We Can and We Can't
A sermon in The Other Six Days series
Jonathan Tanner
Kay Spiritual Life Center
March 30, 2008
Deuteronomy 24:14-15; James 5:1-7; Mark 12:13-17

                  This is our monthly Six-Days service and this month it is on Corporate Responsibility.  So . . . what do you think of when you think of corporate responsibility?  Well I think of Enron.  So I thought the best way to start off my sermon is with some Enron jokes.  So here we go . . .

Q.  How many Enron executives does it take to change a light bulb?

A.  None.  They anticipate when the bulb will burn out, sell off their stock, and then bail out before it gets too dark.

Q.  Why do they bury Enron senior executives at least 20 feet under ground?

A.  Deep down they are really good people.

à A little girl asked her father, “Daddy, do all fairy tales begin with, ‘Once upon a time’?”  "No sweetie," replied Dad.  "A lot of fairy tells begin with, 'Dear fellow Enron shareholders . . .'."

                  OK, so believe it or not, Enron is not a good example of corporate responsibility.  However, I'd say that they are not alone.  When I think of corporations, I don't usually think of a company resembling Mother Teresa, but more like one resembling Michael Corleone from The Godfather.  This does not mean that all corporations are bad and in fact many give lots to charities and do a lot for their employees, but I think the normal impression we get here is that, above everything else, they will try to make sure that their profits are as high as possible, no matter what it costs anyone else.

                  Before we get too far into corporate stereotypes, however, let’s take a step back.  Now whether we like everything about it or not, we live in a capitalist economy and we are mostly talking about for-profit companies that depend on making money to survive, and in turn to keep our economy alive.  Without their profits, they would not be able to exist and the products they make would not be in existence without their profits.  Another thing to remember is that some companies are more high-profile than others and when something goes wrong it is much easier to trace the wrong back to them that it is to the less high-profile companies.  That said, the reason we are talking about this today is that there is no reason a big company cannot make a profit, a profit that is likely beyond anything any of us here will ever see, and still take care of what they should have responsibility over, including resources, the environment, and more specific to our case today, the workers.

                  In the gospel lesson today, Jesus is faced with a conundrum (or at least the ones asking him the question hope so).  He is asked whether it is right to pay taxes to the emperor, in which he knows that any “yes” or “no” answer is going to cause problems.  If he says “yes” that they should pay taxes, he will get a lot of outrage from the people of Israel who think that they shouldn’t be funding the nation that is governing them against their will.  On the other hand, if he says “no” then the ones asking him, the Pharisees and Herodians, can go right to the Roman authorities and tell them that this man Jesus, whom they don’t like as it is, is directly promoting disobedience to the Roman empire and that plenty of witnesses heard him say exactly that.  Jesus, however, knows what they are trying to do and, like normal, he does one better.  He asks them to tell him who is pictured on the Roman coins that they have.  When they tell him that it is the emperor, he tells them “give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's.”

                  As Christians, I think we can use this in the matter of workers’ rights/corporate responsibility.  While the corporations should be allowed to make their profits (the side we can say is like the “paying taxes to Rome” side) they should also be cognizant of the workers they employ (the “giving to God what is God’s” side).  Even more than that, they can do both.  In my sermon tonight, I’m going to look at many aspects of this issue to get the best view I can for all sides involved.

                  The first thing I’d like to look at is what is not corporate responsibility, and I’m going to start this out with a story.  I own an Xbox 360 and a couple Christmas’s ago I asked for an HD DVD player attachment to my 360 console.  I got it and have enjoyed using it over the last 15+ months to watch movies of that format in high definition.  However I started to notice that a competing format, Blu Ray, seemed to have a larger selection of movies than HD DVD and that the gap was widening.  Then a few weeks ago I saw that the makers of the HD DVD format, Toshiba, was pulling out of making that format altogether.  Soon no movies would be available in that format and my HD DVD player would only be useful to play the handful of movies that were already out, with no more of that format to come.

                  So what’s the best thing to do at this point?  Sue them?  Ask for the $200 back for the device because it’s becoming like the XFL and hardly anyone will remember it in a few years?  Should I tell them that it is their obligation to keep making me HD DVD formatted movies?  No, that’s not what I should do.  Toshiba owes me nothing.  I bought a device that, at the time, both I and Toshiba thought was going to be part of the developing technology in movies for years to come.  Unfortunately, we were wrong and we have to live with it, and I’m sure Toshiba got a much worse deal than I did.

                  The basic point here is that corporations cannot be responsible for what we do to ourselves.  I heard a few weeks ago about a lady who is suing a Las Vegas casino for $20 million because she lost $1 million at the casino.  Now I’m not a big fan of casinos or what they do, but could we imagine the upheaval if a casino won a suit against someone who won too much money?  Also, corporations cannot be responsible to read our minds.  What do I mean by that?  For example, the Methodist church is a big advocate of labor unions, and rightly so.  But there are many cases where a union is not the best idea for the workers.  So in situations where that is unclear, it is not the responsibility of the company to know that the workers want to be part of a union.  Stopping it from happening is another thing altogether, and something I will address in a bit, but if the company wants to let the workers know that there are downsides to go with the upsides of labor unions then they are perfectly fine to do that much.  Now, I will not go into every thing that fits into the “not the corporate responsibility” idea, nor am I qualified to do so, but before we head into what corporate responsibility is, it was important to look into what it isn’t.

                  Now we turn to: where does the corporation’s responsibility lie?  There are obviously laws in effect (at least in America) that keep companies from taking advantage of their employees in most ways.  Practices of companies have come a long way since the beginning of the twentieth century when many companies would employ children to work in their factories, some working sixty to eighty hours a week or more, and likely in working conditions that one might wonder how someone survived walking through there, much less working there.  However, there are still ways that companies get around some laws to get a little more out of their workers than they should, or they find a way to delay something that the workers want and have a right to, with the purpose of hoping that the workers will just give up and learn to accept what they already have.

                  When we talk about corporate responsibility and workers’ rights, we should be focusing on what the corporation should be giving to its workers, even if there is a way around it.  Just because a company should do something doesn’t mean it will, and that’s the hardest part.  I did a google search for corporate responsibility while writing this and I was barraged by websites of big corporations that talk about their corporate responsibility.  Company after company had a section detailing their corporate responsibility report for the last year or an outline of how they act responsibly, even those companies that have been shown in the past to lack this responsibility.  These are put on their websites so that everyone can see how much they are doing to help out others, and take responsibility for the laborers they employ, the resources they use, and the waste that they create.

                  The problem that can occur here is that, obviously if you look at the corporate responsibility report on the company website, then it is going to look great.  But are they doing the things that they should be when everyone doesn’t know about it?  In Matthew 6:2-4 Jesus says “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”  Jesus says that what people do when no one is watching them is what really matters.

                  Now when we look at a corporation’s responsibility, there are too many things involved to name all of them, but it doesn’t hurt to look at some.  At a base point, corporations are responsible for people.  These people include the customers as well as the workers that it employs.  Corporations should be responsible for not overworking its workers.  Corporations should provide reasonable numbers of days off for its employees.  Corporations should make products that are as safe as possible to do the job that they are meant to do.  Corporations should know what situations surround the places that their employees work and make sure that they work in a safe and secure place and do nothing to put them in harm’s way.  In addition, corporations should not try to manipulate the system to keep workers from using resources that they have a right to use, such as labor unions.  On top of this, corporations should watch out for the greater good of humanity, and this goes for many less-obvious situations as well.  Did you know that over 300,000 Americans die from complications involving obesity every year?  Despite that, many different places that serve food, especially fast food places, continue to make their food with huge amounts of fat, cholesterol, and calories.  It can be very hard to determine what exactly is corporate responsibility and what may be something closer to bad consumer discretion, but companies do play a role in this process.  In all, each corporation has responsibilities specific to its product, its working environment, and the practices of the leadership it employs in the locations of where its workers work.

                  And I’m sure that every corporation is doing just fine with that.  "Amen, let's pray and go home".  Oh wait, you think that maybe they aren’t.  Maybe there is a corporation or two out there who aren’t taking responsibility?  Well that stinks.  I guess that’s why I am up here talking about this today.  OK, well since this is the case, why don’t we look into our side of this.

                  There are many ways that we can help with corporate responsibility, both short term and long term, both big and small.  I can’t give you an exclusive list, but maybe something I say will be beneficial to some in attendance.  I think one place to start is being conscious of the information we can find out through the news about companies out there.  I know that this is a struggle for me as I tend to not venture far from espn.com when I am online and I can’t remember the last time that I read any significant part of a newspaper, at least with respect to the news section.  But when we hear of something going on in the news, it is important to then be aware of what we can do about those companies.  We should be aware to let those companies know that we do not approve and, if possible, that we are going to be using a competitor until they stop their current behavior.  In this though, the scripture that I just read about the alms applies to us as well and not just to the corporations.  If we are boycotting, say, Arby’s (for what reason I don’t know) are we going to be able to not go to Arby’s when there is no one around to know?  Or are we going to be able to resist it when our friends have decided that the big Friday night out starts with dinner at Arby’s (friends who don’t know or don’t care about Arby’s lack of corporate responsibility)?  Those are the times that it matters the most, and when we know that something is wrong we have to take it upon ourselves to do what we can with what we have.

                  Now there are plenty of ways that we can use what we have right now to fight for justice in this area, but you guys know possibly better than me the different ways to get involved.  And if you want to know specific events around campus that are happening in the future you can talk to the justice coordinators listed in your bulletin insert and I’m sure they’d be happy to help you out, but it doesn’t end there.  We can also think long term.  We as students are preparing to go out into the world and participate in the work place.  Not all of us, but many of us will go into some sort of corporation in which we can see many of the ways that corporations are being or are not being responsible.  It is at that time that we can decide what role we are going to play in the larger corporate responsibility picture.  And this is not always with big for-profit companies either.  Companies that “look better” such as non-profit companies can sometimes be the easiest targets for corporate irresponsibility because people from the outside are less likely to think that they are going to do something like that.  So we may have our own choices to make: are we going to go along with whatever it is that the company is doing or are we going to stand up for what is right and risk losing our job or risk losing out on that promotion we’ve been waiting for, just so that we can stand up for what is right?  It’s up to us to make the right choice.

                  Now in my mind, one of the biggest things that we can do to fight for corporate responsibility is to know our limitations.  Now what do I mean by that?  I mean that too often I see people stressed out trying to do more and more and more for God.  But wait.  Isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing?  Doesn’t Jesus want us to focus all of our efforts on the Kingdom of God that is talked about throughout the gospels?  Of course he does, but he knows that we are just human and that by ourselves we can only do just so much.  There’s a story in the gospels where Jesus is walking on water and he calls to Peter, who is in a boat, to come out of the boat and walk to him on the water.  In the story, Peter sees that nothing he is able to do will make himself walk on that water, but he also recognizes these limitations and knows that he will only be able to walk out to Jesus if some other power is behind him.  Peter does walk on water, but then starts to become aware of the environment around him and starts to worry whether he can keep himself up and as soon as he starts to believe that he is the one keeping himself up, Peter begins to sink into the sea.

                  A man named George Mueller is also another good example of this.  He operated many orphanages throughout England in the 1800s and never solicited any funds to keep them operational.  Many times he would not know where the next meal for the children was coming from until right before the meal happened.  One story goes like this:

"The children are dressed and ready for school. But there is no food for them to eat," the housemother of the orphanage informed George Mueller. George asked her to take the 300 children into the dining room and have them sit at the tables. He thanked God for the food and waited. George knew God would provide food for the children as he always did. Within minutes, a baker knocked on the door. "Mr. Mueller," he said, "last night I could not sleep. Somehow I knew that you would need bread this morning. I got up and baked three batches for you. I will bring it in."  Soon, there was another knock at the door. It was the milkman. His cart had broken down in front of the orphanage. The milk would spoil by the time the wheel was fixed. He asked George if he could use some free milk. George smiled as the milkman brought in ten large cans of milk. It was just enough for the 300 thirsty children.

                  Now I’m sure that if George Mueller had money sitting around in the bank he would not have just sat down at the table and waited all the while thinking “God will provide the food today, we might need that money for later.”  In that scenario, there were funds available and that was probably the way in which God wanted the orphans to be fed.  But when there was no money and there was no food  and there was nothing that anyone at the orphanage could do, George Mueller recognized that he had done all that he could do and he had to rely on God to do what he couldn’t.

                  This is something to consider in corporate responsibility as well.  As humans, we should recognize that we can only do so much, but as Christians we should recognize that we aren’t lost at this point.  We have a God that asks us, through prayer and faith, to not only do what we are capable of doing but also to ask God to do what we cannot.  In the words of Jesus Christ we can “move mountains” if we rely on God rather than just on ourselves, and it’s much more rewarding in the end.

                  There are a lot of good corporations in the world, but there are a lot of corporations that do not take responsibility in all the ways that they should.  And what are we to do about it?  We can stay alert, be purposeful when people do and do not see us, and let irresponsible companies know that what they are doing is unacceptable and that they need to change.  We can also help out corporate responsibility as a whole by doing our own part to be see responsibility through in our lives, especially when it comes to the companies that we work for, and letting our friends know what they can do to help as well.  And then when we have done all that we can do, we can pray and ask God to do what we cannot, knowing that while we have limits, there are no limits for what God can do.

                  A lot of problems exist in the world, and lack of corporate responsibility is one of them, but we cannot solve any of the world’s major problems by ourselves, and neither will they be solved if we sit around and wait for someone else to do it.  Let us combine the gifts and abilities God has given us with the power of God to be the most effective against the evil that exists in the world.  If we want to fight against this evil, let’s do it the way God intended.  Let’s do it together.  Amen.