Wages Are for Living

November 12, 2017

Susan Adams

Ordinary 32     Living Wage Week     Micah 4:1-5     Matthew 20:1-9

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

There is a bible verse that speaks of everyone living under their own vine and fig tree – and, I dare to say, surrounded by their olive trees! It's a bit hard to imagine from our concrete jungle!

We have recently returned from Crete, a place where this vision of the good life still operates, where it is still what people aspire to. Where most of the food necessities come from their own farm. The 'farm' people spoke about, in the traditional village where we stayed, might be a small holding (no bigger that the section many of us would like to have to put a house on) or a number of acres with vines and olive trees they have been caring for for 1500 years, and of course, a flock of 'sheep/goats' as we called them because it was so hard to tell the difference.

However much land you had it grew enough for your basic needs and some to barter or simply give away. Even as visitors we were the recipients of this generosity many times over. Some of the work on this 'farm' is done by the land holder themselves and at other times the work is done as a community effort – such as the grape harvest and wine-making, at yet other times extra hands are employed like when it is time to harvest the millions of olive trees.

However the work of producing the food and wine is done, both the work and the produce are shared – sold or bartered or given.

Our experience of this approach to the land and to living is one that clearly identifies community as important. In conversation people expressed satisfaction with being part of a community of people including extended family members and neighbours, that would all help each other out so no one was without work to do or without enough to live on through the all the seasons of the year, including having enough to share with guests. The economic security of their land and their family/community, having the sun, and the shared 'stories' that shape who they are and how they live together was both a source of pride and the foundation for the satisfaction with their lives that was spoken about by those who engaged us in conversation.

We have a story too that shapes our living and relationships, we have our Christian story, and it begins way back, wrapping in some of the same elements that shape my Kreti companions: stories about those vines and fig trees, about community and shared care, about love and family and neighbour and knowing how to celebrate what is good, and to care for the earth.

Our urban location puts us at some distance from this experience day to day. It makes it much more difficult for us to remember that what we need for living comes to us from the earth and from our families and friends and neighbours. The story that we hear most often is one about what we deserve, not what we need, about the accumulation of surplus not generous sharing.

At the heart of the Living Wage Movement are a set of theological precepts.

I think this is why, world-wide, churches have been key players, if not instigators in the energy and activities of the Movement.

• It is the theology that motivates my involvement in the work of LWNZ and

• why I believe St Matthew-in-the-City should be actively engaged based on its own vision statement.

• It is why I agreed to preach today as Living Wage Week ends for this year.

I want to remind us all that a Living Wage is not some leftie do-good idea, rather it is a key to our self identity as the body of Christ and it is something that can be done.

For me those theological precepts lie at the heart of what it means to be a human community.

Core to them is the fundamental perspective that we are human beings together, on earth. That together, humans and all other sentient creatures, share the goodness of the earth and all it produces – and we humans are required to be responsible caregivers.

Our Christian story also proclaims we are made in the image of God – that we have the capacity to reflect God – so love, compassion, and a desire for each other to flourish is in our very being – in our DNA as they say – somewhere!

So too is our capacity to judge what is damaging: what is violent or greedy; what is a display of hubris, (a forgetting that we are creatures of the earth and ultimately not gods or all powerful controllers and creators); we know what is a display of disregard for those who share this planet with us. And, we can judge quite well, what is damaging to the wellbeing of our planet home itself. We can change what is damaging to people and planet.

At the heart of is all is knowing our place: knowing who we are, knowing what we are in the scheme of things:

Our place is here: our home, it is Aotearoa NZ, it is Auckland, it is Mt Eden, or Milford or Whangaparaoa – our place is sacred – it is here we must begin to exercise care and compassion and strive for just relationships of mutual regard.

We are the human inhabitants of planet earth and the consequences of how we treat our earth home as well as our neighbours will have reverberations through history we must treat our sacred place with respect.

We have shaped our Christian story around the goodness of a God who loves us and trusts us to care for one another and for the earth that sustains us. And we are all players in that story we have chosen as ours, we all have an equal place – or should have according to our story because, as the old poster used to say, "our God 'makes no rubbish and has no favourites."

To this end we have a mutual responsibility of care for each other beginning with our community – with those who share our place with us.

And while we may not, these days, have our own vines and fig trees and olives trees and sheep/goats to provide us with security and a sense of place – what these things represent in the story of wellbeing and security we can have.

• We can have an a level of economic security that promotes confidence in who we are and where we are, and

• we can have the community engagement that encourages a sense of wellbeing and mutual compassion.

In this land of plenty

• we can all have enough if we choose enough instead of a superfluity and act with generosity because we believe there is enough, instead of hording because we believe there is a scarcity.

• We can all have a Living Wage, an adequate income to live with dignity providing the necessities of life for our children and enabling us to participate in our communities.

All it requires for these things to come to pass is for us all to decided people matter.

The story we tell to each other will include the expectation workers earn enough to live on.

It is within our capacities to provide a Living Wage, an adequate income for all who share the city and nation with us.

Together we are community, we need each other in order to live well and to flourish.

I support the Living Wage Movement and I encourage you to do so too.