by Rev. Jamie Green Klopotoski
November 7, 2021
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Gloucester MA
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXnO8VStESs&t=1310s
I just finished watching the first season of the newest sensation on Netflix called “Squid Game.” If you have not yet heard of this show, you are not alone. While it debuted on September 17 of this year with over 142 million households in the world tuning in, *I* didn’t know anything about it until weeks later when it was mentioned on NPR. The show is a South Korean drama, subtitled and dubbed in English, about a group of 456 people desperately drowning in enormous debt. They were all at a point in their lives where they would do anything to try to pay off their debt in order to financially support themselves and their families. They were recruited to compete in a series of children's games, like Red Light Green Light and Tug of War, for a chance to win a ton of money—45.6 billion South Korean won, or about 38.4 million US dollars. The twist—if you lost a game, you were killed. These people were literally fighting to the death for this money. For the record, I’m not sure if I actually recommend watching this show because of its extremely gory violence and brutality, but the message of the show is deep and meaningful. It depicts the gravity of economic inequality, the depressing struggles of living in poverty, the stark reality of class divisions -- social injustice issues that happen all over the world, not just in Korea, which I think contributes to the show’s worldwide appeal.
Interestingly, “Squid Game” is not the only popular show on Netflix right now about living in poverty. Over 67 million households in the world have watched “Maid” which debuted on October 1. It is based on the real-life memoir of a struggling single mother who fell into poverty after fleeing an abusive relationship. She gets a low paying job working as a maid for the rich while trying to secure housing and support her young daughter.
I think it is fascinating that these two shows about people living in poverty are so popular, and I’m torn about how I feel about this. On the one hand, I am disturbed that people find entertainment in watching others live in desperation. On the other hand, maybe it’s a good thing that these issues are being brought to people’s attention. I am hopeful that the more we are aware of the problem around us, the more we will actually do something about it.
Awareness of a broken social system is exactly the message Jesus is preaching to his disciples in this week’s gospel story, though it is very rarely ever interpreted that way. All around the world, I guarantee there are ministers who are using the story to encourage their members to donate more money to the church. I’m guilty of doing it at other churches. Mark 12:41-44 appears to be a straightforward story about generosity and sacrificial giving; Jesus praises a poor widow for giving money to the temple treasury even though she had so little. As the interpretation usually goes, if this woman, who only had a few coins left to her name, could be generous enough to give everything she had, then you can find it in your heart to part with at least a little bit more of your money to support the church. It’s what I was taught as a child in Sunday School and what I continue to hear preached about to this day, especially because it shows up during the season of Pledge Drives and Stewardship Campaigns, like the one this church is launching next week.
I’m not saying that this message of generosity is a bad thing, but I’m not sure it was the message that Jesus intended, because it fails to take into account the beginning of the story, verses 38-40, before the widow is seen giving all her money to the temple. Jesus tells his disciples to "Watch out for the leaders of the temple. They like to wear fancy robes and have the most important seats in the synagogues and places of honor at elaborate banquets. They devour the houses of widows and show off with lengthy but empty prayers." Throughout the gospels, Jesus grows more and more frustrated with temple leaders. In this case, he is upset that they spend the temple money on themselves instead of redistributing it to the poor like they are supposed to. In contrast to the greediness of the scribes, Jesus then lifts up the poor widow as an example of generosity and selflessness. But I don’t think the message is “be like the widow and give all that you can”; I think the message is, “don’t allow this unjust system to remain in place.” The widow gave her money expecting that it would be used to do God’s work, but it turns out her money just supported the temple leaders’ extravagant lifestyles. The widow is the victim of an oppressive system. She gave everything she had to make rich men richer, and Jesus is trying to tell us that that is just not right.
Taken as a whole, Mark 12:38-44, like “Squid Game” and “Maid, provides a case study in poverty, exploitation, and income equality. These stories remind us that we continue to live in an economy that siphons its resources upward and leaves the vulnerable to face destitution. The wealthy grow wealthier at the expense of the poor, which creates a great divide between the “haves” and the “have nots”, the scribes and the widow, the Squid Game players and the game organizers, the homeowners and the maid, the CEO and the worker, the rich and the poor. This was the reality in the time of Jesus, and it’s the reality of our world today. And it is not right.
Here are a few numbers for you to consider. According to the Economic Policy Institute, chief executives of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker. Even companies that lost money during the pandemic last year paid their CEOs extravagantly.
Boeing had to lay off 30,000 workers and reported a $12 billion loss. But its chief executive was rewarded with $21.1 million in compensation. Even if he worked 80 hours a week, all 52 weeks of the year, that still amounts to over $5000 an hour.
Norwegian Cruise Line lost $4 billion and furloughed 20 percent of its staff, but more than doubled the pay of its chief executive to $36.4 million. That’s almost $9000 an hour.
And at Hilton, where nearly a quarter of the corporate staff were laid off and the company lost $720 million, its chief executive received compensation worth $55.9 million. That’s over $13,000 an hour. He makes more than 1800 times the federal minimum wage of just $7.25 an hour.
I am sure that these men and other CEOs have worked incredibly hard to get to the top of the corporate ladder. But something I wish they (and all of us) would take into consideration is that they didn’t do it by themselves. There is no such thing as a self-made man or self-made woman. Financial success is dependent upon the rest of society. Anyone who claims they worked their way to the top all by themselves are mistakenly unaware of the fact that it took our entire interconnected society to get them where they are today. The CEOs of Boeing and Norwegian Cruise Line and Hilton didn’t make the cars they used to drive to work, or pave the roads they took, they didn’t manufacture the computers or phones they used, they didn’t drive the garbage trucks that disposed of the company’s waste, or pump the building’s septic tanks.
Consider the cup of the coffee those men probably drink every day. It requires farmers to plant, harvest, pick, and the sort coffee beans. Workers to process, dry, mill, and roast the beans. Artists to design the packaging. Planes and ships and truck drivers for distribution. Business owners to run coffee shops. Baristas to serve the final product. There’s also the people who make the trucks for the truck drivers, who make the farming equipment for the farmers, who make the roasting and brewing equipment to turn coffee beans into coffee, and who make packaging supplies like tape, cardboard boxes, cups, and labels for retailers. There are schools and teachers to educate all these people, daycare centers to take care of all their children, factories and retailers and tons of other workers who make everyone’s clothing, furniture, food, refrigerators and cars, and sanitation workers to clean up after everyone. All of that (and more!) just for a cup of coffee. Without all of these people, that cup of coffee could not exist.
Our very lives depend on interconnectedness. We cannot and do not do this thing called life by ourselves. If we could begin to understand this interconnectedness and how much we rely on other people to do anything, then maybe we could start to break down the huge divides that exist in our society.
During the last year of his life, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr put justice for poor and working-class people at the center of his agenda. He launched his Poor People’s Campaign, and traveled the country preaching the gospel of economic justice. On March 18, 1968, two weeks before he was assassinated, he gave a speech in support of the Memphis sanitation workers who were on strike to demand a living wage and union rights. He said, “It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. All labor has dignity.”
It is a beautiful and powerful speech, and it deals with a lot of the issues we're still dealing with today. I think he'd be shocked and appalled that nothing much has changed. The gulf between people with inordinate, superfluous wealth and the people suffering in abject, deadening poverty continues to grow. As people of faith, we cannot tolerate the inequality that is plaguing our world; we must speak up and work against it. We must stand up for those who are most vulnerable. We must stand against laws or customs that exploit the poor. We must enact policies – and vote for politicians that advance such policies – that mirror God’s intention to care always and foremost for “the least of these”.
Jesus advocated for a society in which all are cared for, even and especially the most vulnerable. So that must be the calling of those of us who follow him: a call to dismantle the systems in our society that lead to poverty – the systems around us that devour people’s whole lives. But even being able to see those systems requires paying attention. I would guess that not many people at the temple that day noticed a poor widow giving a few almost worthless coins. But Jesus saw her because he was paying attention. He brings her from the margins to the center of the story. I bet even fewer people realized the exploitations of the temple leaders and their abuses of the money they were entrusted with. Jesus brings it to the disciples’ attention. We, too, need to pay attention if we are going to notice not only the person on the street being passed by, but also the systems that work behind the scenes to perpetuate poverty. It’s easy for many of us to go through life without noticing the systems that steal life from other people.
The story of the poor widow’s offering is a call for us to pay attention. Jesus paid attention, Jesus cared, and Jesus invites us to care and to pay attention too. To care for the people living on the edges of society, those trying to figure out if they can pay for their heat or rent or groceries this month, stressed and worried and desperate. Stephanie Land (author of “Maid”) lived in that desperation and said it was incredible, but sadly rare, when someone treated her as a human being, with compassion and empathy. Let us show compassion and empathy for the truck drivers and factory workers, farmers and baristas, cashiers and artists, sanitation workers and maids, orphans and widows and everyone in between, all the people we rely upon every day for everything we do and everything we have- for everything we eat or drink or use, for our coffee and cereal, toothpaste and medicine, clothing and houses, cars and cell phones, absolutely everything requires other people. Let us be aware of our interconnectedness, how much we need other people, and work to ensure that all receive a living wage and a chance to live a fulfilling life. Let us advocate for a system that does not leave anyone behind, that allows everyone to have equal access to the abundant world God created. We need each other, so we need to care about each other. No more Squid Games. Amen.
Sources:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mark-12-38-44-the-value-of-chump-change_b_2083237
http://thetextincontext.com/a-poor-widow-and-the-false-dichotomy-of-charity-vs-justice/
https://www.davidlose.net/2015/11/pentecost-24-b-surprisingly-good-news/
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