Faith, Church, and Workers

Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis

September 1, 2024: Labor Sunday

Scripture: Deuteronomy 24:14–15

As the people of covenant with God, Israel was to be an alternative expression of nationhood to that which prevailed in the world. They were to reject the values and practices of the empires surrounding them and the empire from which they had been liberated. In bondage in Egypt, they knew firsthand the indignity and oppression of enslavement, where labor was not compensated, and working conditions were brutal and punishing. God broke the chains that were binding them, gave them liberty, and set them free. Now, as God’s people, who are given life and nationhood through covenant with the liberating God, they are responsible for a social ethic of care and neighborliness that avoids re-creating the conditions of economic domination, oppression, and exploitation.

So, God gave Moses and Israel the Ten Commandments and other laws and ordinances to help them form a nation in the land of promise. Given how long the people were in the wilderness, a new generation of Israelites far removed from bondage in Egypt who had not known what life was like during the exodus from slavery or the sojourn in the wilderness needed these laws and ordinances to help them understand how to live, serve, and thrive in covenant with God and each other. These laws and ordinances set the values and practices of a society that would tend to the well-being and welfare of the people and the quality of life of the beloved community. And the treatment of workers and the poor is a critical component of that life. The treatment of workers and the poor is articulated plainly and almost matter-of-factly: “Do not withhold the wages of the poor and needy laborers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities. Pay them their salary the same day, before the sunset, because they are poor and their livelihood depends on them (Deut. 24:14-15).” The Hebrew used here has a range of possible meanings and understandings: do not take advantage of the poor and the laborers; do not exploit them; do not oppress them. This is a call to compassion and empathy, whether they are citizens or immigrants.

It is ironic how so many modern churches beat scripture into submission to address current issues and concerns around war, family, sexuality, and a host of issues that aren’t found anywhere at all in the sacred text. Yet, they come up short in addressing wages and working conditions for laborers. The church loses its voice when the economic reality and concerns of a pre-modern society like ancient Israel mirror current issues and questions still with us, like workers, wages, and working conditions. Churches have found ways to support and countenance prosperity, economic growth, and corporate sustainability, but as one organizer lamented in the effort for workers of Amazon to form a union a few years ago, “If we do not speak up on behalf of what God would be pleased with, loving God and loving other people, then who will?”[1] Who will, indeed?

It has not always been like this. The church and people of faith have not historically been tongue-tied and unmoved by the plight of working people. Within the first decades of the twentieth century, several protestant denominations celebrated and recognized on the church liturgical calendar the Sunday before Labor Day as Labor Sunday, setting it aside as “a day of meditation on the fact that Jesus was a Carpenter who preached the ethics of justice for all workers.”[2] This concern for workers was so urgent that in 1908, the Federal Council of Churches, the forerunner to the National Council of Churches, endorsed a set of principles found in a “Social Creed of the Churches,” which included items that workers agitate for even to this day, such as a living wage, ending poverty, equal rights for all people no matter their economic status, shortening long work day and week, economic security for aging or retired workers, regulating the working conditions of women in the workplace, and protection of workers from dangerous machinery and occupational injury. [3]The church brought to bear the witness of faith and Scripture to the plight of the poor and needy laborers.

In recent history, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the preachers who kept working people in his work and sermons and worked often to maintain the alliance between the labor and civil rights movements. His most famous “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered not at what we have shortened and called the March on Washington; it was officially called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march was spearheaded by A. Philip Randolph, leader of the first African-American labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Walter Reuther, then president of the United Auto Workers, was a major sponsor and organizer of that march. So, the status and condition of the worker have been part and parcel of the church’s justice work for a long time. Presidents of labor unions and ministers of the gospel gathered publicly to call attention to the plight of the poor and needy laborers, black or white, citizens or immigrants.

We remember King’s assassination; we remember that he died in Memphis. We remember his famous speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” but we talk less about why he went to Memphis. His aids and critics were all annoyed that he was in Memphis, questioning his work, his judgment, and his effectiveness. Don’t go to Memphis. But King went to Memphis to show his support and solidarity for Black sanitation workers on strike for better wages, better working conditions, and protection from dangerous machinery. The strike was precipitated by the deaths of Echol Cole and Robert Walker, who got snared in an old garbage truck with a malfunctioning hydraulic ram that packs garbage down, crushing the men to death. To make matters worse, they were paid so little they could not afford life insurance for their families, and the State of Tennessee did not cover Black sanitation workers in the state’s workers’ compensation program. Nobody cared about old black garbage workers, but Rev. King used his voice, his fame, and his ministry to mobilize people of faith to let the world know that the church would stand with the poor and the laborer.

But you would be forgiven if you had not heard much about Labor Sunday. As the resistance to union organizing grew and business leaders successfully argued against the need for unions to protect workers’ wages and working conditions, the church muted her witness. Oh, the church remains committed to soup kitchens and food pantries, which serve a significant number of working people who are food insecure and struggle to keep up with the high price of food. We know how to support and convince others to help us create and maintain our soup kitchens and food pantries. The church has not been nearly as prolific in discussing why so many poor and working people need soup kitchens and food pantries in the first place. So, what are we going to do with the earliest wisdom of our sacred text: “Don’t take advantage of poor or needy workers, do not withhold the wages of the poor and needy laborers, whether they are fellow Israelites or immigrants who live in your land or your cities. Pay them their salary the same day, before the sun sets.” What will we do with that message, this affirmation of God’s call for a social ethic that tends to the welfare and well-being of the poor and laborers?

The nation needs a revival of Labor Sunday. Workers and the poor need the full-throated proclamation of what thus says the Lord to a world that has only sometimes kept faith with them. Our work to bring to bear the witness of faith and church on the plight of workers is needed now more than ever. In our sacred writings, we hear a call to the social ethic of neighborliness that invites us to plead the case of the poor and the laborer.

[1]https://sojo.net/articles/recent-amazon-union-effort-failed-churches-can-help

[2]Janine Giordano Drake, “Labor Sunday,” The University of Chicago Divinity School, September 7, 2020.

[3]https://web.archive.org/web/20190219204246/http://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/common-witness/1908/social-creed.php