The American Socialist Party

My dad told this story Sunday night as an illustration in his sermon. I’ve heard it before but it had been quite awhile since the last time he told it. When we lived on Beacon Hill in Seattle, we always shopped at the Safeway down on Rainier Avenue. The American Socialist Party had a semi-permanent booth outside the store and invariably there was some earnest young man or woman appealing to people to throw off the yoke of the oppressor and go join a union.

This particular day, the young man was particularly pressing and called to dad as he passed, “Sir, we workers need to unite against “the man” and form unions to establish a more equal society.” My father stopped and riposted, “Young man, I work for the best employer in the world and He has never wronged me.” It sucked the wind right out of the kid’s sails and the best he could come up with was “WHO do you work for?” Dad smiled at him and said “I am a minister of the gospel and I work for the Living God. He has never wronged me and it is my privilege to work for Him.” The boy was left speechless.