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On Labor Day Sunday, I usually depart from the norms for a homily and try to reflect from a Christian perspective on the workplace. We are, after all, called to live as Christians at work as well as at home and at church.

Most of my ordained ministry has been spent, not in parishes, but in other settings: school teacher, the military, the university campus, federal employee, health care clinician, administrator, non-profit employee. Though retired, I remain fascinated by work environments and still occasionally work for the VA. When I go into any kind of establishment or conduct business dealings on the phone, whenever possible, I do informal surveys of workplace conditions. I listen to and try to learn from everyone.

I am sorry to report this year that workplace conditions continue to get worse across the board. Though each workplace is different and some of them have excellent conditions, pay and benefits, sadly the larger trends are in the other direction. Recent statistics tell part of the story that many people experience daily. This past week we learned that:

"The median hourly wage for American workers dropped 2 percent between 2003 and the end of last year, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable because productivity, the amount that an average worker produces in an hour, has risen steadily over the same period.

At the end of 2005, wages and salaries made up the lowest share of the nation's gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, though a slight surge in wages took place since December. At the same time, corporate profits climbed to their highest share since the 1960's. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as "the golden era of profitability."

For the 91 million households with working people under 65, the median income dropped, by half a percent, or $275. Incomes for the under 65 crowd were hurt by a decline in wages and salaries among full time working men for the second year in a row, and among full time working women for the third straight year. In all, median income for the under 65 group was $2,000 lower in 2005 than in 2001, when the last recession bottomed out. Those of us over 65 did better because of Social Security income. Real wages have been stagnant since 1973.

The Union Tribune reported on Wednesday that the 64[ercemt of households whose annual income is below $60,000 live in the bottom two tiers of a "stagnant hour-glass shaped" San Diego economy. Lots of high paying job, lots more of low paying jobs and a diminishing middle.

This correlates with what I am finding in my conversations with working people. The name of the game today seems to be simply "pay as close to minimum wage as you can, get as much work out of people as you can, pay as little in benefits and pensions as you can. Whenever possible, outsource, downsize and lay off."

As an employee at a large department store said last Wednesday: "sorry for the delay, but to have only one person at the register during a sale just isn't right." No it isn't right, but that's the way things are done nowadays--and at all levels.

Though our various workplaces are different and distinct, they are not unrelated to, or exempt from, the larger trends in our culture. The relentless pursuit of the absolute bottom line, the “in your face” arrogance and corruption of political and economic leaders, the inexorable downward pull of materialism and cynicism have cheapened, trivialized and coarsened American life--and this is all related to what we do at work.

Everything is up for sale--including spirituality which is now sold as a means to increased efficiency and profitability. Spirituality (whatever that means) has been called the "latest mega-trend."

Everything is a commodity, including personal relationships. We are encouraged to see ourselves primarily as consumers and everything is individualized, privatized and sold to us. The shopping mall has become the new spiritual center of life.

What has this got to do with a Sunday sermon? Well, it describes the kind of situation the Old Testament prophets spent most of their time speaking out against. It is contrary to the teaching of Jesus. It is a mockery of the Christian ideal found throughout the New Testament. We are called by our risen Lord into community with God, with each other and with all of humanity. We are not exempt from that call of God in our workplace.

Money, profitability, efficiency and the pursuit of things are now obsessions bordering on idolatry. We are like the ancient Israelites in our worship of the golden calf. We need to remember that the laws of the marketplace are not the laws of physics. The force of gravity is not a matter of human choice, but the organization of the economic culture is.

So, what do we do about it? Most working people are trapped themselves and have very few options--but there is always something we can do. Jesus spoke in three different ways to three different types of people. He spoke intimately with his disciples. He spoke with compassion to the ordinary people. But he spoke scathingly to the leaders, excoriating them for hypocrisy and oppression. Where on that scale do we fit?

What can we do to change things? We have to start at the level of personal relationships. The first step is to recognize that those we meet in any setting, even in the briefest commercial transactions, are real people. Whenever people meet, our faith tells us that the encounter is potentially a sacred event. If even a small percentage of people realized this and acted upon it, our society would be transformed. Some already do operate this way, but not nearly enough.

Fortunately we encounter some clerks, teachers, government employees, bank personnel, insurance company reps, medical people who give evidence of treating us like real human persons. These people are the biblical leaven in the workplace and we need more of them. We need to make a conscious effort on a daily basis to be ourselves among these blessed people.

Though the culture of the market, the office, the shop, where we work might be almost devoid of the human touch, we are able to bring real humanity in with us. We must acquire a foundational Christian mode of thinking and acting. We must realize we are called by God into community. The eternal, Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has made a common life with us through Jesus. All human community flows from this fundamental biblical truth. We are called to be "partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4) We also know that "we are children of God, and if children, then heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ" (Rom 8:16). We are, through Christ, children of the Father by "adoption." (Eph 1:5; Rom 8: 15, 23, 9:4)

This is the great Christian reality. If we are conscious of this in all human transactions, especially at work, we transform our environment. When we see each customer, clerk or client as a fellow child of God and act as if it were, then that encounter, while still a business venture, is no longer purely functional and utilitarian, but truly a sacred act.

In a culture where business transactions are increasingly constrained by computer-like speed and efficiency, taking the time and making the effort to engage another person as fully human and worthy of our love are decisive Christian steps—and this is directly contradictory to the overarching trend of our culture. So there is my simple suggestion for beginning to change your part of the workplace. You can also do this not only as an employee, but as a customer or client as well. Everyone in a human transaction can make a difference. That is your "homework." Practice constantly to acquire "that mind in you that was in Christ Jesus." (Phil 2:5)

Do we have any models available as a guideline? I think we do. Too often the church extrapolates and brings the agenda of the surrounding culture into the church. Seldom does it work the other way. I suggest that we reverse the direction and take a church model out into the workplace. What church model? One very close at hand: St. David's.

Though I am ordained a priest, I spend most of my time in this parish as simply a member of the congregation. During Bren's recent medical leave I was asked to help out. I did so, but not in doing pastoral visits. Jim Kellett arranged for the pastoral calls with assistance from Maryanne and Jack. I was the acting office administrator, a kind of "office gofer" for our Rector's Warden. As such I got to observe very closely St. David's as workplace. I observed the office staff and the volunteers and got involved with some of the construction issues Volunteer work is still work and St. David's is a place where lots of work goes on.

St David's is a workplace in which the Christian life is truly carried out well. There is a loving collaboration and a gentle ongoing conversation. Problems that arise are quickly resolved through honest communication. It is a terrific workplace. Of course, you can't transpose a church situation completely into a secular context, but you can use it as a model and an ideal, incorporating as much as you can in your own work environment.

So, having observed this workplace closely for the past four months, I hold it up for your consideration as a model and I consider you good people as exemplars par excellence. Of course, I shouldn't name names, but I will name one who has become a role model for me. Our Rector's Warden Melinda Murdock, is a peerless administrator, who truly has raised that function to the level of a magnificent spiritual gift.

So let us go forth from this place into the world of home, family, neighborhood and work, mindful that we are called by God to enter as creatures and children of adoption into the very ambit of the common life of God. And to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all honor and glory now and forever. Amen.