Skip to main content

The Wages Withheld Are Crying Out Loud

Epistle of St. James 5:4-6 "Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.  You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure; you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous one; he offers you no resistance."

Today income inequality  in the United States is greater than at any time since 1929 and increasing.  It is also increasing internationally.  20% of income goes to 1% of the population and the cumulative wealth disparity is even greater.  Income in excessive of need is used to acquire property, stock, jewelry, bonds, commodity futures, etc.  While the acquisition of wealth  deprives the poor it ultimately does the wealthy no good for St. James 5:2 says "Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth eaten."

While considering this, there is a article by Robert Reich on the growing income equality to read.  Without asking you to endorse any particular solution, I am asking you to look at the problem squarely in both it's pratical and spiritual dimensions. http://www.sfgate.com/columns/reich/


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Serenading the Donkey

Over the years I have had many times when I have had to call out others on their words, behavior, or attitudes on race, class or ethnicity and I have used a variety of means to get my point across.  The first  such incident was when I was 13 years old and my sister and a friend were skipping rope to the rope song that uses the "N_" word.   I said we don't use that word in this place and the girls argued with me about it. I just said that if they used that word I would go tell Grandpa, and they complied.  In a high school the teacher had let the discussion degenerate and the topic of "welfare" came up and a girl stated  an old stereotype that my Daddy says "All the blacks go pick up their welfare checks in Cadillacs."  I wanted that direction of the conversation to end immediately, so I blurted out "Well your Daddy is a racist."  There was silence in the room for a couple of minutes and then the teacher changed the subject.  When people have b
 Striking at Bourgeois Values with "Free Stuff"  Why is it that in middle class neighborhoods no one would think anything of it if you are having a "yard sale"  or a "moving sale", spending your entire day selling your possessions at pennies on the dollar, a tenth of what you could get on E-Bay, making less than the federal minimum wage for your efforts, but they would shrink in horror from a "free stuff pile".  What is the world coming from that  they place so little value on material possessions that they would give it away for nothing.  Someone will surely complain that you are doing "illegal dumping", even if you tend the pile and fold things back up.  Fortunately for me, I live in a neighborhood with a heavy student population, north of Seattle's University of Washington campus, and such a pile is welcome.  Having purged the house of unneeded things that aren't worth my time trying to sell (unlike my art, which I will find