A different kind of joy
Luke 1: 46-55
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 13, 2020
I gotta say, lately I have been considering all the facts and I’m finding it hard to be joyful. Don’t get me wrong. I know that within those facts there is a great deal to be thankful for and I am. But I want more, not for myself but for those whose lives are dictated by racism and violence, poverty and the hoarding of power and wealth. I hear Mary’s song of rejoicing and praise and I want more. More justice. More peace. More hope. I want the powerful brought down and the lowly lifted up. I want to know the joy of the hungry being filled with good things and the rich sent away empty.
Most of us enjoy a good ‘gotcha’ story, a justice story, a time when someone gets the comeuppance their actions or behavior deserves. Like the story of the White woman who complained about being seated next to a Black man and the flight attendant escorted the Black man to a first class seat. Or the recent story of a woman escorted off the plane for refusing to wear a mask or even the mask provided by the airline.
Every year around this time a story makes its way around social media entitled “Star of Vengeance”. It’s the true story told by someone working in retail. Right there at the outset they have my sympathy. It takes place almost 20 years ago and a few days after Christmas, and all the ornaments have been reduced to 75% off. One ornament in particular—gold cloth stars embroidered with gold beads, each with a long heavy tassel of gold bugle beads hanging by braided gold thread—was on sale for only 50 cents apiece. A woman “dressed to the nines and driving a high-end Lexus” came into the store and wanted to buy 4 of these star ornaments but for 25 cents apiece. The retail worker informed the woman that no, this is not a yard sale; the price is 50 cents. The woman became argumentative and rude and in a huff declared that a friend of her who works at the other store across town told her that the next day the ornaments will be 90% off so she will be back tomorrow morning.
Can you guess what happened next? That’s right. The retail worker not only bought all 12 star ornaments in that store but also called the store across town and bought all their star ornaments. And just to be extra spiteful they also bought every star ornament in the stores in two neighboring cities—“the most vengeful $30” they ever spent.
The next morning the woman was there as soon as the store opened. With pleasure the retail worker informed her that all the star ornaments in the northern part of the state had been sold to one customer. For years they gave the ornaments to friends and family but saved one for themselves. Almost 20 years later they still smile when they hang it on the tree.
I understand why the story is popular. Someone who is used to getting their way doesn’t get what they want. Someone who is harassed, underpaid, and powerless gets the upper hand. But this isn’t the justice that Mary was singing about. The rich may have been sent away empty but not because they filled the hungry with good things. The hungry—the retail worker—was still harassed and underpaid and settled for vengeance because that’s all there was.
I want CEOs like Dan Price of Gravity Payments, a midsize credit card processing company based in Seattle. Five years ago he promised each of his 120 employees a minimum salary of $70,000. He did this through company profits but mostly through reducing his own 7-figure salary from 1.1 million to $70,000. A good friend and talented individual earned less than $50,000 working 50 hours a week or more and wouldn’t be able to afford a $200 increase in her rent and this angered him. Price remembered a study from 2010 that reported that people do not feel happier as their wages rise above $75,000 but they are a great deal more miserable when they earn less than that amount. It took him two years to carry out the changes necessary.
Of course there were critics, calling it socialism and accusing Price of killing the work ethic, all of them sure the initiative would fail. Instead the company grew; the number of employees increased by 70%. Everyone was more committed to the success of the company. There were significant changes in the lives of employees: more babies were born per year because families could afford to support more children; people paid down their debts or were able to buy a house.
Then when the pandemic hit, the company had to make some difficult decisions but Price was resolute that he wouldn’t fire anyone. One employee suggested a radical solution: everyone would anonymously submit the percentage cut in pay that they could absorb for the foreseeable future. Amazingly almost everyone agreed to take a cut in pay with 10 people agreeing to work for no wages and several dozen who offered to work at half pay. In July the company reassessed their status and was able to reinstate everyone’s salaries.
We are capable of so much more and we need so much more: student loan forgiveness, medical debt forgiveness, living wages, health care and housing as human rights, equal education opportunities. Shoplifting of basic staples is on the rise because Congress has been dragging its feet on the next stimulus package. 20 million people are on some kind of assistance and 12 million will run out of benefits the day after Christmas unless Congress acts to change that.
The joy of Advent is not the joy of the season or the joy that comes from security or any other way we might define it. The joy of Advent is a future joy, one that comes from restorative justice, from the material, palpable difference in human lives. Mary sings of the great things God has done but God can only do these things through us. Mary knew she could not be satisfied with the way things were so she said yes.
The hungry are not filled with good things by eating the rich, but when the rich are sent away empty because they have filled the hungry. The revolution that overthrows the powerful and lifts the lowly begins in the human heart. How do we make the powerful care? It begins with us and our power and our caring. This is a church that has a history of asking difficult questions of itself. This is a generous affluent church that lives within its means and serves a diverse, vulnerable population. And yet what excess do we have in our lives and in our life together that we could be emptied of? When was the last time we examined our investments and how they are used to create wealth, like private prison companies that are also responsible for migrant prisons or fossil fuel companies or corporations that make weapons for war?
Mary sings about what God is going to do. We celebrate the love that comes to us in the birth of Jesus. But none of this does anything material in human lives if it does not happen through us, through the transformation of our hearts and minds. This isn’t something that makes sense or is logical but rather the exact opposite. It’s radical. It’s risky. It’s irrational. It’s the kind of joy that has yet to take hold of us. The question has always been, how and when will we say yes?
Benediction – enfleshed.com
May we be so bold as Mary:
mothering God into being
in dangerous ways and places,
in practices of radical solidarity,
in hopes of collective liberation made flesh.
Let us go, rejoicing together with songs of freedom
about the day when salvation comes.
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