BY KENT A. HANSEN

or freedom Christ has set us free . . . ” (Gal. 5:1, RSV). Paul stated this truth succinctly. When it is all said and done, Christ did not give His life that we might be more moral persons or better servants. He died so that we may live in the freedom of complete and unconditional love.

This truth was planted in me by my dad. It was at supper one Monday evening in my ninth year. Dad told my mom, brother, and me about his day. He said, “The union business agent came to the job today.” The job was the construction of a bunkhouse, dining hall, and shower facilities for the field workers of a major vegetable grower in our area.

“What did the agent want?” Mom asked warily.

“He asked me to sign with the Carpenter’s Union Local or else he’d put a picket on the job.”

We all stopped eating and looked at Dad. The facts were simple. Dad was a general contractor and carpenter. Our family belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The church teaches that labor unions engage in coercive actions incompatible with the gospel of Christ. Dad faithfully followed the teachings of the church and refused to sign a contract with the union, even though it cost him work. Dad’s work put food on our table, clothes on our back, and paid our church school tuition. Even I, the youngest child, knew what a picket line meant. If the teamsters who drove the cement and lumber trucks refused to cross the line, the job would shut down and Dad would lose the job. My uncle and a couple longtime friends who comprised my dad’s crew would be out of work.

“I told him that I was a Seventh-day Adventist, and I couldn’t sign,” Dad said. “He gave me some names of Adventists that he said belonged to the union. I told him that was their choice, but my conscience wouldn’t let me sign. He told me, ‘Well, it’s your funeral.’”

Mom was always quick to resort to prayer. She said to my brother and me, “Boys, let’s hold hands right now and pray.”

Around the kitchen table and we bowed our heads and grripped each other’s hands tightly. “Dear Father in heaven,” Mom said, “You are our help, and we need You now. You know what this job means to our family. Please protect our daddy and his work. He stands for You; now, Lord, please stand for him. In Jesus’ name.” We said “amen” in unison and that was that.

At the next evening’s meal Dad announced that the union had sent a picket to the job.

“What does his sign say?” I asked.

“It says, TED HANSEN IS UNFAIR TO LABOR in big letters. He carries it up and down the highway in front of the job.”

“He does?” my eyes widened in embarrassment that someone would call my dad unfair in public.

“Yes, he does. On the way out tonight I stopped at the road and talked to the picket.”

“You did?” we all chorused.

“Yes. I couldn’t see a car around anywhere, and I figured he’d walked out from town and he’d have to walk back. So I said, ‘Hi.’ I told him, ‘Why don’t you throw your sign in the back of my pickup, and I’ll give you a ride home?’ He looked at me like I was crazy.

“I said, ‘I won’t bite you. Go ahead and jump in, and I’ll take you home.’ He looked me over again, said ‘OK,’ put his sign in back, and I took him to his house in town.”

“Ted, you didn’t!” Mom exclaimed.

“I did. He seems like a nice enough guy. He and his wife have a new baby. He’s an apprentice carpenter and is out of work. So the union sent him out to picket. When we got to his house I said, ‘Hey, if you just want to leave your sign in the back of the truck, I’ll come by tomorrow morning at 7:30 and pick you up and take you back out to the job.’”

“‘You’re kidding,’ he said.

“‘No, I mean it. I’m not going to sign with your union, but I’ll give you a ride out to the job and back every day if you want.’ He said, ‘Mister, I can’t leave my sign with you; that wouldn’t be right. But I’ll take you up on the ride.’”

Mom was having none of it at first. “Ted, that man wants to take the bread right out of your boys’ mouths, and are you really going to help him do it?”

“He has his opinion and I have mine,” Dad said softly. “We both have a job to do. It’s a free country.”

For the months that the job lasted, my dad gave the picketer a ride to the job. The man marched proclaiming to the world passing by that Dad was unfair. At night Dad would return his critic and his sign safely to his home. They parted friends.

I became an attorney. It’s my privilege to work in a law firm that represents persons and congregations of many denominations and faiths—Egyptian Coptic, Roman Catholic, Assemblies of God, Orthodox and Conservative Jews, Presbyterians, Muslims, and various evangelical and charismatic ministries. Often these clients ask me about my own faith. “I’m a Seventh-day Adventist,” I reply. “We believe in a God of love who offers freedom of choice.” When they press me for details, I tell them the best I can. Then I often say with a smile, “Let me tell you about my dad . . .”

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Kent A. Hansen, an Adventist attorney in southern California, prepares a weekly devotional “A Word of Grace for Your Monday,” sent out by e-mail. His father, Ted Hansen, is “now 90 and a lifelong faithful Seventh-day Adventist. The grace I write about was initially learned from him,” writes Kent Hansen.