How economic justice can make the Sabbath holy again
A recent economic study from Brookings Institution found that 44% of all Americans work low-income jobs, making a median of $10.22 an hour or $18,000 per year. Even with both parents working full time, this only makes up $36,000 per year. In a country where the median yearly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $12,000 per year, it's not hard to see how difficult it can be to make ends meet. In fact, another recent study showed that up to 40% of all Americans would be unable to cover a $400 emergency bill, requiring payday loans, credit cards, or other forms of borrowing. 17% overall would be unable to make ends meet at all.
I personally have never experienced poverty, but since leaving college, I have lived in my office, stayed with kind friends, and struggled to make each minimum wage paycheck cover all my expenses. My wife and I have used payday loan app systems like Earnin and Dave. On one occasion, I was not able to make my car insurance payment, and I did call up my dad for help.
So while I never needed to fear eviction, losing utilities, or losing my job from lack of transportation, I learned an emotional pattern of trying to live on my own during a specific 4 month stretch after I lost one of my part-time jobs. First, I would worry. A lot. Bills would pile up, the car's noises would seem a little louder, my cats' health may seem a little worse, and my sniffles may sound more like a possible medical expense. But every other Wednesday, it was ok. My wife and I got our paychecks into our bank account and paid bills. We would pick up a couple items at the store like beer or a dessert as a treat, and for one day everything would be alright. The anxieties were gone, the car was quiet, my cats were playful, and my sniffles nothing more than allergies. That was my sabbath, the only day where I found any real rest.
Upon finding a level of financial stability and material safety as the year turns to 2020, I notice how the importance of payday has disappeared. Any anxieties I have shift back to interpersonal, educational, or other personal worries. Sunday has become my day of rest again, especially during the Advent season. But this is not the case for many people around me. I have no kids to make my new minimum wage job even flimsier. I do not have a chronic illness that requires out of pocket expenses. I can walk to work now. But for many of the people I know in my housing complex, payday is still the Sabbath, the day where they find rest.
Especially in an increasingly secularized world, the Christian church can do much to take back Sunday Sabbath as a day of rest, including rest from financial anxiety. What would it look like to take the power of payday away and give it back to Christ?
I was proud to see that First Baptist Church of Frankfurt, Kentucky had seen a vision for this. Part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, they invested in a payday loan assistance system, helping people escape the cycle of borrowing from predatory lenders. As a minister in CBF, this was amazing to see. But what else is possible? What would it look like for a church to have "everything in common" as in Acts 2:44? Would a church be able to tally up the various emergency bills of their congregation and pay them with a special fund from those among us who have more than enough for this month, whether or not we are "wealthy?" How could this alleviate a congregation's anxiety each Sunday?
What about an eviction safety net, where members of working class churches can chip in a little each month to provide a fund just in case a member may find themselves a few hundred dollars short on rent one month? How much safer would our churches feel if we knew they were the reason we would never lose the roof over our heads?
Would it be possible for Christian employers to work with their churches to create a daily payment system to replace apps like Earnin or Dave, allowing workers access each day? After all, it is Deuteronomy 24:15 that says "You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them."
There are an enormous number of possibilities to destroy the power of the pagan payday sabbath and rebuild the holiness of the Sunday Sabbath. That relief that people feel when they wake up on Wednesday or Friday every other week should be only a shadow of the rest they find as they walk into the doors of Christ's church. If economic justice is the way to create that holy rest, then we must pursue it.