“On Poverty” – A Sermon for the Sunday after Thanksgiving

By The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans

Sunday, November 25, 2012

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we gather to examine poverty.  It is a difficult topic, fraught with shame and blame.  I remember during the 1950s when my father’s union was on strike our family received a big box of groceries to tide us over and my mother refused to go to the door to get it.  When I was in college, my young husband and I went on food stamps, and we tried to time our shopping when no one we knew would be at the store.  Recently when I attended the ground breaking for the new Unity for the Homeless building on Louisiana Avenue, several homeless people spoke in favor of the project; one man spoke almost apologetically, as though asking forgiveness for being homeless.

Unlike most injuries and illnesses (with the exception , poverty is a condition for which both those in it and those outside of it assess blame.  It is shameful to be poor for those who are, and it is common for those who are not to blame those who are.

And yet, there are millions of people in our country who are poor through no fault of their own.  So many elderly struggle to get by, so many people who are disabled in some way live in desperate circumstances, and so many little children are poor – here in our city, the highest concentration of the poor are children under the age of 12.  Is it their fault?  Should we blame them?

Some people are poor because it is necessary that they be so.  We live in an economic system that virtually requires some portion of the population to be poor.  If there were no poor people, then who would harvest crops, clean houses and hotel rooms, mow lawns, empty bedpans in nursing homes, and collect garbage?  Saudi Arabia, awash in petroleum wealth, actually imports poor people from Indonesia and the Philippines to do the kinds of work no Saudi will do – and to take the abuse that no Saudi would take.

Theologian Walter Brueggerman terms systems that feature great disparities of entitlement and poverty “Pharoah economies” and he says prophetically, “Wherever you live, it is probably Egypt.”  He points out that just as in ancient temples there was a courtyard for the common folk; a special inside area for the initiates; and then a holy of holies open only to the priests and the rulers -- so today are airline seats and healthcare apportioned the same way, in a 3-tier arrangement that favors a few, creates a small in-crowd, and leaves everyone else out in the cold.

The Pharoah economy is characterized by 3 elements, which all seem normal and right to those who benefit from it: accumulation of wealth; amassing of political, social, and military power; and the control of intelligence.  In such a society – and stop me if this sounds familiar – the rich get richer, hold more and more power, and control secret knowledge unavailable to the many.  It is a triad that spells poverty, disease and death to the 99%, while it ensures entitlement and privilege to the elite.

If we can free ourselves from the narcotic of materialism enough to dream, we can imagine a different world, a world organized on principles of equality and justice, a world without fabulous wealth and also without dire poverty.  As opposed to the Pharoah triad of wealth, power, and wisdom, that Walter Brueggerman calls “triad of death,” there could be, maybe ought to be a triad of justice, right relations, and loving-kindness, a triad of solidarity and equity, a triad of life.

Our meditation on poverty this morning might have been familiar to some of us here at some point in our lives; I know I recognize parts of it.  So many people live a daily struggle to make ends meet, to juggle this dire need and against that equally dire need, to fight against competing goods – pay the credit card bill or pay the car registration?  Gamble without health insurance or keep your child from all extracurricular activities that cost money?  Pay higher rent to live in a nicer neighborhood or pay lower rent and chance your child being in a bad environment?  None of these are easy choices, and each has its drawbacks.

It was academic for us this morning, to sit in meditation and make our imaginary decisions, but it is not a game to the nearly one-third of the citizens of New Orleans, over 74,000 men, women, and children, who live below the poverty line.  Who are they to us, these folks who are poor, who live in shabby neighborhoods with no grocery stores, in apartments and houses that the landlords won’t maintain, who deal with crime and gangs, whose children attend the worst schools in the city, and who receive the worst healthcare.  Who are they to us?

They are not the Enemy and not the Other and not Strangers; they are our sisters and brothers, our fellow New Orleanians.  They share our geography, our culture, our humanity.  As we are “our brother’s keeper,” they call us to responsibility and accountability.  The presence of so much poverty in the city we love reminds us of the necessity of the triad of life – justice, right relations, and compassion.
 

It is possible to dream of a world based on such principles, but is it practical?  Is it even fair to preach about eliminating poverty to a small congregation, one with its own deep financial challenges?  Isn’t it beyond even the larger numbers of 3 combined churches of the Greater New Orleans UU cluster?

Here is what I think – the seeming impossibility of the right thing to do is no reason not to do it.  If a thing is right, it is right even if it is difficult or impossible. 

We are a covenanted community – we have made certain promises to each other, some explicit and some implicit, about how we will be in the world, towards each other and towards all other human beings.  Basically what we have promised or covenanted is the same as the triad of life – justice, right relations, and loving-kindness.  This is what we owe each other and what we owe to all our fellow citizens.

Even in our present numbers and state of finances, there are things we can do, things we ought to do.  We can stand with our community partner organizations made up of poor folks and those who work with poor folks.  We can demand justice for wage theft, and press our city and state government to make real penalties for those who cheat their workers.  We can monitor and support our public schools, and volunteer to read to kindergarteners and help tutor young students in need.  We can work with Unity to end homelessness in New Orleans; we can lobby for more affordable housing units to replace the public housing that was demolished.

Yes, we are a small church, and yes, we are not a wealthy church.  But we have a certain amount of influence and power, if we choose to use it.  There are things we can do, things we can devise, to improve the lives of our sisters and brothers in New Orleans. 

I am struck by what Albert Ruesga, of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, said in an interview with the Times-Picayune, that “history will not absolve us” if we allow post-Katrina New Orleans to be filled with the same inequities and injustices that existed before the Storm.  I suppose in a more orthodox church it might be said that God will not absolve us.  For Unitarian Universalists, I hope it’s enough to say that our consciences will not absolve us.

It may well be true, as Jesus is supposed to have said, that the poor will always be with us.  But that their circumstances should be so dire, so desperate, so painful and so difficult – that, I think, does not have to be.  On the Sunday after our national holiday of satiation, of napping with full stomachs, and of dining for days on delicious leftovers, let us resolve to dedicate ourselves to being allies of the poor in our city, to doing what we can to alleviate and improve the situation of our sisters and brothers struggling with poverty.  May this be so!  AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

 

SOME STATISTICS ON POVERTY IN NOLA

The Federal Poverty Income Level for 2012 for an individual is $11, 170; for a couple it’s $15,130.  For a family of three, it is $19,000, and for a family of four, it’s $23,050.  For each additional person in a family unit, add just under $4,000.

Based on 2010 Census information, 31.5% of New Orleans resident live on annual income below the federal poverty level, while only 22.7% of the residents of the state do.  11.6% of New Orleans residents have annual incomes below 50% of the federal poverty level, while only 7.2% of all Louisiana residents do.

52% of the male residents of New Orleans living below the poverty level are aged 5.  60.8% of the female residents of New Orleans living below the poverty level are aged 15 years.  Of those New Orleans residents living below the poverty level 61,868 are African-American and 12,357 are white.  The highest concentrations of poor New Orleanians are children under the age of 12:  25.9% are under 5; 26.4% are 5 years old; and 24.4% are aged 6-11 years.

The demolition of many of the city’s housing projects post-Katrina were supposed to lead to less concentration of poor residents in particular neighborhoods, but in a report published in March 2012, it was found that nearly 4 out of 10 children in New Orleans live in high-poverty neighborhoods. 

Researchers believe that concentrated poverty isolates poor residents from opportunity and services, leading to higher crime rates, joblessness, failing schools and ill health. Brookings Institution analysts call this a "double burden": Families with little money find their struggles exacerbated when they live in areas of concentrated poverty.

37% of all New Orleans households would not be able to survive for more than 3 months if their main source of income were disrupted.  Many would not last 3 months.  Researchers say it would take a minimum of $5,000 for a family of 3 to cover basic needs for 3 months.

Albert Ruesga, president and chief executive of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, said the data on local poverty are a "call to action" for foundations, nonprofits, churches, local governments, employers, and banks to find solutions on how to improve the financial security of local residents.  Ruesga said,

"History will not absolve us if we create in post-Katrina New Orleans the same disparities that existed before."