8/31/52

"And Who Is My Brother?”

Scripture: Matthew 23: 1-12

Text: Matthew 23: 8; “One is your Master and all ye are brethren.”

Our Lord was once discussing earnestly, with those around him, the implications of the great commandment: “Thou shalt love --- thy neighbor as thyself.” Someone made bold to ask him, “And who is my neighbor?” The questioner wanted that “neighbor business” defined. Jesus answered by telling the story of a good heart in a foreigner -- a Samaritan. [Luke 10: 27-37]. Which was no special pat-on-the-back for the people of Samaria; but rather a vivid lesson in the truth that all people who have a concern for each other are neighbors and may --- should --- love each other.

There was another time when Jesus was discussing those who, by their attitude, set themselves apart from others as being superior in rank and privilege by virtue of their status as Pharisees. He urged upon his followers that the only “superiority” among them be that of humble, sincere service to each other. “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” He said that they were not to consider who among themselves was to be master, for the only master they had was the Christ. And he told them directly that they were all brothers; “all ye are brethren.”

It is one of the deep, and sometimes hard (for us) teachings of our Lord, that all of his followers are brethren despite contrasts in appearance and taste, differences of political opinion, and distances in language, geography and philosophy.

A significant development, in our land, in my lifetime, is the growth of the labor union movement. It has Christian significance that so many of the union groups are called a “brotherhood” -- the “brotherhood of locomotive engineers and firemen,” for instance. It is further significant that the word “international” is used in the name of so many organized unions. The outreach of the fellowship is beyond local confines. The ideals of the union movement in these particulars is closely akin to the teaching of the Master. This does not necessarily make it Christian in other particulars. Indeed, it behooves organized labor, like all other groups and individuals, to seek constantly the leading of the Lord in its doings.

There is the matter of dealings between labor leaders and representatives of management - between the unions and the employers - and between both and the consuming public. For there are sincere Christians in all these groups, and “all ye are brethren.” There are differences of opinion, and sometimes struggles between brothers within a family. These ought to be adjusted in a Christian spirit. But no differences erase the fact that they are brothers.

I have not been a union member, though I have known what several kinds of physical as well as intellectual labor are like at first hand. Neither have I been, in any significant sense, an employer. So I do not know as much about the organized relations of labor and management as, for instance, do those who have a part in negotiating the union contracts between laborers and employers. But I have been impressed with the fact that some Christian idealism goes into these things. And I wish there were more.

I once heard an earnest speech by a man who was national chairman of the laymen’s fellowship of his church denomination. He was also an employer of men and, as such, frequently in the process of negotiating the contracts between his firm and the labor union representatives. He spoke of a negotiation that promised to be particularly difficult and of his knowledge that the labor negotiator was reputed to be particularly tough in his demands.

He began with the recognition that his Christian faith ought to have a vital bearing on all his dealings. So he called the other representatives of management together before they were to go to the conference table. He proposed that they pray for God’s guidance, and the proposal was agreed to. Before every day’s conference, those men prayed together, going directly from their prayers to the conference table. And they told no one about it but themselves.

He said that the contract was negotiated more quickly than anyone had expected; that the solutions to difficult problems that all had expected to cause trouble, were found more easily and adjusted more amicably, than anyone had believed possible. He felt that he had experienced a definite spiritual guidance during the exertion of that contract negotiation.

The leader of the labor delegation also recognized something that he did not always experience. When the agreement was reached he shook hands with the management leader and said that he had never found it so easy to deal with management in a contract negotiation, nor to arrive at a satisfactory agreement so quickly, as in this instance. And he thanked his opponent for the sprit with which he had been met at the table. I don’t think he ever was told that it was the spirit of a man who had, each day, been at prayer.

I once attended a lengthy session of labor representatives who were in a period of training in the techniques of their organization. To me, the most impressive speaker among them was a man who was definite and positive in his active Christian faith and churchmanship. He was an officer of his own church (Presbyterian, I think) and active on its board and at its worship. He was a labor organizer -- devoted and zealous at it! And certain people would stiffen visibly when they heard it. But they usually came to trust his sincerity when he talked for any length of time with them. For a group movement can be trusted when led by a man (whether employee or employer) who devotedly recognizes that God is beyond himself; that God is interested in him and in the people of his group; and that there is vital guidance in the immanent God.

In recent years, the church, as an organized fellowship, has shown an increasing interest in Christian labor-management relations, and in internal labor relations. It is interesting, and heartening, that the initiative for some of that interest came from organized labor. That is, Christian laborers spoke to Christian churchmen about it. For, in 1909, the American Federation of Labor sent to the Federal Council of Churches a resolution suggesting that the Sunday before Labor Day be designated as Labor Sunday. And so, for 45 years now, the first Sunday in September (or in the case of this year’s calendar, the last day of August) is designated on church calendars, and by church observance, as Labor Sunday. And I think there has been an increasing concern during the more recent years, on the part of the churches.

A minister of a church in Washington, DC, decided a half dozen years ago that he would preach a sermon, the first Sunday of September, on “Christian Labor Relations.” He felt that he needed considerably more preparation for that sermon than for some that he had prepared. So he went, early, to the library in the National Labor Relations Board, and found that he would be permitted to use its facilities. He thought the librarian seemed a little skeptical of his interest. Apparently it was something of a novelty for a minister to be going through the books on the shelves of that particular library!

He himself felt a little queer about it until he came to a familiar book which he knew well. It was the Holy Bible. It was not in a compartment marked “religion,” and it was not in any fancy leather binding. It was there with the other books, on its own merit and with a regular catalogue number to mark its place on the shelf. The minister noted with some interest that it was next to a volume bearing the title, “History of the American Working Class.”

Now I’m always a little bit concerned with the idea of the word “class.” I don’t completely trust the notion that those who labor with their hands, or with trade skills, are all somehow in a class or dark pigeon hole of their own; distinct, or separate, from management or supervisors as a class, sales folk as a class, or those who serve humanity with professional skills as a class. The attempt to classify persons is too convenient, and has its social and spiritual perils.

But it is nonetheless true that the Holy Bible is for all people. It is just as valuable a guide for managers and laborers as it is for teachers, merchants, clergymen, physicians, lawyers, farmers, politicians and financiers.

Jesus of Nazareth was known as a teacher by those who persisted, against his wish, in calling him “Rabbi.” He was thought of as a prophet. He is revered adored and worshipped as a Savior, as Master of souls, as the Christ. He was also a carpenter, familiar with the skills of that vocation, and to a large extent of fishing and of agriculture. His most influential first century follower, Paul, was a tent maker. Jesus was interested in all of them, not for their vocation’s sake, but as persons, as brethren, as creatures and children of the Father.

If the church has even overlooked the fact that people who belong to labor unions, or engage in trade skills outside of union membership, are children of God, may the church be forgiven and vigorously awakened! I think the churches, by and large, are not forgetting. But it would have been better for the course of history if more of the churches had been far less aloof from the labor movement than they have often been during the past century in our country.

Historically speaking, it is the same spiritual drive that gave rise to a strong Protestant church in England, and at the same time germinated the trade union movement in England. In both cases it was a genuine concern for individual men, women, and children that produced there the democratic kind of church and the trade union. In many cases in England it was the Methodist lay-preacher who was also the labor leader. On Sunday he was in a pulpit. On Monday, he was back tending a loom in the mill or digging in the coal pit. My family tell me that one James Kingdon, a brother of my grandmother, worked all week in a blacksmith shop and then on Sunday walked several miles to preach as a lay pastor in a Methodist church. And he kept up that lay preaching until he was in his eighties.

The church and peoples’ vocations ought to be just that close to each other in our place, and in our time -- among all sorts of people of every vocation. Charles P. Taft, a well-recognized Christian layman said, several years ago: “The church has done its job and does it increasingly well, in serving humans who face the problems of birth and death and sickness and sorrow, who struggle with their children and their family relations, and who worry about the daily troubles of existence; but in meeting the problems which laymen face in responsible leadership of their communities in business and politics and labor and agriculture, the church has missed the boat entirely.”

There could have been a distressing amount of truth in Mr. Taft’s statement some years ago. But I think that today is different. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone to church today to hear these things discussed, and thousands of preachers are discussing them today. There is wide recognition and understanding that the everlasting Gospel of God’s Fatherhood and man’s brotherhood is for all people who will receive it -- bar none. And I think the church is making some progress toward the practical expression of this belief.

Last June, I was present at a session, in California, of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches. There came a time for a discussion of the Council for Social Action of the denomination. I guess the corresponding movement of every denomination has had some growing pains, some criticism to accept, and some readjustments to make. One of the speakers from the floor interested me more than others.

You have probably read, or heard, that several young seminary students became concerned over the un-churched condition of vast numbers of people, Negroes, Puerto Ricans, and many others among them, who are overcrowded together in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. They went in and started store-front churches, organized neighborhood groups of kids in constructive activity, studied, listened, looked, thought, and prayed. They know how desperately rare is personal privacy, what a scandalous proportion of a man’s weekly wage must go for rent for his family’s miserable quarters, how easy it is for men to despair and for kids to be crooks.

One of those ministers was at the meeting in California and was the speaker who interested me. He said, with some excitement in his voice, “I want to tell you that it is awfully important that people where I live and work in Harlem know that there is a church that takes a real interest in them and their situation.” He left no doubt of his deep conviction that the churches of every fellowship must let that interest be expressed in Christian social concern and action.

Now I am not one of those who believe that a church should take sides in all the disputes that arise between labor and management. Indeed, I am convinced that most churches should not take sides in many of these debated matters. For the church is properly a Christian fellowship for people of all walks of life and of many shades of opinion, and of economic and social conviction. But individual church members should have no restriction in expressing their honest Christian conviction and their considered opinion as to how that conviction should be carried into action even in a dispute. Without claiming to represent a whole church, should not individual lay men and women, and clergymen as well, maintain each other’s freedom to express their own views? Such frankness is often an honest contribution to the arrival at understanding necessary for agreements and contracts.

On some things, however, it seems to me that the church should e’er now have arrived at well-nigh complete agreement, and on these things to take a stand.

1) Neither Labor nor Management is a commodity. They are in a different class from raw materials, or finished industrial or agricultural products. A man or woman is something different from so many units of electricity or so many tons of coal. He is a person, made in the spiritual image of God, potentially a son of God through Christ. Regardless of race, language, nationality, years of schooling, machine he operates, or skill he possesses, he has an individual dignity in the sight of God and merits it in the sight of men. He is not a class, he is a soul. And among Christians he is a brother. “One is your Master, and all ye are brethren.”

It is, without doubt, difficult to determine fairly the wage to be paid to men and women of differing skills and experience. But is it not very materially less difficult if we begin with the assumption that all men, of office and shop, of mine, foundry and factory, are “my brothers” rather than my enemies or ruthless competitors?

2) Is not this a further Christian conviction that can be held in universal agreement and on which a church can stand:

Organized labor has certain rights, as does ordered management. But both have, also, certain responsible obligations. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is as true in labor-management relations as it is in politics and statesmanship. It was wrong for an employer to be able to say arbitrarily that a man must work 12 or 14 hours a day at any kind of conditions provided, while paid as little as the employer thought possible. It will be just as wrong if labor should ever swing to such an arbitrary use of its growing power.

Ruthlessness is as bad from one quarter as from another. Christian consideration is as commendable and as essential in one leader, or follower, as in another.

A couple of days ago, I saw re-lived on the motion picture screen some of the episodes in the life of Will Rogers. He had a reputation as a humorist. He also had a penetrating, honest understanding of what goes on in human relations. His laughter was devoid of bitterness; wholesome person-loving fun. And he said he had never met a man that he didn’t like.

I don’t know what Will Rogers’ church preference was. But he was a very human example of the recognition that all men can be brothers, not superficially, but in a deep and abiding spiritual sense.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, August 31, 1952, Congregational and Methodist Union Service at the Methodist Church.