Prayer with the UMWA

This morning I joined with other clergy, Eden Seminary students and faculty, and about 800 coal miners to protest Peabody Coal's relinquishment of responsibility for tens of thousands of retired former employees. In 2008, Peabody created Patriot Coal, a subsidiary designed to run numerous mines and to control the health accounts of an enormous number of Peabody retirees.

In July 2012, Patriot declared bankruptcy. A firestorm has issued out of the United Mine Workers of America, protesting the scuttling of all Patriot's assets including those pensions and health accounts. Many will be left destitute as a result.

From http://www.krcu.org/post/
coal-miners-protest-peabody-energy-st-louis

Today, a hearing was scheduled at the Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse in Saint Louis, and so a rally was scheduled also. I prayed the closing prayer:

God of all people great and small, we pray this day for the lowly and the powerful, that justice for all may be accomplished.

Many of us have come to know you in Jesus of Nazareth - the carpenter and carpenter's son who learned of labor through his trade. He, by his word and godly example has indicated to us what is holy and true and righteous.

We thank you for these people united in a common effort, appealing  to the conscience of the leadership of a mighty company.

Sovereign God, I am the pastor of an historically white collar congregation, but today, I wear under my power suit a blue collar to signify unity with labor everywhere, but especially these coal miners here. They worked for Peabody for years, assuming that the work they had done would be appreciated in perpetuity by their former employer. But now they fear for their futures - that they may be left destitute by a corporation that made a mistake (and what a mistake!), five years ago. Now, the great claim scarcity and threaten the small.

We pray for these miners' former management, almighty God, for Peabody surely understands that, as Jesus said, "a worker deserves their wages," and as you have spoken through the prophet, we "shall see the fruit of our labors."

And we acknowledge that Jesus not only kept company with the lowly and vulnerable, the poor and the needy, but also with the powerful, the questionably ethical, and the outright corrupt. He befriended everyone for the sake of reminding us that we all are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. So, we pray that your Spirit - as it did in the unnamed centurion and Nicodemus, in Zacchaeus and Matthew - may work insidiously among those who make the financial decisions of this company,who could not decide as they do but for the profits these laborers made possible. Help them to remember their obligations to their sisters and brothers, duties they once claimed as their own and which - I venture to remind them in this prayer to you - they must again assume by the demands of justice and righteousness, by the fact that they would not be able to take up these duties were it not for the coal miners and their families who turned the wheels of their industry by the sweat of their brows and the strength of their hands.

"Let your justice roll down like waters and your righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!"

Decisions once made in strength may have been borne out in weakness, but abundance persists in this corporate giant. We see its evidence throughout our city in philanthropic work and impressive architecture. But Peabody can do more... and better!

Peabody's obligation to their workers remains, no matter how much they deny it. And their ability will not be overwhelmingly diminished by living up to the promises they once made to these people. This giant is strong and able.

O God of great and small, our Creator and our Guide, as once you did in an obscure place in the words and acts of a simple laborer, bring redemption here: In this day protect the lowly and the vulnerable through the righteous action of the great and the strong.

Your mercy is boundless, your compassion endless, your abundance eternal, your love infinite. Grant us all, your vision and a heart to do your will. And thus empower all your people to say, "Amen."