Welcome readers! Please subscribe through the buttons on the right if you enjoy this post.

(Read this series from its beginning here.)

My second concern over the last couple of weeks has been for the population of migrant workers at the heart of the U.S.s food supply chain. These people are among those our present system deems the least of these. They already go to work every day in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. What does social distancing look like for them? They are not being provided with personal protective equipment and are working for poverty wages. They dont receive any kind of extended sick leave or child care now that their children are not in school, nor are their work environments more sanitary or less crowded.

Thinking of our migrant community members working in these settings, I thought of a statement I read years ago now by Stephen J. Patterson:

In the ancient world, those who lived on the margins of peasant life were never far from deaths door. In the struggle to survive, food was their friend and sickness their enemy. Each day subsistence peasants earn enough to eat for a day. Each day they awaken with the question: Will I earn enough to eat today? This is quickly followed by a second: Will I get sick today? If I get sick, I wont eat, and if I dont eat, Ill get sicker. With each passing day, the spiral of starvation and sickness becomes deeper and finally, deadly. Crossan has argued that this little snippet of ancient tradition is critical to understanding why followers of Jesus and their empire of God were compelling to the marginalized peasants who were drawn to it. Eat what is set before you and care for the sick. Here is the beginning of a program of shared resources of the most basic sort: food and care. Its an exchange. If some have food, all will eat; if any get sick, someone who eats will be there to care for them. The empire of God was a way to survivewhich is to say, salvation. (The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins, p. 74)

Because of the U.S. food supply chain, these workers are deemed critically essential. Yet this system may break down soon if their situation doesnt change. Many are in the U.S. working on H-2A visas. While the present administration touts stimulus packages for other kinds of workers in our society, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is presently pushing to reduce wages for H-2A workers. There has to be a better way to save farmers.

Leviticus includes a Jewish application of the golden rule to foreigners:

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:34)

This text informed Jesus preaching on loving others as oneself. It is the basis of the Golden Rule.

What would a society look like if structured on the golden rule rather than profit or a corporations bottom line?

The present pandemic is laying bare other areas of our unsustainable and unjust system. What would a world look like that is a safe, compassionate, inclusive, and just home for all of Gods children? Seeking Jesus gospel vision for a distributively just society means making sure everyone has access to the means for life.

And depending on how we respond right now, it may also be said of the powerful and privileged elite today, this generation will be held responsible for it all.

See the article here:

A More Distributively Just Way (Part 3 of 3) - Patheos