What about your own work? There's an adage: Your vocation is the place where your passion and the world needs intersect?" Is your work just the work you are paid for? Do you love your work? Do you rejoice in it? What about work that has to be done, whether anyone likes it or not? Sometimes that can be joyful work when people do it together. Sometimes not.  

Someone in this parish said to me recently, "I wish I had a job that was really meaningful, that really helped people." It turns out she works for a government agency that addresses some important human needs. That's meaningful work that helps people! We revere one-on-one work with individuals - tending the sick, working in a soup kitchen - but one-on-one work is not the only work that is holy. I've talked to so many of you at coffee hour who do so much holy work in so many ways.

What about jobs where workers are exploited - as when a security officer can lose her job because she can't stay for a double shift because she has to go home and take care of her kids? What about intolerable working conditions in industries like meat-packing, for instance - back-breaking, dangerous work, where it's not that uncommon to lose a finger .. or a hand .. or an arm? What about the fact that it's so hard to unionize - so hard for workers to get together to stand up for themselves? 

Finally, just a word about wages, because not everyone is clear about this. The median salary in the US in 2006 is $32,500. If you earn more than that - if you earn $33,000 a year or more, you are richer than half the people in the country.

If you earn $100,000 a year, you are richer than 95% of the people in the country and more than 99.9% of the people in the world.

It's important to know how rich most of us are, and how much we have to share. And sharing is not simply about sharing our wealth. It's about sharing our concern, sharing our talents, sharing our intelligence and education, sharing our time, our writing ability, our interest - simply finding out about things - sharing our political power - and we do have political power: voting matters, phone calls to office holders matter, standing up with striking workers matters, supporting immigrant rights matters.

God has given us .. everything. God calls us to be bread for a hungry world.