What is a Human Life Worth?

Matthew 26:14-15 – Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver.

What is the value of one life? About six weeks of work, according to the chief priests in this passage (based on $50,000/year salary, that works out to about $5,800). Multiply that times the over 125,000 people who have died during this coronavirus pandemic and that works out to about $720,000. Of course, that does not include any productivity that person would have contributed. But all that is only if one insists on commodifying everything.

The chief priests were not asking the question what is a human life worth. No. instead, they asked themselves what keeping their hold on power was worth. They are like Republican leaders who consistently and knee-jerkingly support this president. The current price is much higher. They have made themselves richer and more powerful while destroying our economy, causing the death of over 125,000 of their fellow citizens, and are just now realizing how much damage they have caused. All to keep their hold on power, which is slowly draining away from them anyway. Thirty pieces of silver seems like a bargain.

No, Republican leaders don’t concern themselves with how much a human life is worth. If they were to ever ask themselves honestly, they would have a hierarchy of human lives, because they clearly value some lives over others. Obviously, white, male, cis-het, Christian lives come first. The rich come before the poor, of course, because the poor are “obviously” lazy moochers. White women come next. Any deviance from those is completely unacceptable. Hence, the need for Black Lives Matter. Now that their preferred demographic no longer holds hegemony in America, they are holding onto power for all they’re worth; using every fascist trick in the book. No, they do not care about people’s lives outside of their own.

But God cares, and God does not value one life more than another; whether that life is a queer person, a disabled person, a Black person, a Mexican person, a white person, a Russian person, a woman, a man, a gay person, a lesbian, a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew. Our value to God comes from the fact that we are her children. She created each one of us. Human mothers may have favorites, but God does not value any of these lives over another. As the song goes, “they are precious in his sight.”

Why then do we?

Holding onto power is just one reason; and it’s more a justification than an actual belief. But what about those who don’t have power? There’s a lot of anger out there among white people. Anger and fear. You may have seen or heard about the video of the white woman at Target tearing down the mask display while yelling, “This s#!t is done.” The anger in her voice is palpable. She’s taking out that anger on inanimate objects, which I guess is a step up. But it’s a step that won’t help her assuage her anger, because the masks are not her problem. The anger is real, and Fox “News” and OAN are stoking the fires of anger and fear and rage. They think they’re angry at people of color, or immigrants, or lazy people. But those are merely justifications for the anger they already feel.

The thing is, the leadership of America has never really had the well-being of all Americans at heart. Witness how easy it continues to be for police to murder Black people. The policies of the Bush years, the Obama years, and now Donald’s years have been taking their toll. But the anger began much earlier with the loss of solid, middle class jobs, and with Reagan’s policies of reducing taxes and propaganda against people who needed government assistance. Instead of getting angry at the corporations and leaders who made the decisions leading to the loss of those jobs, their anger is aimed at people less powerful. S#!t roles downhill.

What is the price of a human life?

In the last 40 years, people went from being thought of as assets to a business (Personnel) to being thought of as liabilities (Human Resources). From personnel to human resources. That rhetorical switch is key to a lot of anger and frustration. Assets make contributions, after all. Resources are meant to be consumed and replaced. Not surprisingly, wages of the average worker have stagnated while the rich get richer. It’s not slavery, but it is a kind of prison. The Republicans and CEOs deflect the anger from themselves by claiming that immigrants, Black people, poor people, disabled people, women who don’t know their place, gay people are the problem. The lie that immigrants take jobs from Americans is designed to keep Americans both angry at the wrong people and grateful for the job they have. Divide and conquer has been the ruling white leadership’s answer to how to deal with those who are in in the rich club.

What is a human life worth?

That is the question that Black Lives Matter is answering. The protestors are protesting the answer that has been fed to them from Republicans and corporations. They are protesting the consumption of people and then cutting them loose, chewing them up and spitting them out. They are protesting the idea that life is cheap – especially the lives of Black people. They are protesting the policies that have led to America becoming, as Donald once said about other countries, a s#!thole country for most of her people.

No, they do not care about human lives. It is up to us to step into that breach and care, because God cares. Because Black lives matter. Because it’s time to choose sides. Will we stand with those to whom life is cheap? Or will we stand with those who care? Will we love by lifting up and speaking on behalf of the sacred, priceless, precious life each of us carries inside?

B