 Good morning and welcome to the joint service of the three Unitarian Universalist congregations in Madison, Prairie UU Society, James Reeve UU Congregation, and First Unitarian Society. It is a great joy to have the three congregations occasionally do services together. Today we join together to celebrate Labor Day and Worker Justice in Madison and our state. My name is Roger Birchhausen and I am the interim minister at First Unitarian Society. I'm joined in worship this morning by Reverend Kelly Crocker, Drew Collins, Linda Warren, Stephen Gregorius, Daniel Carnes from First Unitarian, Reverend Karen Armina and the James Reeve Choir from James Reeve, and Renee Deschard and Nancy Wonderland from Prairie. We are all delighted to have Rebecca Meyer-Rau with us today as well. She is the new executive director of Worker Justice Wisconsin. Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing in our Labor Day service. We warmly invite you to join the virtual coffee hour after the service. And in a moment, our chalice lighting will include lighting the chalice at each of the Madison UU congregations. I invite you to join in the chalice lighting in your home by lighting your family chalice or a candle or a flame app on your phone. May the fires of our chalice flames burn brightly throughout our Madison community. And I invite you now into a time of centering silence so that we may all come fully into the space and time together. Honoring our Labor's by Florence Cascio. In recognition of Labor Day, we light this flame to honor all work, including the work of our hands and our backs and gratitude for all the Labor's that support our world and for all those who boldly continue to work of justice, equity and peace. I'm going to read Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin and the pictures are by Betsy Lewin. Armor Brown has a problem. His cows like to type all day long. He hears Click, Clack, Moo. Click, Clack, Moo. First, he couldn't believe his ears. Cows that type impossible. Click, Clack, Moo. Click, Clack, Moo. Then he couldn't believe his eyes. Dear Farmer Brown, the barn is very cold at night. We'd like some electric blankets. Sincerely, the cows. The cows had found the old typewriter in the barn. Now they wanted electric blankets. No way said Farmer Brown, no electric blankets. So the cows went on strike. They left a note on the barn door. Sorry, we're closed. No milk today. Milk today. Cried Farmer Brown. In the background he heard the cows busy at work. Click, Clack, Moo. Click, Clack, Moo. Click, Clack, Moo. The next day he got another note. Dear Farmer Brown, the hens are cold too. They'd like electric blankets. Sincerely, the cows. The cows were growing impatient with the farmer. They left a new note on the barn door. Closed. No milk. No eggs. No eggs! Cried Farmer Brown. In the background he heard them. Click, Clack, Moo. Click, Clack, Moo. Click, Clack, Moo. Hens on strike. Whoever heard of such a thing. How could I run a farm with no milk and no eggs? Farmer Brown was furious. Farmer Brown then got out his own typewriter. Dear cows and hens, there will be no electric blankets. You are cows and hens. I demand milk and eggs. Sincerely, Farmer Brown. Hmm. Wonder if Farmer Brown maybe could have been a little flexible here. Let's see what happens. Duck was a neutral party so he brought the ultimatum to the cows. The cows held an emergency meeting. All the animals gathered around the barn to snoop but none of them could understand Moo. All night long, Farmer Brown waited for an answer. Knocked on the door early the next morning. He handed Farmer Brown a note. Dear Farmer Brown, we will exchange our typewriter for electric blankets. Leave them outside the barn door and we will send Duck over with the typewriter. Sincerely, the cows. Farmer Brown decided this was a good deal. He left the blankets next to the barn door and waited for Duck to come with the typewriter. The next morning he got a note. Dear Farmer Brown, the pond is quite boring. We'd like a diving board. Sincerely, the ducks. Click, clack, quack. Click, clack, quack. Click, clack, quack. Oh, what do you think happened? Maybe they got their diving board. And that is, click, clack, Moo. Cow is that type. On Labor Day, we honor our work, physical and mental, paid and unpaid, joyous and heartbreaking. We give thanks for work's gift, suffer its difficulties, and strive to make labor just and joyous for all. Our work can build our society, provide for our material needs, and give our life meaning. We labor in gratitude. Our work can damage our society and the planet, fail to sustain our material needs, and be meaningless. We join together to create work that supports the well-being of all. Our work can help heal the world, help us understand who we are, and keep us safe. We labor in joy. Our work can harm the world, demean us and expose us to danger. We join together to create work that is safe and humane. Our work can fill our days with accomplishments and our lives with stories. We labor in love. Our work can dissatisfy and alienate us. We may not be able to find enough work for any work. We join together to create work that blesses us, all people and the planet. This Labor Day and all Labor Days to come may our work and all work serve humanity and all living beings. Hello and happy Labor Day. My name is Rebecca Mayer-Row. I'm the Executive Director of Worker Justice Wisconsin. I'm happy to celebrate Worker Justice with you today and throughout the month of September as you participate in Labor and the Pulpit in the BIMA on Amin Bar. An important part of Worker Justice Wisconsin is its Worker Center, where mostly low-wage and immigrant workers come for assistance when they experience wage theft, workplace discrimination, and other forms of labor exploitation. At the Center, workers are empowered to stand up for living wages, health and safety in their workplaces, and the right to organize and participate in collective action against bad employers. I want to tell you that since COVID-19, our Worker Center caseload has nearly tripled. And the reason for this is because a pandemic exacerbated long-standing worker injustices in Madison and Dane County. We saw hotels and restaurants laying off workers without paying them their last paychecks or earned PTO. And this was particularly devastating for immigrant workers who did not qualify for unemployment and therefore had no other form of income to sustain them. Both discrimination and health and safety cases increased, while vulnerable workers contacted us to get help navigating the excruciating choice between keeping a bad job and having no income at all. We saw residential cleaners forced to work against a safer-at-home order, and workers in various industries being forced to work with COVID-19 symptoms. Growing up in the Lutheran Church, I learned early on that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. It's clearly stated in Genesis 1.27. In the words of theologian Brian Massingale, what this means is that each and every person has dignity, value, and worth that is intrinsic and sacred. By virtue of our intrinsic and sacred dignity, we automatically deserve, not earn, deserve what is necessary for life to thrive, things like food, water, housing, health, and of course, safe working conditions and a living wage. In my six months as Executive Director of Worker Justice Wisconsin, I have found that too many employers in our community do not know, comprehend, or perhaps even care about the principle of human dignity. But I also want to say that I have seen workers stand up for their rights, successfully confront bosses in discrimination cases, and demand their stolen wages back. In fact, at Worker Justice Wisconsin, we have helped workers recover nearly a hundred thousand dollars in earned but unpaid wages this year alone. I have come to admire the dedicated passion of our staff, volunteers, and board, as well as the open and collaborative efforts of local unions and nonprofits. I have seen communities of faith, support workers' rights, and proclaimed that black and brown lives matter. There is a recognition of human dignity in our midst. May we all join together this Labor Day and throughout the month of September to honor and uphold the dignity of every worker. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sister Maureen MacDonald. I'm a Catholic Dominican sister connected with Edward College in Madison, where I worked for over 20 years in campus ministry. I draw my thoughts about wage theft and the dignity of work from the Judeo-Christian scriptures and from Catholic social teaching. The Bible tells us that being an observant Jew, Jesus taught and expanded upon the traditional 10 commandments. The most explicit, of course, is the seventh, you shall not steal. We see evidence of employers stealing just wages and benefits from workers and their families all over the world, including in Dane County. I believe that if we support restaurants, manufacturers, or retailers who participate in wage theft or any injustices toward workers, we too are stealing. So we need to do our best to find out who fails to be just to their employees and use our power to purchase and speak up about injustices that we become aware of. So for instance, if we put priority on purchasing fair trade food, clothing, and other products, we can be fairly sure that we are supporting companies who have just business practices. Moving on to Catholic social teaching, this is a tradition that is now 130 years old and strongly supports organized labor. We have strong statements from church leaders promoting labor, the right to form unions and to engage in collective bargaining, and the benefits that go with that. These are far deeper than political rights. They are moral and human rights, which are undergirded by such powerful statements as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights promoted by the UN. So the Catholic social teaching tradition is clear. Labor and workers have priority over profits and capital. And dignified human labor is essential because it both contributes to the ongoing development of the world, and it helps transform all of us individuals who work into fuller, better human beings. I close my part now with great gratitude for your welcome and attention to our words, and I thank God for the goodness of your own lives as we all strive for unity, justice, and love. Hi, this is Pastor Jacob from Fuente de Vida Church. I'd like to tell you about the history and the Old Testament. I'm talking about Gideon. You probably remember when he was in a situation that the enemies stole the fruit of his work and how every time that they work hard to get fruit, the enemies come and get the fruit from them. So what I'm trying to explain in this short video is to tell you there's more, there's not only enemies, because enemies we're going to have all the time. They always mean people around us. The history they've been telling us, they're always been enemies. They're always been people who stole from us. But the real enemy we find out in this part of the history is their Gideon. He was doing his work with God coming and talking to them and said, get up and fight against them. And the real enemy here, it was not the mightiness. The real enemy, it was fear. It was because they don't do nothing against them. That's why I'm bringing that history right now to tell you that we can have justice through the faith. God told a person like you, like me, that we have empathy to feel what the others feel. That's why God called Gideon because he was going through the same situations. And God called him through the faith that he can go against the enemies and destroy the circle of destruction. That's why right now I'm challenging you to trust God for a better future, so no one can stole our work, our fruit for a better future, justice for the workers and Wisconsin. As Unitarian Universalists, we gather week after week, encouraging all who gather to grow more generous in spirit and in action. This is the great end of all the world's faith traditions to help us grow in acts of creation and compassion. For First Unitarian Society, our outreach offering will be shared with worker justice Wisconsin with gratitude for their good work in our community and for Rebecca's presence with us this morning. James Reeve Congregation is committed to service in our community and they will give half of the unrestricted Sunday offerings to local organizations whose work furthers their mission. This morning, their Share the Plate donations will also be shared with worker justice Wisconsin. Prairie Unitarian Universalist Society's offering this quarter is shared with the Allied Wellness Center. The Wellness Center is a neighborhood center with the purpose of promoting health and wellness of the mind, body, and spirit for people living in the Allied, Belmar, and Dunn's Marsh neighborhoods. If you go to the FUS website, FUSMadison.org, you will see an offering button. This button will take you to information on how to donate to any of our three congregations. And I thank you on behalf of these organizations and on behalf of our three congregations for your generosity. I invite you to take a breath, center yourself in your seat, and join with me in the spirit of prayer or meditation, a holy spirit of life and love that arises within and between us. We have known many blessings this day for which we give thanks and praise. For our earth home, this miraculous blue-green ball spinning in the deep space around us and the forces that hold us to her. For the life all around us, the sacred web of which we are a deeply interconnected part. For the life within us and whatever measure of health we hold. For companions on the journey and the caring we receive and offer. For the knowing that no matter how isolated we are in these times, we are not alone. We are held in the love we create between us and the love that is larger than all of us. Into this space of awe and gratitude we breathe our desires. For health, for wholeness, for safety, for love, for all of us and all our siblings. For Jacob Blake and his family and the people injured and killed in the protests following his shooting. For the families and loved ones of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and all people killed in state sanctioned violence. For the families of humans and wildlife and plants feeling the devastation of wildfires. For all of us and others suffering and grieving because of the continued spread of this virus. Especially for our siblings who are impacted disproportionately because of their race or immigration status or lack of means. May we find our healing. May we be moved and restored by our love for each other and for our earth and create healing. May we know our fear but not be stopped by it. May we feel our anger but not be ruled by it. May we honor our grief but not be paralyzed by it. May we transform our fear, anger and grief into compassion and inspiration to action. May we find the help, the resources, the support and the joy we need to do the work. May we transform all that is out of balance within and beyond until we all live in peace on a healthy planet. May it be so and may we be so. To be free are working. To be free of hate and greed and jealousy. We are worth. To be free we can feed. We can feed our every. We can feed our every need. Start with love that is the seed. We can feed. Peace and freedom is a cry. Peace and freedom is a cry. Peace and freedom is a cry. Without things this world will die. Peace and freedom is a cry. We close our time together with these words from Elena Westbrook. Go in hope for the arc of the universe is long and we can bend it toward justice. Go in courage for together we have the strength to confront injustice in our daily lives and the larger world. Go in love because a holy and generous love is both the reason and the means by which we transform our lives. We extinguish our chalice flames but not the light of hope the warmth of love or the fire for justice. These remain within us and among us until we meet again. Blessed be and go in peace.