Day 29 Devotional & Discussion – March 23, 2015 | Is Not This the Fast that I Choose?

Luke 7:1-10

At first, this doesn’t seem like a passage about work. However, it IS about a worker—the servant—and his boss, the Centurion. List all the actions of the Centurion while his servant is sick. Would you say that he is a good boss? Why? How do his actions give dignity to the lowly servant? Why do you think Jesus is so impressed by this boss? On a scale from 1 to 10, how much dignity do you think most low-wage workers receive? How could the “dignity meter” be raised?

3 comments

I was struck by the number of people that are involved in trying to access healing for this “highly valued” slave. The Gentile boss enlists the help of Jewish elders and numerous friends to get help for his employee. I think Jesus was more impressed with the Centurion’s treatment of his worker than he was with his understanding of lines of authority. By his treatment, this boss gave human dignity to his employee and lived out an understanding of the inseparable link between his own wellbeing and the wellbeing of those who worked for him. Though there was a boss/employee relationship, the Centurion blurred the lines of class and status, doing everything in his power to ensure the health of one of his workers. Like Jesus, I’m impressed.

If statistics are any indicator, most employers give their workers ZERO dignity. According to Interfaith Worker Justice, “nearly one half of American workers in the private sector (fifty-seven million workers) cannot take a sick day without losing a day’s pay, or even possibly their job. Nearly 100 million hard-working Americans cannot take time off to care for a sick child or elderly parent. Within the tens of millions of workers without paid sick time, two groups are particularly affected. Less than one quarter of low-wage workers have paid sick time (PST), although they are the workers who can least afford to lose a day’s pay, and whose jobs often require contact with the public or its food supply. In fact, 78 percent of food and public accommodation workers don’t have any paid sick time.” For more information about the issue, go to http://www.iwj.org/issues/paid-sick-days.

Thank you, Pastor, for your information. It is especially disturbing that many food workers do not have paid sick days. It is an indictment of the blindness and deafness of our individualistic society. Do we not realize that our health depends on their health? Also, undocumented immigrants, many of whom work in food service, are excluded from Obamacare.