Kim Bobo's tesimony before an Education & Labor Committee

Kim Bobo, Founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, testified at an Education and Labor Committee hearing which asked if the Department of Labor is effectively enforcing our wage and hour laws on July 15, 2008. You can listen to some of her testimony on this video.


She has great deal to say and more of us should listen. Here is Kim Bobo's keynote presentation to the ecumenical Poverty Summit sponsored by the Iowa Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, October 25, 2008.




I saw a photograph of their web site. It was of some workers holding signs. Their signs said that all religions believe in justice. Is that true? Most faith communities will say they do. Their leaders will pray from in the front asking that god deliver justice, they will preach about justice. But is that really what they believe? Better still is that what they want? What do they say in the back of the church?

The answer is no. Jerome Chandler said it best in the article we published earlier today. He wrote that we give of what we do not want. That was what I said this morning at morning prayer and later at this afternoon's service.

It is not just that we need to do more. We must just do. By that I mean that we must do as only a handful of people and faith communities do. We do with our hearts and hands. Rather than going through our closets and taking out all the old clothes we no longer want, giving them to the Salvation Army, the local homeless shelder, or the local neighboure center; we must give what we need. We must give so that it hurts. A gift that has no value to us may be put to use by someone else, but it does not have any value to God.

God gave us a very special gift. He became incarnate of the blessed Virgin Mary, came to earth, suffered and died, and rose from the death giving us new life. What will we do with this new life Christ gave us?

It takes more than words for me to believe that all faith communities believe in justice. Many, perhaps most, give what they no longer want or need. It is time to return the gift Christ gave us and give it to others.