The Playing Field

The Playing Field

Rick Brand

In the lively debate concerning the economic direction of the our country, there has been an awful lot of talking about the value of the “free market” system. I have heard over and over about the wonderful contributions that have been made by our capitalist system. I recently heard President Obama talking about the virtues of the Free Market to the leaders in the Far East.

One of the supposed virtues of capitalism is that it has a level playing field. Newt Gingrich can feel justified in telling the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street Movement to go home and get a job. He seems to believe that they could go home get a job and become part of the 1% of the wealthy. After all it is supposed to be a free market, level playing field on which all people can compete equally for the prize.

But honesty compels us to confess that the market is not a “free market.” Talk to most small business people and the stories I hear are that they are bound and restricted by all kinds of regulations and red tape. There is a beautiful restaurant in downtown Henderson that has never opened because it has not met all the codes. Set backs, required green spaces, sign restrictions, safety requirements and the list goes on. Most of the restrictions and requirements have some value for the good of all of us, but their very presence puts a lie to the “free market” idea.

The notion and concept of “level playing field” is equally betrayed by a looking around. The tax break people get for the interest on home mortgages put an advantage to the home builders. The government wants to encourage home ownership so they give a break to the buyer, but the home builders are benefited. To promote IRA and Retirement funds by giving tax breaks gives a boost to the financial institutions. The building of roads by the government gives a great help to the trucking industry. The Internet was developed by the government and its benefit to IT companies is amazing.

Every decision by government tilts the playing field in one direction or another. Why else would every major industry spend millions of dollars in lobbying Congress? They want Congress to tilt the field in their direction or at least to keep the tilt they already have in their favor. The level playing field, free market, concepts are myths. They do not exist. The playing field is always being tilted and the free market is clogged with restrictions and limitations.

It seems to me that is what the Occupy Movement is all about. They look at the economy facts of life for our society and it is obvious to all who look at the facts that the playing field has been tilted in the favor of the rich for the last twenty years or more. That the free market has not been free, but the marketplace has been much more receptive to big business than to small business. That government and large oil, government and defense contractors, government and financial institutions, government and the auto industry have become so interwoven that government is working for those industries and limiting the small work place.

The market is not free. The playing field is not level. The middle class and the poor are getting oppressed by a system in which the top 10% of the population holds more than 70% of the wealth and the bottom 50% of the population holds only 2% of that wealth. It has not always been this way. The tilt has obvious in the last few years. At one time it was government’s job to try to keep that playing field level. It has quit and has joined with the rich to tilt the field in their favor.

A Right?

The picture in the New and Observers front page (on November 17, 2011) shows students protesting the proposed increase in tuition. They are carrying large banners, sheets with paint on them, proclaiming that "Education is a Right." The slogan has caused me to pause and give thought. Is Education a "right" of every person?

The cost of education has been rising at a much faster rate than the cost of living. The cost of college education has been rising at about 40% over the last decade. The College of Charleston recently announced that it was lowering the cost of education at their school. They said that it made no sense to keep raising the cost and then have to give more and more financial aid.

The high cost of college education has forced a great number of students to leave college with incredible high student debts. So the protest against another increase in tuition certainly has a legitimate place. Education is essential for the new economic realities facing the world. A recent comment was made about Raleigh, that the unemployment rate for college graduates was 4.7%. The unemployment for those who had not finished high school was 18%. Education is a necessity for future employment.

The Declaration of Independence says we have the rights to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those "rights" have been given to all people by the creator. There are other gifts that have been given to all citizens by a social contract. One of those rights is the right to vote, and that gift was only gradually given to all citizens. Property owners, men, women, and finally blacks.

When we became a community and entered into a social agreement, again education was not one of them. Education was done by the religious communities and it was given to a select group. Health Care was another service that was limited and given by religious communities. Because the benefits of both education and health care were visible to communities, the whole community agreed that it would be a good thing for all its citizens to be able to benefit from education and health care. Public Education and Public Hospitals were begun.

But the Public Education for all people, the agreement in the community, is only through high school. Public Education at the college and beyond is selective. It is available only for those who meet or exceed the admission standards. There is not an obligation on the party of society to provide college education for all its citizens. At least, I do not remember that statement ever being made. Perhaps the Community College systems with their open door policy seek to offer advanced education to all citizens.

Is Education a Right? Perhaps the six year old has a legitimate argument that education is a right of that child as a result of being a part of the community which has said it was going to provide that service for all children. The College Student?.... I still have trouble with the word right.

One Talent

ONE TALENT

November 13, 2011

Littleton Presbyterian Church

Stanley White Presbyterian Church

Rick Brand, Supply

I think that sometimes the best way to tell what you believe about God and what you believe about life, and what you believe about the purpose of life is to look at what you believe about yourself. What you believe about God and what you believe God did in creation certainly ought to have some bearing on what you believe about yourself.

That is why this story from Matthew is so interesting. This has to be one of the more familiar parables that Jesus told. This story of the talents. It is a simple story, and yet, like most powerful simple things, the more you listen to it and live with it the more complex it becomes. And in one regard, the most perplexing thing to me is: Why is it that Jesus picks on this poor one talent person. Why did Jesus focus all this attention on this one talent person. For no matter where you try to focus the spotlight of this story, in the end the light falls over there on that little man, cowering there before his master offering up his napkin and talent all safe and sound, and then being chewed out royally for his carefulness.

Look at the current story in the world. The focus is all on Joe Paterno. The multi talented, much beloved coach. The high profile guy. The one with all the records. We hardly talk about the janitor who was supposed to have seen the event as well. Our attention in such stories goes to the big names. Our normal attention would be on the five talented person. Steve Jobs, or Rupert Murdoch. So the question will not go away: Why did Jesus pick on this single talented person? Why did Jesus have such harsh criticism for this honest and careful guy? Jesus could have made up the story so that the five talented guy had gotten involved into many hedge funds, over extended like Corzine, the former head of Goldman Sach, the former Governor of New Jersey, at MF Investment and had to file for Bankruptcy. We might have liked that. To see the rich and the powerful get cut down to size, the way some enjoy seeing professional golfers like John Daly hit seven golf balls in a row into the water on the 15th hole. Everybody likes to see the arrogant and the pompous get put in their place by the perfect response. But not here. Jesus picks on this poor little who had so little to begin with.

What makes it even more surprising is that Jesus is usually the champion of the little people. The Gospel stories are constantly showing us that Jesus has a warm spot in his heart for the lost, lonely and wretched. Liberation theology keeps reminding us that the Scriptures have a prejudicial preference for the poor. It is the little, overlooked, outcast individuals who are almost always the heroes of his other stories: the despised Samaritan, the wastrel son in the pigsty, the blind beggar Lazarus, the publican, the harlot with the precious oil for his feet, the widow and the dead son, the woman with the flow of blood. The list could go on, but not here. Why this almost withering scorn for this poor cautious, fearful little man. Remember, this man has legally done nothing wrong. He doesn’t even have the Herman Cain possibility of inappropriate behavior. He has only down what most people did in that day to keep their money safe. He had put it in the ground, like our ancestors did during the Civil War. When asked for it, he did not claim he had lost it, he just brought it forward and gave it back. And yet, Jesus points a condemning finger at him. Why?

Naturally, I can’t speak for Jesus, and so I can not answer my question with authority, but perhaps the more you think about it, the more it appears there indeed may be a connection between Jesus great love and attention to the little people and his great anger and disappointment in this one talented person. Maybe it is precisely because of Jesus’ great and constant concern for the little, apparently unimportant people; Jesus great love for what we so often consider insignificant things in life, like a drink of cold water, a shirt off the back, or a visit to a sick person, a note to a person in prison, that is the reason for his frustration with this little man. Don’t you belittle any of God’s gifts. Don’t you dare call any gift you have worthless.

Because, let’s face, you and I are forever being hypnotized by bigness, by busy and important affairs of the world, with insatiable appetites for size and bigness. Everybody was curious and watched the 20 million dollar wedding of Kim Kardishsian. We have TV programs about the life styles of the rich and famous. We like big, fast, and expensive. Look at the Hummer. We have lists of the Forbes Five Hundred and Ten Best places to live and Ten Best Universities in the World. If it big, fast, smart, rich, and famous, then we automatically give it a higher place of importance than others.

Yet Jesus, in contrast, is forever picking out some insignificant detail and making it the center of the story. Making it of supreme worth. Five loaves and two fishes, one small boy’s lunch, and it feeds 5000. Or the mustard seed that hosts a flock of birds, or the widow’s mite, the lily of the field, the pinch of salt, one peculiar pearl, so that all of this might help us accustom our eyes to the new way of looking at things in the eyes of God, to change for us the notion that lots of talents are necessary for the good life, to educate us that the small and the unique and the ordinary are loaded with possibilities of supreme worth. Jesus is trying to convince us that God is tremendously concerned about little ordinary people with little ordinary gifts. If we believe that God is a God who focuses on the little, then we can believe we matter supremely to God.

And I can imagine that Jesus focuses attention on this little man because Jesus knows that there are peculiar and difficult temptations and dangers awaiting the person with five talents. When you know you are more talented and more gifted than all the people in your class, how do you keep from becoming arrogant and condescending? How do you keep from believing that the standard rules do not apply to you? When you have not experienced failure or disappointment because of your many talents, how do you keep from trying to do more things than you can handle? The five talented person has different challenges than you and I have. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have to worry about how to give away their vast fortunes. Handling hugh amounts of wealth is not easy. That is why those who win the lottery are usually broke in three years. The five talented people do have a different set of obligations, temptations and possibilities than most of us. Jesus understands that the one talented person, people like me, maybe you too, is beset by the peculiar danger of being far too ready to think of ourselves as little worthless people, that we don’t really matter much. Low self-esteem must be a real problem because most school systems have as one of their goals to enhance self-esteem. We so easily convince ourselves that we don’t really make much difference. What is one vote, why vote? We are just another paper pusher in the office, what difference would a couple of blank disk make to the company? The son needs them for his computer. No sense sending in our proxy for the stock holder meeting, it is just thirty shares? My pledge. they don’t need my pledge. It is just a puny thing.

It is this disgusting, cringing, self-debasing, this fear of risking, this fear of death, this fear of inadequacy, this hiding behind the wall of littleness, I think, that ignites Jesus’ ire. Jesus lashes out at him because Jesus just cannot stand to have the people of God pretend to be powerless, to be small, to be inadequate. “Thou wicked and slothful servant.” God is concerned about this man, God has created the earth for his enjoyment and use, God has created him unique and gifted, and this little man stands there cowering, not trusting God even enough to make use of the gift God has given him to us.

The fact of the matter is is that God is pretty good at working wonders with little one talented people who simple have enough faith in God and his power to have some faith in themselves and their own ability to make a contribution. To believe I can’t do everything, I can’t do all things, but I can do one thing, and I will do it as well and as often as I can. And God can make wonders of that faith. List to the roll call of those Saints: Peter, Paul, Luther, James, John, Mother Teresa, CNN will have a whole roll call of Heroes on Thanksgiving night of people who have taken their one passion, their one talent, their one idea and have made incredible contributions to their community. There are little people all over the world, laughing stocks of the world, who are remarkable for only one thing, they did not go cowering along shrugging off their daily opportunities and responsibilities because they had only one talent. They have taken whatever God has placed in their hands, however unpromising it might have appeared to them, trusted God would make something out of it, and God has made something of it. One man in India began a small bank of making micro loans to women and changed the whole economy of his area and won a Noble prize.

So what about us? Me with my one talent, you maybe with your one or maybe two. The spotlight of the story does eventually shift from the past to the present, from that fearful man in the parable and turns its glare on us. Cause if you take the parable seriously and believe the man who told it, all heaven, -- quite literally -- all heaven is breathless at the moment, watching eagerly to see, wondering about what we will do with our one talent. Waiting in suspense to see where we put the talent we have. In a real sense, waiting to see what we believe about God and what our belief in God means about God’s belief in us

Ah, you don’t really believe that do you? We are not really all that important. Look at all the millions and 7 billion people in the world. We are just one person. We are just too insignificant for all of heaven to be concerned about what we do with our little resources. That is exactly what got Jesus so hot and angry in this story. That is what I think this story is all about The Bible suggests that it is lack of faith that is our greatest sin, and the greatest obstacle to faith is this constant message from the powers of death and defeat that we do not matter. That we are accidental collections of atoms that have no real value.

At least that is the way it seems to me as I read this story. Jesus confronts this man and says, “How dare you so discount and demean yourself and my gift to you that you imagine yourself capable of doing nothing. Nobody expects you and me to win an Oscar and write a Pulitzer prize winning novel, and hit 400 during the baseball season and run a fortune five hundred company all at the same time. Not even God expects that of the one talent person, but there is a place where what I have and what you have is needed desperately to bless others and to use it in that place is to bring your own life into full bloom of joy and satisfaction. To God be the glory Great things He can do even with the one talented person.

The Difference of One

I do wish it was easier. In the wake of two major institutions experiencing great damage by failure to deal openly and honestly with child abuse, maybe others will act more appropriately. It should not be a hard decision. It should be a "no brainer". You see evidence of child abuse, animal abuse, sexual abuse, bullying; you report it. It should be automatic, but as we have seen, it is not an easy thing to do. There are just too many temptations to avoid facing all of the ramifications that will come. There is usually the defense that there were only rumors or "I did not know the whole story"; It was "He said - she said" Who do you believe, I did not want to make such a serious charge with so little information.

But once again as with the Roman Catholic Church, we have seen again at Penn State what damage and chaos ignoring it can bring. The lesson has to be learned, "You think reporting it can cause problems?, just look at what not reporting it can do. " Just the pragmatic evaluation of the two options, regardless of the moral and ethical questions, the reporting the abuse immediately costs you less in the long run.

Another obvious lesson to all of us is the tremendous difference one person can make. One person with the courage to report what he had heard could have made all the difference in the world in this case. One person did have the courage to speak about it a little bit, but not enough to report it to the officials. But one phone call from Coach Paterno to the Child Service Agency, one phone from the AD, one phone call to the authorities and this whole matter would have ended differently.

If you are ever tempted to think that one person does not matter, just remember this whole sordid affair and that one person created it and just one person could have put an end to it quickly. The difference in this whole thing is one person. You see it. You report it to your boss, but if the boss does not do anything about it, you report to the authorities. We are our brother's and sister's keepers.

Mean, Mean Spirit in this place

There is a hymn that says there is a sweet, sweet spirit in this place, but as I watch and read the papers, as I listen to the radio and TV, as I surf the blogs and websites, I am more and more depressed by the mean, mean spirit in our place.

There is a mean, mean spirit in the air that attacks Governor Rick Perry, from Texas, for signing a bill that gave illegal immigrants, who had been in public high schools in Texas for three years, the right to enter colleges at in-state tuition fees. The legislature and the Governor simple decided that if they were going to be in his state, it was better to have them educated and productive than to have them uneducated and on the dole. It is a mean, mean spirit to attack that decision. It merely recognizes the reality of the state. Those students are here. The state may either help make them productive or can deal with them as welfare and criminals. For me to say something nice about Governor Perry is a great concession on my part.

The mean, mean spirit in Alabama that has driven so many of the illegal immigrants out of the state is costing the farmers and agricultural industry a great deal of trouble because the farmers are not finding enough workers, the workers they find do not work nearly as hard, do not harvest nearly as much, do not come back for the second day, and take more breaks.

There is a mean, mean spirit in our country that just will not look that problem straight in the eyes and attempt to find a comprehensive national solution. Ex President Bush made a very good proposal and President Obama took that proposal and offered it again, and nobody in Congress would touch it.

The mean, mean spirit in this land seems to be manifested in most of our major issues. The mean, mean spirit cannot find public leaders who can work to find a compromise. The mean, mean spirit can be found in Occupy and Tea Party rallies. The mean, mean, uncompromising spirit is seen in the NBA lock out. The mean, mean spirit is hear in the rhetoric about amendments for banning same sex marriages. The mean, mean spirit is visible in the complete callous and insensitive actions of Wall Street bankers, hedge fund, mortgage lenders who continue to want and demand their bonuses for practices which created the sub-prime crisis.

The mean, mean spirit, that refusal to compromise, that refusal to look at the reality in front of us and seek to find a solution killed the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commissions Report before the ink even dried on the published page.

Barbara Tuchman, a historian in the 60's, had a book about the March of Folly. People, societies, which continued to follow and do the wrong thing even when there were wise and sane counsel that advised them not to. Like King George and the American colonies in our own independence. There were lots of advisers in England urging King George to reduce taxes, but he refused to listen. It is the mean, mean spirit in our land that somehow keeps our leaders from listening to the wisdom, from facing the real problems and fixing them, of making the kind of responsible decisions that need to be made.

And I am afraid it will be a long time before we as a nation will be able to sing about the "sweet sweet spirit in this place."