became Commerce Secretary], told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he can’t figure out why some of the more than 800,000 unpaid federal employees need to rely on food pantries after missing paychecks during the shutdown.
“There are reports that there are some federal workers who are going to homeless shelters to get food,” host Andrew Ross Sorkin said. “Well, I know they are but I don’t really quite understand why because…the obligations that they would undertake say borrowing from the bank or credit union are in effect federally guaranteed,” Ross responded. “So the 30 days of pay which some people will be out – there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.”
Continuing the interview, Ross boasted that 800,000 federal workers going without pay wouldn’t hurt the overall gross domestic product that badly. He said, and I quote, “Put it in perspective: You’re talking about 800,000 workers and while I feel sorry for individuals who have hardship cases, 800,000 workers if they never got their pay – which is not the case they will eventually get it – but if they never got it, you’re talking about a third of the percent on our GDP. So it’s not like it’s a gigantic number overall.” This statement from a man whose net worth is an estimated $700 million. Ross ended that interview calling it “disappointing” that air traffic controllers going without pay during the shutdown have been calling in sick. “Remember this: They are eventually going to be paid,” he told CNBC.
I want to say this calmly because I want you to hear me clearly: Today, in the United States, which ranks in the top ten of the wealthiest countries in the world there is a war on poor people – working poor people. No, I’m not behind in the news cycle. I know – the government shutdown has ended for now. The crisis has been averted for another 3 weeks. But long before there was a government shutdown that exposed the fragility of America’s economic inequality, this war on the poor was already raging. It is not new. Maybe the exposure is new with instant media coverage. And yes, the gap between the poor and rich is widening to devastating levels every year. But don’t worry. After all, 12.3% of Americans living in poverty can’t hurt our gross domestic product that badly.
Do you know how many people 12.3% of American’s represents? 40 million people – real people with names and faces; real people with hopes and dreams; real people living with health issues who can’t afford to go to the doctor. That number represents 15 million children living in poverty in the United States – real children who sit in desks beside your children. It represents real mothers and fathers who are working three jobs and still can’t keep the lights and heat turned on. It represents those cooking your lunch and picking up your trash and recycling. It represents federal employees in this country who have to turn to food pantries and shelters when they miss one paycheck because of a stupid government shutdown over a wall that has become the icon of all that is wrong in American politics in 2019. But this war on the poor is not new.
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on Wednesday, January 8, 1964. Just over 55 years ago. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. And here we are 55 years later and the estimates are that between 12.3 to 14% of Americans still live in poverty. 55 years later and one of the world’s ten wealthiest countries, a country that claims to be a Christian nation, has only reduced poverty by, at most, six and a half percentage points. 55 years later! When our leaders declare that 800,000 federal employees missing a paycheck can’t really hurt our GDP is there anyone in this room who will or can deny that there is not a war on poor people in America in 2019. The war on poverty – on the poor – continues.
Why? Why does this war rage on in one of the richest and most resourceful countries in the world? Because you can’t end something when the system is designed to perpetuate it. Let me say that again. You can’t end something when the system is designed to perpetuate it. We talk about systemic racism – and that is real and we need to keep talking about systemic racism. But there is another systemic problem we need to address in this country. We need to be talking about systemic poverty. We live in a system designed to keep some people – a large number of people – poor. From our banking systems where you have to have significant assets to get a loan, to our politicians’ refusal to increase the living wage to a living wage, to our educational systems that almost guarantee achievements gaps based on socio-economic status and racial status. Across all of our institutions, here in America, we live in systems designed to keep poor people poor. And unless it is not clear, think of it this way – those same systems are designed to make the rich richer.
55 years ago America fought a war against poverty – now 55 years later America wages a war on the poor. You know the facts. The richest 1% in our country own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, tightening their grip on political power to shape labor, tax, healthcare and campaign finance policies that benefit the few at the expense of many. A full 43% of all American children live below the minimum income level considered necessary to meet basic family needs. There is a war on the poor in this so-called Christian nation.
I had made up my mind this week that I was going off lectionary. Karla had shared a poem with me that I had really resonated with and I had settled it in my mind and heart that I would, for once, go off lectionary and use the sacred words of the poet as the text for my sermon this morning. But then I picked up my Bible and having just listened to the Wilbur Ross interview and I read the gospel reading for today.
Then Jesus stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor.”
Can you imagine how those 800,000 federal employees felt when they heard the words of Wilbur Ross? Oh, just go to the bank and get a loan. You’ll eventually get your paycheck – or not. And besides, if you do or if you don’t – it doesn’t matter because you’re not that important to our nation’s GDP.
Can you imagine how that single mom who is working two and a half jobs trying to keep her children fed, warm, healthy, and in clothes that fit feels when someone says, “Poor people are poor because they are lazy.” Can you imagine how the father living in Raleigh working three jobs at minimum wage trying to provide for his family of five feels when he hears someone say, “People are poor because they aren’t willing to work hard.”
I will say this calmly but clearly: Being poor is not a sin but systems that keep poor people poor are profoundly sinful. America is a powerful web of systems designed to keep poor people poor. And the truth is, you can’t end something when the system is designed to perpetuate it. For years our nation’s moral narrative has been shaped by Christians who claim to follow Jesus and even, when convenient, quote the Bible. But the facts show that their actions – their policies and laws – run counter to the good news of the gospel – a gospel that clearly calls for us to care for the poor among us. One preacher/theologian said it this way: “If you claim to be evangelical and Christian and have nothing to say about poverty…then your claim is terribly suspect.” Singer/songwriter Bono put it this way, “To me, a faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned with the poor…it’s nothing.”
Jesus said it this way: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to offer good news to the poor.” Jesus didn’t say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and I’ve got some good news for the poor people y’all come on over here and get it.” No, Jesus said, “The Spirit is upon me and has anointed me to BRING good news to the poor.”
To bring… Bring is a verb. It implies an action. To bring says to me that we have to get up out of our comfortable seats and leave our places of security and go to places where the poor are living and ask what is needed. To bring good news to the poor means we have to show up on Jones Street and fight for a living wage increase. To bring good news to the poor means we have to work to make sure all of our schools are good schools – that there are no bad schools. That may mean some of us running to serve on the school board. To bring good news to the poor means that we have to choose to do business with lending institutions that serve the poor – institutions that don’t have a profit margin as their only bottom line.
If we want to claim that the Spirit of the Lord is upon this church, we will not rest until we struggle with the questions: How are we being called to bring good news to the poor? Where are we being called to challenge the systems that are designed to keep poor people poor and us comfortable? What are we willing to risk, even give up of our own comfort to change the systems that are waging war on the poor? If it is true that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution, I want you to ask yourself this morning – are you actively fighting the systems that perpetuate poverty in this country? Because if you’re not, you are waging war on the poor. That’s how systemic classism works. There is no passive place for spectators. Unless you are struggling against the norm, disrupting the status quo, you are contributing to the systemic classism. So as we go about our comfortable lives this week, will we work to bring good news to the poor, or will we continue to wage war on our poor brothers and sisters?
I felt a sense of comfort going into this past week thinking I was going to preach a sermon that quieted my soul and gave me some rest. But then, Jesus spoke and my comfort was disturbed. Some sermons comfort the disturbed. Others disturb the comfortable. This past week Jesus disturbed my place of comfort. My prayer for you this week is that you would be disturbed in the places where you have become too comfortable. And that you would find comfort in those places where you need comforting.
