Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20
Wearing Jesus
James Sledge September
10, 2017
The
first church I served as a pastor was in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was part
of New Hope presbytery, and I served on the presbytery’s mission committee. One
of the issues facing us was a call to participate in a boycott of the Mt. Olive
Pickle Company.
The
cucumber growers in eastern North Carolina used immigrants in the “quest
worker” program to harvest the crops Mt. Olive used to make pickles. These
migrant workers moved from place to place, following the harvest seasons up the
coast. The wages were low, and the conditions in the camps that the growers
provided were often appalling. But the workers had little recourse other than
to return to their home country.
The
boycott emerged through the efforts of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, or
FLOC. They wanted to Mt. Olive to buy only from growers who paid a decent wage
and provided minimal working and living conditions. But Mt. Olive said they
couldn’t do that. They did not buy cucumbers directly from the growers. In a
system that seemed to serve little purpose other than to provide for such an
excuse, growers sold cucumbers to grading stations that in turn sold to Mt.
Olive. They could then say, we don’t deal directly with any growers. How can we
tell them what to do?
And
so FLOC called for a boycott. The National Council of Churches, which many
mainline denominations belong to, got on board, and so New Hope Presbytery’s
mission committee met with representatives from FLOC, Mt. Olive, and others in
order to make a recommendation to the presbytery about whether or not to join
the boycott.
We
held a Saturday event in the town of Mt. Olive, at Mt. Olive Presbyterian
Church, where various folks spoke for or against the boycott. One of the
stronger voices against was the pastor at Mt. Olive Presbyterian. Pickle
company managers and executives were faithful members there, and their pledges
kept the church going. This, he claimed, meant the church had no right to
criticize their employer. The denomination, he said, had no business judging
their employer or them. They were people of faith who supported their church.
What right did the church have to turn around and criticize their means of
earning a living?
The
presbytery didn’t agree and ended up supporting an, ultimately, successful
boycott. But Americans often do view faith as a private matter of the heart,
not open to judgment, even from the church. This idea showed up in last year’s
presidential election. Pope Francis commented on a proposed border wall, "A
person who thinks only about building walls... and not of building bridges, is
not Christian.” Candidate Trump fired back. “For a religious leader to question
a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian. No leader,
especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s
religion or faith,”[1]
I
suspect a lot of Americans, even ones who don’t like President Trump, tend to
agree, but Jesus and the Apostle Paul do not. Jesus makes clear in today’s
verses that the faith community should confront members who live contrary to
his teachings. It is to be done as kindly as possible, seeking reconciliation
and restoration, but it must be done. Previously, in his Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus said that calling him Lord does not matter if you don’t do God’s will. “By
their fruits you will know them,” he says. That raises an interesting
question. What is it that Christians are known for?