Do you drink coffee? There are so many ways to get that wakeup jolt these days: latte, cappuccino, frappe, mocha, with milk or sugar or both or just high-octane black. I sometimes think my brain can't move into first gear in the morning unless my right hand is grasping a cup handle. As we celebrate Labor Day, for many of us it is hard to imagine going about our work, our labor, without that early morning coffee.

I never really thought about the people who toil to provide me with my daily coffee fix until earlier this year. Just outside of Antigua, Guatemala, in a small village lives a family that I see during each of our medical mission trips. Living in their three-room home with a wood stove and no running water are four children ages eight through nineteen. The father of the family is a construction laborer. As I arrived for my visit this year, seventeen-year-old Heriberto was not there because he was working his mother's shift picking coffee so she could be home to greet me. It is long, hard work and the coffee market is terribly depressed right now with the commodity price being only one-third what it was in 1999. This year, Heriberto's mother, Everilda, earns only .25 quetzal or $.03 per pound of coffee that she picks. In another family, a coffee farmer, Filaberto, father of eleven children, takes a break from his labor to lead visitors on a hike up the side of a volcano where he grows coffee, corn, and flowers. The price for the tour with homemade tortillas and guacamole helps to supplement his family's income. In April, at a conference in Antigua sponsored by international development banks, aid experts said the crisis has cost the region some 600,000 jobs. It has resulted in farm foreclosures and children and youth like Heriberto being pulled out of school and sent into fields to work. However, there is a little ray of light in this picture, a spark of hope.

Starbucks, after continuing pressure from activists, has developed a plan for a preferred supplier program. The Seattle multinational reported last November that it will pay vendors in countries like Guatemala an above market price if they can show they are protecting the environment. They must also be meeting or exceeding the minimum legal requirements for wages, benefits and working conditions. In a study commissioned by Starbucks two years ago, it was found that almost half of Guatemalan coffee workers are not paid the national minimum wage of $2.48 per day. For this plan that offers at least $.10 more per pound than the going rate to indigenous coffee growers, Starbucks was honored by Business Ethics Magazine as one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2002.

However, Starbuck's plan has been slow in implementation. As of May, no farms had attained preferred supplier status. Will Everilda or Filaberto have a chance of receiving more for their labor growing and picking the beans that eventually produce our morning coffee? Starbuck's plan is a process that requires the submission of an application followed by questions and answers, long distance and through translators, and a requirement that the coffee is of the quality that Starbucks demands. We are assured that there will be small farms participating by year's end. It is risky for Starbucks to do this. Shareholders watch the bottom line. Is it wise for a company to be socially responsible? Wouldn't it be safer to continue doing business as usual, to buy the coffee at the lowest price and sell it at the going rate in the U.S. taking advantage of the glut in the market and offering the stockholders the highest possible return? I think Moses would have agreed. He certainly was not anxious to take risks with his own life.

There he was happily tending his flock in Midian for many years. He and his father-in-law Jethro, the priest, got along well. He had a beautiful wife Zipporah and was the father of a healthy boy, Gershom. Though he was a foreigner from Egypt he had been welcomed into the community in Midean and expected to remain there for the rest of his days. Then suddenly a bush was blazing and God was talking and saying things Moses really didn't want to hear. Dragging his heels, Moses challenged God, "Who am I to go to Pharaoh? Who am I to go to the Israelites when I can't even describe or name you, God?" But God had heard the pain of the Hebrew people in slavery and, though life would have been easier for Moses in Midean, God sent him to Egypt to release his people. Moses was led to do the socially responsible thing and God assured him that God would be with him.

The good news this Labor Day weekend is that Starbucks is not the only corporation that is making strides to be socially responsible. In a year when we have heard so much negativity about business leaders who worship the Almighty Dollar more than Almighty God, we begin to wonder who can be trusted. The stock market has reflected our general feelings of uncertainty lately. However, this week I had the pleasure of talking with a few of you about the good works going on in your own corporations, socially responsible risk-taking that for many of you is guided by faith, work that we should all be aware of and celebrating this Labor Day weekend. The number of stories I heard could fill an entire sermon series but I will highlight just a few today.

Earlier I mentioned the Business Ethics Magazine and its listing of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2002. Starbucks was number twenty-one. The magazine redefines corporate success to mean service to a variety of stakeholders. It evaluates seven different areas of "stakeholder groups." The first is the usual one, the stockholders. But then, it goes on to look at the company's affect on six other groups: the employees, community, environment, overseas stakeholders, minorities and women, and lastly, the customers. To excel in several of these areas, a corporation can't be focused solely on the bottom line. They must have a vision of how business should be done and be willing to take risks to make it happen. Since the study began in 1999, IBM and Proctor and Gamble have been in the top ten all three years. Two congregants who have retired from each of these companies said this week that in their career experiences there was a deep sense of trust between people in business dealings and a desire to discuss and do the ethical thing, the right thing. IBM, number one the past two years, laid off no employee from its founding in 1914 until the focus on smaller computers overpowered it by 1986. IBM currently offers childcare in 58 locations, paid leave for two weeks to new fathers and is proactive to people with disabilities placing them in business through special internship programs that provide training and leadership development.

A congregant who is an attorney with PG&E described the situation in the business world this year like the stages of grief. For her and her staff and her co-workers there seemed to be a transition through feelings of being upset, then sad, then feeling jaded and finally hardening themselves to be prepared for the next situation, the next piece of news and its interpretation in the press. A saving grace for her is that her co-workers are the most honorable people she has worked with throughout her career. Two accomplishments this year are particularly important. There were major strides in informing the public of ways to save energy and lower their monthly bills. PG&E staff voluntarily attended 1300 different community events, fairs, senior expos, school meetings, and gatherings of low-income people. These volunteers, on their own time, helped people learn how to use less of their product! Secondly, there was a major push to sell compact florescent light bulbs that are 75% more energy efficient than standard bulbs. Working in partnership with major retailers such as Costco and Longs, PG&E offered point of sale rebates. In the regional area from Chico to Bakersfield, more florescent bulbs were sold than in the entire country the year before.

Another congregation member is an executive with Macy's having been with Federated Department Stores for twenty-one years. Macy's is another business that strives for long-term employee loyalty and does not lay people off. Much has been accomplished in the area of social responsibility. Committed to AIDS research, treatment and education, the annual "Passport" fashion shows have raised $8 million. Working with local governments, the stores have actively partnered to educate and train welfare recipients providing much-needed employment opportunities as they enter the workforce. Federated monitors vendors and suppliers to ensure compliance with laws and regulations dealing with sweatshop labor and unsafe working conditions. In 1997 alone, the company for non-compliance terminated relationships with 88 vendors.

It is sometimes said that it is impossible to live lives guided by faith in the Monday through Friday corporate world of business. The newspapers have been full of stories this year that would affirm that belief. However, the assumption is false. It can be difficult but not impossible. In the sale of a product or in the experience of company staff and resources, business is full of choices and decisions that can be life-enhancing rather than cut-throat. Multinationals are wrestling with many such issues this week in Johannesburg. Jesus told his disciples, "Take up YOUR cross and follow me." Each of us is the only one who does our job, our own particular labor in our time and in our place. It is our opportunity to affect the people we meet and to guide the direction of our workplace in whatever level of influence we might have or assume to have. God promises to be with us. How do you suppose Sherron Watkins at Enron and Colleen Rowley in the F.B.I. felt this year — surely, much like Moses confronting Pharaoh. What powerful roles they played.

In this little community that we are, Westminster Church, we have a chance to help those who labor for our morning coffee, the Everildas and Filabertos in other parts of the world, by buying Fair Trade coffee. In the last three years, the world price of coffee has dropped from over $1.00 per pound to $.48, less than what it costs to produce it. By buying directly through a Fair Trade Certified agency, the farmer is guaranteed to receive at least $1.26 per pound. The cost to us is about the same as Safeway though higher than Costco, about $8.00 per pound, but the quality is also higher. You decide if it is better than our usual Presbyterian plasma. Try it out today. If you feel so inclined, toss $.20 or $.25 into the basket to help cover the added cost. Let me know what you think of the idea. It can also be available for your own use or for your office. This Labor Day we can make a difference in our work and in our lives. If we quiet ourselves and listen, we might hear God saying, "So come, I will send you."