The rich and the poor: America’s gap

Our local grocery store is asking all of its customers to play Monopoly. At the check-out register everyone is asked to join in the game. Prizes for everyone? Not quite, but the chance seems always there. I grew up playing Monopoly during the depression years of the 1930s. The object of the game was to drive all the other players into bankruptcy. The unknown of the game was the roll of the dice. Roll the wrong numbers and the penalty could be severe. You could land in jail. The roll of the dice could take you out of jail; or you might buy your way out of jail if you had enough money. My family members played the game for hours at a time.

Monopoly is a game about wealth and power. It is just a game but it mimics real life in many ways. Wealth triumphs and bankruptcy abounds!

Can the game of life be played without winners and losers? Is it inevitable that one person or one group of people end up with complete control of all wealth? There is no question that life has always been sharply divided in some way between the rich and the poor, the ruler and the ruled, the powerful and the weak. For some reason we human beings cannot put an end to the game.

Jesus from Nazareth can be seen from a variety of perspectives. In today’s Christian belief and practice, Jesus is seen primarily as the unique Son of God, second person of a Trinitarian God, who died on a cross for the sins of the whole world. He came into the world through a miraculous virgin birth, was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven where he is seated at the right hand of His Father God. These basic beliefs are embedded in the creeds of the church, written indelibly in the music of the church, preached with passion by ministers and are confessed by millions of Christians as they worship each Sunday in holy places.

Jesus can also be seen as an itinerant teacher and preacher, who challenged the theology, the politics, the social structures and the economics of his own day. Placed into context he was a very poor man, born to poor parents in a poverty stricken area of Northern Palestine. The bulk of his teaching must be read and studied against that background. Jesus apparently never sought wealth or power and gave deference to the poor in his teaching. He gave no word of comfort to the rich. He lived in a society that was severely segregated not according to race but by economics. Contact between the rich and the poor was only through servant/slave relationships with the wealthy, who lived in metropolitan areas. Monopoly was not his game.

We Americans live in a country with high ideals. All people are to be seen as equals with equal opportunity to become their very best. Obviously we have not always lived up to the ideals that are embraced in our founding documents. The attraction to wealth and power are constantly pulling us from our ideals. At times wealth and power are translated into generosity and sharing with people who have done less well. American generosity is often admirable. Today I learned of the death of a college classmate who lived modestly, earned a PHD, was a college teacher, started a small business, made millions, gave all his wealth away and died happily with zero wealth. I love those stories of American generosity.

Recently I have mentioned reading Robert Putnam’s “Our Kids.” The book has disturbed me deeply. It is the story of what is happening to American kids because of the enormous wealth gap that has developed in our nation. The number of super-rich Americans is exploding. The number of impoverished Americans is likewise exploding. American kids are becoming the victims of the wealth-poverty gap. Putnam, a Harvard sociologist, has eloquently pictured the developing disaster. The numbers and the examples are all there.

The dynamics of the wealth gap and the unintended consequences are complex and complicated, but none-the-less real. At the heart of the dynamics is housing segregation by income levels and social class. What is happening has taken place quietly over decades, often in the name of good works. It is now dominating our entire social structure and is tearing away the very ideals that we have held dear. Equal opportunity for OUR kids no longer exists. It is terrifying to watch this housing dynamic in my own community and to realize these housing patterns could be overpowering for the next 50-100 years.

Our American ideals call for equal opportunity for all. That ideal has been challenged by “self-reliance” and “rugged individualism.” Jay Ash, a city manager in a Boston suburb, has remarked “If our kids are in trouble — my kids, our kids, anyone’s kids — we have a responsibility to look after them.”

Putnam closes a chapter in his book with these words. “For America’s poor kids do belong to us and we to them. They are our kids.”

The game that is being played is not Monopoly. We are playing the game with real kids, our kids.” We cannot afford having one winner and everyone else bankrupt losers.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.