Candlelight Vigil Against Modern-day Slavery in the Fields

We invite you to join us in lighting a candle and praying for an end to slavery in the fields.

WHY WE GATHER

In the wee hours of November 18, 2007, Mariano Lucas hung from the ceiling inside the cargo hold of a box truck a few blocks off Main St. in Immokalee, Florida punching his way through the ventilation hatch. In the early morning darkness, Mariano fled for assistance to the Collier County Police and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

In December 2008, employers Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete were sentenced to 12 years each in federal prison on charges of conspiracy, holding workers in involuntary servitude, and peonage. They had employed dozens of tomato pickers in Florida and South Carolina. As stated in the DOJ press release on the farm bosses' conviction, “[the employers] pled guilty to beating, threatening, restraining, and locking workers in trucks to force them to work as agricultural laborers. They were accused of paying the workers minimal wages and driving the workers into debt, while simultaneously threatening physical harm if the workers left their employment before their debts had been repaid to the Navarretes."

Mariano Lucas and dozens of other farm workers had been chained, beaten, locked in trucks every night, and forced to work against their will in order to deliver cheap tomatoes, not simply to grocery stores and restaurants – but to you and me. But this was not the first case to emerge from the Florida fields, it was the seventh.

Across the country this day, people of faith are gathering to remember his harrowing escape and to pray for an end to modern-day slavery in the fields. Today our voices unite across distance, language and faith to say slavery shall be no more. The time is now.

LIGHT THE CANDLE

As we remember tonight the escape of Mariano, we also remember the farmworkers we do not know who, this night, continue to labor in modern-day slavery in the Florida fields.

We remember the suffering and the courage of enslaved farmworkers. We remember and we say, “no more.”

US Attorney Doug Malloy has said that these seven cases of modern-day slavery are just the “tip of the iceberg.” While these cases of modern-day slavery aren’t the “norm” they are the extreme end on a continuum of systemic abuse that can best be described as “sweatshop” conditions, including sub-poverty wages, no right to overtime pay, and no right to organize.

We remember that slavery does not occur in a vacuum. We remember “sweatshop conditions” in the fields and we say, “no more.”

In the most basic and essential aspects of our life together, food and work, we are interconnected – that our choices and actions impact one another, and that we have both the power and the responsibility to create economic systems that promote and protect human well-being. Modern-day slavery is not a problem without a solution. But it will not end unless we all act.

We remember and renew our commitment to work together with farmworkers to ensure working conditions that promote human dignity and well-being. We remember and say, “the time is now.”

READINGS: Choose from the selected readings or from one of your own.

PRAYER: Choose from the Prayer of Thanksgiving and Commitment, the Prayer of Confession, or offer your own prayer.

BLESSING
May the One who makes a way where there is no way, bless us, discomfort us, and make us a whole people. Amen.

RESOURCES

SELECTED READINGS

Exodus 3:7-8a

7 Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Isaiah 1:16c-17

Cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Luke 4:16-20

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

The Quran 2:177

Righteousness is not turning your faces towards the east or the west. Righteous are those who believe in God, the Last Day, the Angels, the Scripture, and the Prophets, and the give their money cheerfully, to the relative, the orphans, the needy, the traveling alien, the beggars, and to free the slaves, and they observe the contact prayer and give the obligatory Charity, and they keep their word whenever they make a promise, and they steadfastly persevere in the face of persecution, hardship and war. These are the truthful, these are the righteous.

Dream Deferred – Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore – And then run?
Does it stick like rotten meat? Or crust over – like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does is explode?

PRAYERS

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND COMMITMENT

We give thanks for the agreements that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers have reached with Yum Brands, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Whole Food Market, Bon Appetit, and Compass Group.

For the commitment to end slavery and the business practices that foster it, we give thanks.

We give thanks for the growers who are implementing these agreements, East Coast Growers and Packers, Alderman Farms, and Lady Moon Farms.
For the commitment to end slavery and the business practices that foster it, we give thanks.

We pray for the grocery, foodservice and restaurant corporations that have ignored, delayed or refused to do their part to end these conditions together with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, other corporations, growers and consumers. We pray especially for Publix, Kroger, Ahold, Aramark, and Sodexo.

Specific petitions may be offered.

O God, You who hear the cry of the poor, you promise your presence in all times and places. Equip us to work for the justice, freedom, and well-being that you desire for all people. Amen.

Prayer of Confession

God of love and justice, we come seeking your presence and guidance. You ask us to walk with our brothers and sisters and tell us there are no strangers among us. Yet, we still turn against you and do not love one another as we love ourselves. We have sometimes failed to be generous with our time and resources, and have neglected opportunities to treat others with human dignity.

God, in prayer we remember those who today are struggling and organizing for a fair wage for the work they do; those who demand more respect on the part of their bosses and the industries where they work. We join those who seek stronger laws and stronger enforcement against those who would violate workers' rights; and we pledge ourselves to work to end indentured servitude in the fields. Remind us that you have called us to walk in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who work in the tomato fields in Florida. We are thankful for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and all other organizations fighting for farmworker rights and dignity.

Hear our prayer, O God. Forgive us and hold us in your loving arms as we seek peace, build community and establish justice on earth. Amen

This ritual and resources were written by Kim Kavazanjian of Interfaith Action and the Rev. Noelle Damico of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Rev. Jim Boler wrote the Prayer of Confession.