Pope Francis and John Wesley

Pope Francis addressing a joint session of Congress 

"But although a difference in opinions or modes of worship may prevent an entire external union, yet need it prevent our union in affection? Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences. These remaining as they are, they may forward one another in love and in good works.”

John Wesley

I love Pope Francis.

He is humble and brilliant, simple and profound, prophetic and brave, and he does not seem to care how others may judge him. He is faithful to the Gospel in such open and obvious ways that one can never doubt his passion and commitment.

Insofar as a pope can reject the trappings of his office, he does. He seems to have little patience with pomp and circumstance. He has great respect for the office he holds, and he seems to care deeply about his responsibilities as a faith leader, but part of that responsibility involves the embrace of his own humanity as a common bond with others. 

I know we disagree about many things: abortion, same sex marriage, and the role of women in the church come immediately to mind. Those are not small disagreements. In part, I accept those differences because I just like him so much as a person and respect him so much as a Christian. But I also know that as important as those issues are, they are not at the center of the biblical witness on issues of social justice.

From the Torah to the Hebrew Prophets to the teachings of Jesus, and throughout the life of the early church, the major biblical emphasis is on economic justice. This is the big issue at the heart of how human society is organized and it is the key component of how we show our love for one another.

I think I also love Pope Francis because he reminds me of John Wesley.

The visible similarities are striking. Wesley, like Francis, lived very simply and did not embrace the trappings of his office. Wesley, like Francis, embraced the poor and marginalized. Wesley, like Francis, was well loved by the common people. It was said of John Wesley that when he died he was the best loved man in all of England. And Wesley, like Francis, drew enormous crowds wherever he went. In common parlance, Wesley was, as Francis is, a rock star.

And beyond the visible similarities, they share a common message. Wesley’s sermon on “The Danger of Riches” is a foreshadowing of Francis’ critique of capitalism. The corrosive effects of unchecked greed are harmful to the soul and harmful to the social fabric. They harm the rich as well as the poor.

In his address to Congress, Francis declared that politics cannot be the slave of economics and finance, but must be “an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life.” He went on to say that he would not underestimate the difficulty of that endeavor, “but,” he said, “I encourage you in this effort.” Wesley did not make the connection between politics and economics as systematically as Pope Francis does, but he understood and advocated a connection between personal faith and social responsibility.

Wesley was outspoken in his criticism of ostentatious wealth and consumption, but he refused to be judgmental. Once at the dinner table a leader in the Methodist movement called Wesley’s attention to the obviously expensive rings worn by a woman dining with them. He asked pointedly, “Mr. Wesley, what do you think of that hand.” Ignoring the man’s intent, Wesley answered, “I think it is a very lovely hand.” In a similar way, when Pope Francis was asked about homosexuality, he answered, “Who am I to judge?”

In an essay on “The People Called Methodist,” Wesley declared as a first principle, “that orthodoxy, or right opinions, is, at best, but a very slender part of religion, if it can be allowed to be any part of it at all.” One guesses that Francis would never put that thought into writing, but one might also guess that he may well think it.

For Wesley as for Francis, the belief that “God is love,” is a core theological concept. Everything else flows from that central insight. It is simple and yet profound. As Wesley would say, it is something that everyone professes to believe, yet very few practice.

Thank God for Janet Yellen

Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather as much of the manna as each of you needs, an omer to a person according to the number of persons, all providing for those in their own tents.’” The Israelites did so, some gathering more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.
Exodus 16:16-18

In biblical economics, a core principle is that there should not be a great gulf between those who have the most and those who have the least. The Bible is deeply suspicious of wealth. Jesus told his disciples that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. But Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all rich by ancient standards, and the New Testament tells of disciples who used their resources to help others and support the early church. The biblical ideal is not economic equality, but an economy in which those with the least have enough and those with the most do not have too much.

We can (and should) debate the meaning of “enough” and “too much,” but there can be little doubt that the current widening gap between rich and poor does not fall within acceptable biblical parameters.

Last week, in an historic address at the Conference on Economic Opportunity and Inequality hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen spoke about the widening gap between rich and poor.

She began her remarks by noting that “The distribution of income and wealth in the United States has been widening more or less steadily for several decades, to a greater extent than in most advanced countries.” She went on to make an important declaration followed by several significant observations:

“The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me. The past several decades have seen the most sustained rise in inequality since the 19th century after more than 40 years of narrowing inequality following the Great Depression. By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then. It is no secret that the past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority. I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity.”

When the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board says that something (anything) “greatly concern(s) me,” that is important. And the widening gap should concern all of us.

Her suggested solutions are neither radical nor particularly biblical. She is not about to sing with Mary about casting down the mighty and lifting up the lowly. She does not suggest that the hungry be filled with good things or that the rich be sent away empty. But she does offer a place to start.

One of her most important insights is that the widening gap between rich and poor is incompatible “with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity.” Technically, she doesn’t make that as a statement, she poses it as a question, but I’m guessing that is what she thinks.

Her proposed building blocks of opportunity are hardly groundbreaking: early childhood education and support, access to higher education, business ownership, and inheritance. She talks about how budget cuts have decimated the funds available for education and weakened the safety net, but she does not propose a graduated tax to offset the losses and fund those programs. And she does not address the ways in which reductions in the marginal tax rate and other government policies have exacerbated the problem. But it is a beginning.

Naming our demons is an important first step in confronting and defeating them. When Janet Yellen names the demon of increasing inequality, it makes a difference. She is by no means the first person to say that the widening gap in income and wealth inevitably leads to inequality of opportunity and undermines a core common value for us as Americans, but when the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board speaks, people listen.

Labor Day and the Parable of Market Basket

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
I Corinthians 15:58

Paul it taking the long view. In the end, everything matters. Nothing is lost. What we do makes a difference, and it makes a difference forever.

But in the short run, for many workers, their labor does seem to be in vain.

Things have improved. It is not as bad this Labor Day as it was a year ago, but that’s not saying much. A New York Times editorial points out that a year ago economists were estimating that it would take until 2021 to replace the jobs lost or never created since the recession of 2008. At the current rate of job growth the new date would be 2018.

The economy as a whole is growing. But labor is not sharing in that growth. In 2013 the after-tax profits of American corporations, measured as share of the total economy, equaled the record year of 1965. Wages, on the other hand, were at their lowest level since 1948. Productivity has increased dramatically, but wages have remained stagnant, resulting in large gains for corporations, and the wealthiest among us, while low and middle income workers have not benefitted, and have actually seen their wages decline over the past year, when we adjust for inflation.

At the very bottom of the workforce, there is an exception to the overall trend. The lowest 10 percent of workers made a small gain as a result of increases in the minimum wage enacted in thirteen states this year. That modest gain gives us hope that lifting the federal minimum wage might result in broader benefits.

There is no mystery in this. As Elise Gould points out in a research paper written for the Economic Policy Institute, the issue is our economic policy. And we can change it.

We can build our policy around labor, rather than around corporations. And we can change the tone of the national conversation.

Modern corporations do not treat workers as an asset. They are treated as a liability.

This is not only a problem for low wage workers. As an example, consider the widespread strategy of classifying employees as independent contractors, and workers as supervisors, in order to avoid in order to avoid paying the wages and benefits that would otherwise be required. The Times editorial observes that in California and appellate court recently ruled that Fed-Ex drivers are employees, not independent contractors, and therefore eligible for employee benefits. And the Times points out that “Decades of outsourcing government jobs to the private sector has undercut public employment, once a mainstay of middle-class life, even as evidence has mounted that outsourcing often does not save money or improve services.”

It is not a good story, but there is a counter-narrative.

The story of Market Basket might be a modern parable. The family owned chain has been immensely successful over the decades, expanding from a single store to their present total of 71 located in northern Massachusetts, southern Maine and south eastern New Hampshire. Earlier this summer, Arthur S. Demoulas engineered the ouster of his cousin, Arthur T. Demoulas, the long time CEO because he and other family members believed that Arthur T’s pro-worker, pro-consumer approach was limiting their dividends.

Arthur T, as he is known, built the business with his sharp business acumen and an intentional long term investment in his employees. They have generous wages and benefits, including profit sharing even at the lower end of the work ladder. They are also committed to promoting from within. The result is that they have many employees who have been with the company for decades, are very skilled at what they do and very committed to Market Basket and to Arthur T.

After the firing of Arthur T, there was an uprising. The non-union workforce basically went on strike in support of the man they believed had always supported them. As worker after worker repeated, “Arthur T. has always been there for us.” E. J. Dionne described the story in the Washington Post: “. . . eight senior managers organized an employee protest. They were quickly fired. Then all hell broke loose. The lion’s share of the employees at the chain’s 71 stores joined the protest, fully aware that they had no job protection. Market Basket’s customers (there is great affection for the chain) were drawn to the workers’ side.”

Dionne continues, “This worker-consumer alliance bore fruit last week when a $1.5 billion deal was arranged under which Arthur T. assumed control of the company, which has annual revenue of $4.6 billion. That is not the end of the story, of course. The new deal requires a ton of capital and that will affect the chain’s bottom line. It will be a challenge, but Arthur T. and his loyal employees believe they are up to it.

In his address to employees and supporters at a victory rally, Arthur T. told the group, “In this organization, here at Market Basket, everyone is special.” He went on to explain, “You have demonstrated that everyone here has a purpose. You have demonstrated that everyone has meaning. And no one person is better or more important than another. And no one person holds a position of privilege. Whether it’s a full-timer or a part-timer, whether it’s a sacker or a cashier, or a grocery clerk, or a truck driver, or a warehouse selector, a store manager, a supervisor, a customer, a vendor or a CEO, we are all equal. We are all equal and by working together, and only together, do we succeed.”

It is a victory for workers, for consumers, for fair working conditions, for community values, and for a compassionate capitalism that is committed to doing good while doing well. But it is not a universal solution to the problems of laborers and corporations in America. The Market Basket victory was possible only because Arthur T. was able to raise what the Boston Globe called “a boatload of cash” to buy out Arthur S. But even with all the caveats, it is still a ray of hope.

Seriously, Check Your Privilege

Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us,
and not we ourselves;
we are his people,
and the sheep of his pasture.
Psalm 100:3


From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
Luke 12:48

It would have been more appropriate if Tal Fortgang, a first year student at Princeton University, had published his essay on White Privilege on April 1st rather than April 2nd. And it would be easier to understand why the essay went viral on the internet.

Writing in The Princeton Tory, he detailed his objections to the phrase, “Check your privilege,” which admonishes the speaker to recognize that his or her opinions may be influenced by the privilege associated with his or her station in life. This, he argues, negates all the hard work he did to get where he is, and dismisses his opinions simply because he is a white male.

He accuses those who raise the issue of privilege of “diminishing everything I have personally accomplished, all the hard work I have done in my life, and for ascribing all the fruit I reap not to the seeds I sow but to some invisible patron saint of white maleness who places it out for me before I even arrive.”

With all due respect to the seeds he has sown, to speak seriously of “all the hard work I have done in my life” seems a bit over the top. Tal Fortgang is in his first year of college. High school may have seemed like an eternity, and for some young people it is really hard, but it’s difficult to see it as a lifetime achievement.

Fortgang says that he decided to “check his privilege” to see how his past had brought him to his present situation. “I decided to take their advice,” he writes. “I actually went and checked the origins of my privileged existence.”

Of course, we know that he didn’t go to check his origins because someone told him to check his privilege, but it does make an engaging introduction to his family story. And that story is compelling. His grandfather escaped from the Nazis only to spend years in a forced labor camp in Siberia. His grandmother weighed just eighty pounds when she was rescued from Bergen-Belsen at the end of the war. They came to America and succeeded through hard work and sacrifice. They lived out the American dream.

It’s a great family story. And I mean that quite seriously.

But the idea of privilege is not about whether our grandparents worked hard. It is about recognizing that the place we occupy in society is not (entirely) of our own making. For Tal Fortgang, part of what it means is that he owes a great debt to his grandparents.

He probably would not have gotten into Princeton without hard work, but for most young people, all the hard work in the world would not have gotten them admission to Princeton or any of another several dozen elite colleges. He was born with intellectual abilities that others simply do not have. His parents supported him and taught him to value education. They probably gave him an environment that stimulated his curiosity. He was helped by his teachers and his school, and his hometown. He benefitted from his socio-economic status. There are very few kids at prestigious colleges who come from economically disadvantaged homes, though many feel disadvantaged because they compare themselves to their even wealthier classmates.

Everyone at Princeton, regardless of race, gender, religion, or the economic status of his or her family, has been gifted with enormous privilege.

Questioning his privileged surroundings, he writes: “Perhaps it was my privilege that my own father worked hard enough in City College to earn a spot at a top graduate school, got a good job, and for 25 years got up well before the crack of dawn, sacrificing precious time he wanted to spend with those he valued most—his wife and kids—to earn that living. I can say with certainty there was no legacy involved in any of his accomplishments. The wicker business just isn’t that influential. Now would you say that we’ve been really privileged? That our success has been gift-wrapped?”

Yes, Mr. Fortgang, that was and is part of your privilege. Your father sounds like an exemplary individual, and he worked hard to give you the life you now enjoy.

The reminder to “check your privilege” is not meant to make us feel guilty. It is meant to remind us that race, gender, class, and a host of other factors beyond our control have helped us to become the people we are. And that where we are in the socio-economic landscape influences how we see the rest of the world.

We hope that we have been good stewards of the gifts we have been given. We hope that we will add to the cultural legacy we have inherited. And we hope that by being aware of the gifts we have received we will take a kinder view of those who have less than we do.

Jesus Called It an Abomination

A servant cannot serve two masters; for a servant will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.
Luke 16:13-15

The 85 richest people in the world have about the same amount of money as the poorest 3.5 billion people. Jon Stewart listened intently as a news clip played, explaining that the total wealth of half the world’s population was barely as much as the richest 85 people.

“JESUS CHRIST!” he exclaimed, sounding as if he could not help himself. And then he paused before finishing the sentence, “. . . would be very unhappy.”

Yes, Jesus would be very unhappy.

According to the Gospel record, Jesus used the word “abomination” exactly once. Wealth, he said, is “prized by human beings,” but it is “an abomination in the sight of God.” After that exchange he went on to tell the parable of the rich man and the poor man (Luke 16:19-31) and he made it clear in the parable that the real problem was the dramatic inequality between the two. As far as we know, the rich man did not get his money dishonestly. The problem was simply that he had so much and the poor man had so little.

The poor man “longed to satisfy his hunger with the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table,” but he got nothing.

Pope Francis expressed a similar sentiment when he commented on the failure of “trickle down” economics. “The promise,” he said, “was that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefitting the poor. But what happens instead, is that when the glass is full, it magically gets bigger and nothing ever comes out for the poor.”

Luke says that when Jesus talked about wealth and poverty, the wealthy people “ridiculed him.” The same thing happened to Pope Francis. The same pundits and commentators who were totally on board with Roman Catholic teachings on gay rights and abortion were quick to say that the pope should stick to spiritual matters. One can only assume that they have never read the Gospels.

In one sense, the pope’s critics are right. The economic problem is symptomatic of a deeper spiritual problem. It isn’t about economics as much as it is about theology. Jesus said that we cannot worship wealth if we want to worship God. The worship of wealth is idolatrous. In our time the worship of wealth is buttressed by the conviction that a free market will provide a fair and just distribution of wealth and income. We believe that the distribution is fair because it is determined by the market. And we know that the market is fair. We “know” this even though the numbers tell us that it isn’t fair at all.

Lord, When Was It that You Were on Food Stamps?

“Then the Lord will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matthew 25:41-46

Last night I was at an emergency meeting for Project Outreach, a community service organization based at The Open Table of Christ United Methodist Church in Providence. Project Outreach is the largest single food distribution program in Rhode Island. In a typical month they distribute over 20,000 pounds of food to 450 unduplicated families. This includes 1400 individuals and about 200 visits per week. In addition to food distribution, Project Outreach also works with partners to provide medical care, job training, life skills, and advocacy.

The meeting, like many of our meetings, was focused on money. Compared to the work that gets done and the people who are helped, the budget is tiny, less than $75,000 per year. But raising money is never easy and raising money to feed poor people is particularly challenging, and we are behind. Way behind. Reluctantly, we had to make reductions in our staffing. The reductions will not balance the budget, but they will slow the flow of red ink.

This morning, I received an urgent message from Bread for the World, alerting me to a plan now before congress to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps, by $40 billion over the next decade.

According to Bread for the World, this will mean:

• Across the country, 2 to 4 million adults without dependents would lose benefits. SNAP already has strict work requirements but this proposal would require individuals to find work at times when jobs are scarce. 
• Nearly 2 million more people, primarily seniors and those in low-income working families, would lose benefits due to changes in eligibility rules. 
• In 2011, private churches and charities provided approximately $4 billion in food assistance, compared to $98 billion provided by federal nutrition programs. Churches and charities would have to nearly double their current food assistance to make up the difference. 

Lately it seems that Congress seldom lacks for bad ideas, but this is one of the worst. Food Stamps are good for the country in at least three ways. First, they reduce hunger and provide a modest safety net in a time of economic uncertainty displacement. Second, they stimulate the economy. One of the reasons that the current recession has not been worse is that government subsidies like Food Stamps have helped to limit the drop in consumer demand, which stimulates the economy. And Food Stamps are a particularly effective stimulus, since we know that they will be spent and the money will go back into the economy. Some estimates show that every dollar spent on Food Stamps stimulates a boost to the economy of $1.73, far more than the estimated gain of $1.23 from tax cuts. Finally, Food Stamps help the country by helping children grow into healthier adults who will contribute to society.

Food Stamps are, almost literally, the best thing since sliced bread.

But beyond all of that, for Christians this is a no-brainer.

Matthew tells us that in one of his last public appearances before his crucifixion, Jesus told a parable of judgment. The message was simple. We will meet Christ in “the least of these,” the homeless, the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned. And we will be judged by how we treat those who are suffering.

The House of Representatives will vote soon. If you want to influence that vote you can go to the Bread for the World website and use their convenient link to contact your representative.

Why Do We Hate Poor People?

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
James 2:1-7

Why do we hate poor people?

Seriously. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but it’s a visceral reaction.

A friend posted an article from The Atlantic by Eric Schnureraug titled, “Just How Wrong Is Conventional Wisdom About Government Fraud?” A summary at the top of the article said, “Entitlement programs, from food stamps to Medicare, don't see unusually high cheating rates -- and the culprits are usually managers and executives, not ‘welfare queens.’”

The article does not break new ground. Anyone who has been paying attention probably knows that the government has made great progress in reducing the fraud in food stamps and other benefits to poor people, and that the bigger fraud issues are at higher levels.

Schnureraug concludes:

“For the most part, fraud isn’t the product of scheming low-income beneficiaries … living high on the hog on your dime, but rather someone other than the beneficiary standing to make a buck off it. Medicare and Medicaid fraud is largely committed not by patients -- very few people are trying to rip off taxpayers to obtain unneeded spinal taps or root canals -- but by providers: unscrupulous (or sometimes just incompetent) doctors and hospitals billing for procedures the patient didn't need or didn't receive."

Again, not surprising.

If we know that most of the fraud is not at the bottom of the food chain, why has the government been working so hard to eliminate fraud at that level? Of course, fraud is wrong at every level, but that begs the question. Why are we so focused on fraud committed by poor people?

Years ago, before the advent of electronic transfers and debit cards, when Food Stamps were given out at coupons, it was very obvious when someone used them at the grocery store. I can remember standing in line behind someone using the coupons and looking at what was being purchased. Was she buying potato chips? If he needs Food Stamps, how can he afford cigarettes? I can also remember that when I would catch myself unconsciously judging the stranger in front of me and turn aside, I would quickly find that my eyes were not the only ones focused on a stranger’s purchases.

One of the key lessons of modern life is that when we read articles on line we should not read the comments. It makes no difference what the article is about. We should never read the comments. Never.

But of course I did read the comments on the Atlantic article. Although the article was nuanced and discussed many types of public and private fraud, and suggested several steps that could be taken to reduce fraud, the comments were almost all very narrowly focused on fraud committed by poor people.

Many of the comments shared a common theme. One writer declared:

“I object to giving money to people that WON'T work. I object to paying for their health care and their groceries. I object to politicians who buy votes by providing welfare for scumbag loafers.

“Here's an idea: when we wrote the constitution we screwed up. We give the vote to people that have no stake in making the system work. We should thus limit the vote to tax payers and veterans. Let the scumbag loafers starve.”

If pressed, I’m sure the writer would say that he does not hate poor people, he hates lazy people. According to the article, the best estimate is that fraud committed by Food Stamp beneficiaries amounts to about one percent of the total. It is amazing how much energy we invest in trying to reform that one percent.

Social Insecurity

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 
Exodus 20:12

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
James 1:27

Conventional wisdom says that if we are serious about reducing the deficit, then we will have to do something to curb “entitlements.” And in this context the entitlements under review are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

The obvious question is why we are so concerned about deficit reduction when the immediate need is for jobs and almost everyone agrees that cutting government spending will slow the recovery (or send us back into recession) and we can see that austerity has failed all over Europe. But we will leave that for another time.

Medicare and Medicaid belong in a separate discussion that focuses on health care costs. But let’s look at Social Security.

First, Social Security is not adding to the deficit. Right now, Social Security has a surplus and that surplus is being used to buy government bonds which are funding the deficit. If we do nothing, Social Security will eventually become a problem. In 2033, if we do nothing, Social Security will have to reduce payments by 25%. That projected shortfall, and the related assumption that Congress will appropriate funds from the Federal Budget to prevent a reduction in benefits, is what drives the idea that Social Security is part of the debt problem.

Correcting the problem is not that difficult. If we eliminated the cap on wages subject to Social Security, the fund would be solvent for the next seventy-five years. In other posts I have written about how the incomes of the richest Americans have grown much faster than everyone else’s. In terms of Social Security, that means that a larger percentage of total wages is not taxed for Social Security. Even if we did not eliminate the cap, we could still reduce the shortfall substantially by adjusting the cap on wages.

Second, we should be thinking about ways to expand Social Security, rather than ways to shrink it. Social Security is our most successful domestic program. It has dramatically reduced poverty among our elderly. Theoretically, Social Security is one leg of a three-legged stool that makes up American retirement accounts. The other legs are employer sponsored pension programs and individual retirement accounts. But the non-governmental legs are much weaker than they once were. Fewer corporations are offering pension plans, and individual accounts have been hard hit by the Great Recession. Fewer than half of households ages 55-64 have any retirement savings. And fewer than half of those that do have savings have more than $120,000.

The majority of retirees have incomes of less than $32,600 per year and receive approximately two-thirds of all their income from Social Security. And the average benefit is just $1,265 per month. Eighty percent of all seniors have incomes below $57,600 per year and receive, on average, half of their incomes from Social Security. Only the top 20% or seniors do not count Social Security as their largest income source, and that’s because most of them are still working.

Expanding Social Security sounds like crazy talk if you believe that the current budget discussions in Washington are sane. But we need to think hard about what sort of living conditions we imagine for future retirees. Most of the talk about “reforming” Social Security really means reducing benefits, either by increasing the retirement age or by decreasing the amount paid out. And that will translate into more seniors living near or below the poverty line.

We need to think seriously about how we can make Social Security into a reasonable replacement for disappearing corporate pensions. That will require increasing the payroll tax on almost everyone, and it’s hard to imagine our current leadership taking that on. But the alternative is a future in which the gaps between rich and poor increase as we age and are much greater in retirement.

How Much Is Too Much?

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames. ’But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 
Luke 16:19-25

One of the things the Bible is very clear about is that a large gap between poor people and rich people is not a good thing. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, recalling the story of Manna in the desert, the goal is a society in which “the one who had more did not have too much, and the one who had less did not have too little.” In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus is telling a story that is not meant to be taken literally, but he places responsibility on the rich man to do something about the divide between those who have nothing and those who are able to dress well and feast “sumptuously every day.”

But the Bible does not give much guidance on what sort of income gap is acceptable.

Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael Norton of the Harvard Business School recently published an interesting study, asking a random sample of 5,500 Americans which of three possible patterns of wealth distribution would be best for the country.

In one pattern, the wealth was divided equally. The bottom fifth had 20% of the wealth, as did the top fifth, and each of the three fifths in between.

Another pattern, represented the current situation in the United States, where the bottom fifth has just .1% of the wealth (one tenth of a percent), and the top fifth has 84%.

The third pattern showed the income distribution in Sweden, where the bottom fifth has 11% of the wealth, and the top fifth has 36%.

Of course, the participants were not told that two of the distributions represented real countries, and they were not told that one was the United States and the other was Sweden. Without knowing what the countries were, over 90% preferred the pattern in Sweden to the pattern in the United States. And this was true of Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals. It was also true of people in every income group, from the bottom to the top. With small differences among the groups, almost everyone wanted to live in a country where the wealth is more evenly divided.

Ariely and Norton asked two more important questions.

They asked participants what they believed the wealth distribution in the United States was right now. On average, they believed that the top fifth had 59% of the wealth.

And they asked participants how much the top fifth should have, and on average they responded that the top fifth should have just 32% of the wealth. On average they believed that the poorest fifth should have 11% of the wealth.

In other words, the average American thinks that the richest Americans should have much less and the poorest Americans should have much more. And the average American would rather live in Sweden in terms of income distribution, but believes that even there the gap is too much.

The study also revealed (no big surprise) that Conservatives and Liberals have very different ideas about what we should do in order to move toward a more equitable distribution. But at least we agree on the goal. I count that as a win for the Jesus and Paul and the Hebrew prophets.

Raising the Minimum

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:5

It is hard to argue that as a society we have not “oppressed the hired workers in their wages.”

From 1967 until 2011 the richest quintile of the country has seen a 75% increase in income. The second quintile has gone up 42%, and the bottom 60% of the country has averaged about half that much. If we look more closely, we find that within that top quintile the richest 5% have had an increase of over 94%.

Before the Great Recession, the gap between the richest Americans and everyone else reached its highest level since the Great Depression. Since the recession (allegedly) ended in 2009, the top 1% has enjoyed an 11% gain in income. The other 99% has gained nothing. The median income today, adjusted for inflation, is 11% lower than it was in 1999.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus (or of the Hebrew prophets), the increasing gap between the richest and the poorest Americans is a major ethical problem. It may well be the most important ethical issue we face. Certainly, it is one of the most important economic problems we face.

Raising the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour would be a small step in addressing that growing gap. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage would need to be over $10.00 per hour to equal what it was in the 1960’s, so this is a modest step.

The Cato Institute argues that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs and hurt the very people it is supposed to help. Others argue that raising the minimum wage is like “giving a man a fish,” which will feed him for a day, rather than “teaching a man to fish,” which will feed him for a lifetime. Curiously, these same critics are not proposing any job training programs or new educational initiatives.

In the gilded age before the turn of the last century, the Social Gospel reformers argued that factory workers should be paid a living wage. The owners argued that any such windfall would be bad for the workers. They wouldn’t know what to do with the money and would inevitably squander it like the prodigal son, on “riotous living.”

In a recent column in the New York Times, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman acknowledges the theory behind the arguments against raising the minimum wage, but argues that “there’s evidence on that question — lots and lots of evidence, because the minimum wage is one of the most studied issues in all of economics. U.S. experience, it turns out, offers many “natural experiments” here, in which one state raises its minimum wage while others do not. And while there are dissenters, as there always are, the great preponderance of the evidence from these natural experiments points to little if any negative effect of minimum wage increases on employment.”

Since the 1960’s worker productivity has doubled, but little of that gain has been shared with those doing the work, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder. It’s time to give them a raise.

Health Care: Economics and Morality

As he went, the crowds pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped.
Luke 8:43-44 

I got a note last week from a young woman in our church asking me to pray for her aunt who “has been diagnosed with lung cancer, lost her job in September and has no insurance. A day later a colleague told me of a friend who was recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The good news is that her doctor has found a medication that gives her relief. The bad news is that it costs six hundred dollars a month, and she has no insurance. And last week I also heard from a young friend who was hit by a car while riding her bicycle. She was wearing a helmet, so the impact of her head on the hood of the car did not, apparently, cause serious injury, but she was reluctant to get checked at the hospital because (you guessed correctly) she had no health insurance.

Americans pay more for health care than any other developed country, and we get worse results. We don’t live as long and we are not as healthy as the residents of other developed countries. The difference is that they have universal health care and we don’t.

The woman with Crohn’s disease is a Canadian citizen who has lived and worked in the United States for several decades. After listening to her problem, a friend suggested gently, “Maybe it’s time to go home.”

We spend over $8,000 per person on health care. That’s more than twice the cost of other developed countries. We have fewer practicing physicians, 2.6 per thousand people compared with an average among other developed countries of 3.1 per thousand. Our life expectancy is 78.7 years, compared to an average among the developed nations of 79.8. And we have 2.6 hospital beds per thousand people, compared to an average of 3.4 beds per thousand in the rest of the developed world.

We spend more and we get less.

Health care is a moral issue, but it is also an economic issue. Universal health care improves lives and it saves money. It is not economically efficient for uninsured people to use the hospital emergency room when a visit to a doctor’s office is what they really need. Routine care can improve health and reduce the number of crisis situations that lead to emergency hospitalizations.

The Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare” is less than perfect, but it makes a beginning. Fewer people will be uninsured and fewer people missing out on routine screenings or going to the Emergency Room when they have a bad cold. And fewer people will face bankruptcy as the result of a catastrophic illness.

And there is an added bonus for those concerned about the national debt. The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimated that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the debt by $143 billion between 2010 and 2019.

Wonder Bread and Prosperity

So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
John 6:30-34

Obviously, Jesus was talking about Wonder Bread.

One of the great trials of my childhood was that I never (almost never) had Wonder Bread. On Saturdays when I watched a circus show on TV called (I think) “The Big Top” at noon at Gramma Gibbs’s across the street, she would make me a peanut butter sandwich on Cushman’s white bread, but I still didn’t get Wonder Bread.

Sadly, my mother was into health food long before it was popular and I was forced to carry whole wheat or oatmeal bread sandwiches to school for lunch. As far as I could tell, everyone else had Wonder Bread.

According to the TV ads, “Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies twelve ways!” There were no ads for oatmeal bread, but my mother assured me that it was good for me.

I have been meditating on Wonder Bread since I learned that the Hostess Baking Company has declared bankruptcy (again) and is shutting down. No more Hostess Cup Cakes or Snowballs or Twinkies. I thought Twinkies were eternal.

The company is blaming the unions and there is some truth to that. Apparently one of the unions had a deal whereby they could not be required to carry baked goods and bread on the same truck, which meant two different trucks for the same route. On the other hand, in one of the earlier bankruptcy reorganizations the CEO negotiated pay and benefit reductions with the unions and then gave himself a 300% pay raise (which he earned by negotiating those reductions).

There is certainly enough blame to go around.

Those of us who paid attention to Reinhold Niebuhr are not surprised to find that the tendency to self-interest is found in unions as well as in management. Niebuhr was in favor of unions, not because they were pure and blameless, but because they provided a countervailing force to the power of corporations.

It is worth noting that in the in the Wonder Bread and Twinkie world of the 1950’s, unions were much stronger than they are today. In the mid-fifties approximately one-third of all workers were unionized. Management and workers bargained as equals. And on top of that, the highest marginal tax rate was 91%.

In that postwar environment of strong unions and (relatively) high taxes, we thrived. Middle class income grew dramatically and we enjoyed perhaps the greatest prosperity in the history of the world.

Ironically, there is much more nostalgia for Twinkies and Wonder Bread than for stronger unions and higher taxes, even though we know that Twinkies and Wonder Bread and Hostess Cup Cakes are not good for us. (My mother was right all along!)

There are lots of things about the post-war era that we don’t miss. The disabled were institutionalized and out of sight. Black people rode at the back of the bus. Gays were kept in the closet. And women did not stray from the kitchen.

Restoring the higher marginal tax rates of the fifties will not magically create prosperity (but investments in infrastructure—remember the interstate highway system—can make a difference). And restoring the power of the unions is impossible in the new global economy. But there are still positive lessons to learn from those “Wonder Years.” It is possible to have prosperity without asking those at the bottom to have less so that those at the top can have more.

Happy United Nations Day

²In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. ³Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. ⁴He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ⁵O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Isaiah 2:2-5

At the United Nations building in New York City there is a statue of a man beating a giant sword into a plowshare. The sculpture, titled, “Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares,” was created by Evgeniv Vuchetich and given as a gift by the Soviet Union in 1959.

When President Reagan addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, he began by describing the journey that brought the delegates and the nations together as a kind of pilgrimage, and then he said, “We come from every continent, every race, and most religions to this great hall of hope . . .”

Near the conclusion of his address, speaking specifically to the Soviet Union as well as to the whole assembly, he asked, “Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences world-wide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien than war and the threat of war?”

The United Nations Charter was ratified on October 24, 1945. Today is United Nations Day. When I was a boy we celebrated United Nations Sunday in church every year.

My guess is that most people don’t know that today is United Nations Day. And we do not have many political leaders who would speak of the U.N. assembly room as “this great hall of hope.”

Over the years the United Nations has relentlessly vilified and marginalized by politicians. Some see it as simply ineffective and others see it as a threat to our sovereignty. In his new book, “The Black Helicopters Are Coming!” political commentator Dick Morris’ claims that President Obama is plotting to have the United States invaded by the United Nations. Morris admits that “it sounds crazy,” but insists that it is really going to happen.

It doesn’t just sound crazy. It really and truly is crazy. But this is where we are.

The truth is that the United Nations has not lived up to our expectations. We have avoided massive world wars, and that is no small achievement. The second half of the twentieth century was much more peaceful than the first half. And the United Nations must take some share of the credit for that. On the other hand, smaller wars have been constant and the resulting deaths and injuries have been staggering.

In spite of its obvious limitations, the world is a better place because of the United Nations, and on United Nations Day I want to touch briefly on a few of the U.N. organizations that have fostered international progress and understanding.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is organized to reduce hunger worldwide through improving agricultural productivity and raising levels of nutrition. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is similarly targeted to reduce rural poverty in developing nations by funding relief efforts.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) promotes global cooperation to improve maritime safety and decrease marine pollution.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) acts as a forum for discussing global financial issues and provides loans to developing countries.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) promotes world peace and security by fostering international cooperation in education, science and culture. They promote the fundamental freedoms endorsed in the UN Charter.

And then there are some UN organizations that require no further description: the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WHO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the World Bank Group (WBG) which includes five sub-groups focused on promoting development and reconstruction.

It is an impressive list. Together they promote an international strategy for beating swords into plowshares. 

The Parable of the Extra Cookie

When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” 
 Deuteronomy 8:12-17

Bestselling author Michael Lewis gave a remarkably self-effacing and genuinely humble speech to the graduating class at Princeton last month.

His speech was titled, “Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie.” It was in many ways the antithesis of the traditional graduation speech. He did not outline his keys to success or exhort the graduates to set high goals, or talk about discipline and hard work. What he told them was that success was more about luck than hard work. Successful people have to work hard. They have to be disciplined and focused. But lots of people work very hard and are very focused and still achieve much less.

As individuals and as a society, we don’t want to see it that way. We want to believe that what we have achieved is entirely the result of our own efforts.

He tells the story of his own lucky break this way, “One night I was invited to a dinner, where I sat next to the wife of a big shot at a giant Wall Street investment bank, called Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the place we have all come to know and love. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in which to observe the growing madness: they turned me into the house expert on derivatives. A year and a half later Salomon Brothers was handing me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to give advice about derivatives to professional investors.”

For Lewis, the money was really beside the point. He didn’t want to be a Wall Street executive, he wanted to be a writer. The critical thing was that now he had something to write about, “Wall Street had become so unhinged that it was paying recent Princeton graduates who knew nothing about money small fortunes to pretend to be experts about money.”

He went on, “The book I wrote was called ‘Liar’s Poker.’ It sold a million copies. I was 28 years old. I had a career, a little fame, a small fortune and a new life narrative. All of a sudden people were telling me I was born to be a writer. This was absurd. Even I could see there was another, truer narrative, with luck as its theme. What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady? Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm from which to write the story of an age? Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business? Of having parents who didn't disinherit me but instead sighed and said ‘do it if you must?’ Of having had that sense of must kindled inside me by a professor of art history at Princeton? Of having been let into Princeton in the first place?”

He talked about his writing, and then he told a story which is also a parable.

Researchers at Berkley recruited undergraduates to particpate in an experiment. They segregated them into three person teams. Each team had either trhee males or three females. Then they arbitraritly chose a person to be the group “leader,” who would report back to the larger session. The “leaders” were each given a special T-shirt to wear, identifying him or her as the “leader.” And each group was given a moral dilemma to solve, like reducing campus drinking or academic cheating.

After thirty minutes, the researcher interrupted each of the groups and offered them a plate of cookies. Each plate had four cookies. There was one for each participant and one extra. This might have been the source of some awkward negotiation, but it wasn’t. The fourth cookie was almost always consumed by the “leader,” who “Not only ate it, but ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths. In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were crumbs on the leader's shirt.”

Lewis observed, “This leader had performed no special task. He had no special virtue. He'd been chosen at random, 30 minutes earlier. His status was nothing but luck. But it still left him with the sense that the cookie should be his.”

The experiment, he said, helps to explain Wall Street bonuses and CEO pay and lots of other human behavior. And then he explained the meaning of the parable in specific reference to Princeton graduates, “In a general sort of way you have been appointed the leader of the group. Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything.” 

All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you'll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.”

And then he urged them never to forget the Princeton motto: “In the nation's service. In the service of all nations.”

We do live in the richest society the world has ever seen at a time when no one actually expects us to sacrifice our own interests for anyone else. We will be tempted to “eat the extra cookie.” In some cases we will be tempted to eat the extra cookie even when we know that outside of our group there may be others with no cookies at all.

Opportunity Is Not Equal

Happy are those who find wisdom,
and those who get understanding,
for her income is better than silver,
and her revenue better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called happy.

Proverbs 3:13-18

My friend Keith Sanzen posted a CNN essay on education on his Facebook page. The article was titled, “For Poor Children, Trying Hard Is Not Enough.” It was written by Trina R. Shanks, an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan and a Rhodes Scholar.

Shanks, who is black, notes that she is the granddaughter of an elementary school cook and a woman who cleaned other people’s homes. Her grandmothers never had much money, but they worked hard and encouraged their children to get an education. In spite of their difficult economic circumstances, both of her parents earned college degrees and were able to raise Shanks and her siblings in a middle class lifestyle. And now she, their daughter, “went on to receive a Ph.D.”

Her point in the essay is that the story she lived, of upward mobility, is increasingly difficult to achieve. She cites studies showing that income level and educational opportunity are linked. And points out that the effects are dramatic: the highest achieving students from poor families are less likely to complete college than the lowest achieving students of affluent families. In terms of completing a college degree, income is a greater determinate than ability or effort. We are not just wasting the lives of individual children, though that would be bad enough, we are losing precious intellectual resources that could benefit our whole society.

The article was interesting and appalling. But it did not break new ground. Anyone who has been concerned about upward social mobility in the United States already knows that we now lag far behind many other western countries.

To me, the comments following the article were more interesting than the article itself.

The negative responses followed a pattern: “I was poor and I worked hard and I succeeded. Everyone can succeed if they work hard enough.”

We won’t question how “poor” the writers actually were, or how hard they worked. I applaud the effort and the achievement, but I am appalled by the reasoning. The point that Shanks and many others are making is not that it is impossible for a poor child to overcome his or her circumstances, but that such success is so very rare. 

This is not about individual success or failure; it is about broad social patterns.Among poor children, even those with great gifts and determination face daunting odds. Some will succeed, but too many will fail. The individual struggles are poignant, but the social costs are staggering.

As a child, when I learned about the American Dream, I was taught that education was the foundation and the great equalizer. Regardless of race or class, everyone had the opportunity to learn and, therefore, the opportunity to succeed. In my idyllic Cape Cod childhood, I understood success to mean a home, a family and a satisfying occupation that contributed to the greater good. That modest dream is increasingly out of reach for children growing up in low income families. As one researcher ironically observed, the best way to insure success is to choose wisely when selecting your parents.

Coffee and Conscience

Happy are those
who do not follow the advice
of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of the scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.Psalm 1:1-3
Just a few years ago Starbucks was closing stores and laying off employees in a desperate attempt to restore profitability. Today they are expanding, and the Starbucks stock price is at an all time high. At the shareholders meeting this week, the man responsible for the turnaround, CEO Howard Schultz, announced record profits of more than 1 billion dollars, and said that conscience was a key component of the company’s success.

Companies, he said, need to give back to their communities. He argued that it is good for business and essential to restoring the American Dream. “We’re heading into a crucible,” he told the shareholders, “something that’s really going to test the conscience of the country. It’s a test we cannot pass by being bystanders.” He talked about the growing gap between rich and poor and potential “cuts in social services we haven’t seen since the great depression.”

He criticized the government for not doing enough to resolve the debt crisis, or help create jobs and restore the middle class, and he criticized banks for not loaning more money to small businesses. He also insisted that business leaders can no longer wait for Washington to act.
Starbucks has created a jobs program that makes loans to small businesses and non-profits. And he announced the company’s commitment to the goal of job creation by investing $180 million in a new plant in Augusta, Georgia, as well as the expansion of existing facilities in South Carolina.

During the meeting, two shareholders stood up to question the company’s decision to support same sex marriage in Washington State. Each time, he answered calmly and respectfully, noting that not everyone agrees with their stand. “But,” he said, “I want to say candidly, this was not a hard decision.” We looked at the issue, he said, “through the lens of humanity.”

He went on to say that he wanted the company to stand for something more than a product and he wanted the company employees to feel like they were part of something larger than themselves that would make a difference in the world. Last year Starbucks employees contributed nearly half a million hours to volunteer projects in their communities, and the company is working hard to recycle more and be more environmentally friendly.

Looking at a business “through the lens of humanity” does not guarantee financial success, and “doing good” does not automatically translate into “doing well.” But without a concern for the common welfare, real success is impossible.

Education and the Reproduction of Privilege

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
They will abide in prosperity,
and their children shall possess the land.Psalm 25:8-10, 13
Rick Santorum made headlines by calling President Obama a “snob” for insisting that every American should go to college. What the President actually said was that every American should commit to a year of training beyond high school. He talked about four year colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeships. And as it turns out, the former Senator endorses that same goal.

Higher education is an important factor in economic success. And its importance is increasing. Thirty years ago, college graduates earned an average of 50% more money than those with only a high school diploma. Today that difference has increased to 80%.

Americans have believed in education as the great economic ladder by which even the poorest citizens could climb into the middle class. But recent data indicate that may no longer be true. Education, in fact, may solidify and increase class barriers.

In an essay in Monday’s New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall talks about college as an institution that reinforces class stratification. Citing a report by Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, and co-author of a report on how college access increases inequality, Edsall observes that at the most competitive colleges almost three quarters of all students come from families in the top quartile of income and that only three percent come from the bottom quartile. As Carnevale puts it, “The education system is an increasingly powerful mechanism for the intergenerational reproduction of privilege.”

In the United States there are a little more than one thousand colleges classified as “competitive,” and almost exactly the same number of community colleges. But the student bodies of those two groups are from the opposite ends of the income scare. At the competitive colleges, nearly eighty percent come from families in the upper half of the income distribution. At the community colleges the same percentage comes from low-income families.

We like to think of the education system as a class-blind meritocracy. Standardized tests, like the SAT, don’t know and don’t care what a student’s family income is, or where her parents went to college. But in practice, SAT scores correlate closely to income. The higher the income, the higher the score. Those scoring at the upper end are on average, from wealthier families.

The problem is exacerbated by shrinking scholarships.

In the late 1960’s, when I was applying to college, my dad was the pastor of three small churches on Cape Cod. Our income was barely above the poverty line, but I received a full scholarship to Wesleyan University (tuition, room and board, and money for books). Need based scholarships at that level do not exist today. If I were applying to college today, I would get a “package” of grants and loans, with an anticipated college debt that would take decades to pay off.

This means that those rare students from the lower income levels who do have excellent grades and score well on standardized tests are far less likely than their more affluent classmates to enroll in college, and more likely to leave before graduation. Thirty years ago a Pell Grant (the federal scholarship program) covered 99 percent of the cost of community college, 77 percent of the cost at a public four year college, and 36 percent of the cost at a private four-year college. According to Education Week, today those percentages had dropped to 62, 36 and 15 percent. Grants are shrinking as costs are rising.

Since the founding of our nation, we have believed in the ideal of a “class-less” nation. We knew that there were gaps in income. But we believed in universal education as the best way to shrink those gaps and provide opportunity for every citizen. And the huge middle class gains after the Second World War, seemed to offer proof that the ideal could become reality. Today we face a series of economic factors which have made upward mobility much more difficult.

The system we have trusted to break through the barriers of class, now does just the opposite. As Anthony Carnevale stated, “The education system is an increasingly powerful mechanism for the intergenerational reproduction of privilege.” We need some serious reform if we are to reclaim our dream.

Winning, Losing and What Really Matters

All who pass along the way clap their hands at you;
they hiss and wag their heads at daughter Jerusalem;
“Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty,
the joy of all the earth?”
All your enemies open their mouths against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry:
“We have devoured her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
at last we have seen it!”
The LORD has done what he purposed,
he has carried out his threat;
as he ordained long ago,
he has demolished without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you,
and exalted the might of your foes.Lamentations 2:15-17
I could not read about the game this morning.

When my team wins, I read the sports pages as if they were sacred text. I look at all of the pictures. I read what the winners said and what the losers said. I look for the human interest stories. It is a salvation history. Even if my team was favored, it still seems like a miracle.

As I read the stories, I can see the game unfolding and I relive the best moments. And then I want to turn on ESPN and see the same plays over and over.

But when my team loses, the world is darkness and not light. I cannot read the commentary or watch the replays on television. And I cannot stand the preening of the victors.

All of this is crazy, of course. It’s just a game. And in spite of our pathological determination to make believe that the games are determined by character and skill, the truth is that the distance between victory and defeat is often more complicated than that.

Yesterday our Youth Group collected money for the annual “Souper Bowl of Caring,” a nationwide youth program that raises funds for community food banks and soup kitchens around the country. Yesterday they collected more than five hundred dollars, and they raised more than two thousand dollars by making and selling pizzas. It was a great effort.

Since the “Souper Bowl” program began twenty years ago, the organization has raised more than $80 million dollars. This sounds like a lot, until you compare it to the total amount spent on the game, which was estimated at over $11 billion. The total amount raised to feed hungry people over the past twenty years is less than 1% of the amount spent on the game this year.

And that puts the notion of winning and losing in a very different perspective.

Where is our sense of proportion?

I love football.

The Super Bowl is a bizarre event on many different levels. But that is not the point. The problem is not that we care too much about a game, but that we care too little about so many other really important things in the world. Hungry people are just a start.

Still, except for the final score, it was a great game.