September 6, 2026 Proper 18 First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA
Ezekiel 33:7-11. . . if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, . . . As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways,
Romans 13:8-14 Owe no one anything, except to love one another. . . Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
“By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes” Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, caught on fire. The clothing factory was on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of a building near Washington Square Park.
There were no sprinklers in the building.
To keep workers from sneaking out for breaks, the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked.
146 garment workers died; 62 from jumping out the windows.
The owners of the factory were tried for manslaughter and got off, but were found liable for wrongful death in a civil trial. They were ordered to pay compensation to the plaintiffs of $75 per person. Their insurance company paid the company $445 a person. The owners profited from the deaths of their employees.
It was clear to those who watched the fire, who paid attention to the trials, that nothing would change without political reform. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union worked with political leaders of New York (the state and the city) to make changes.
Wikipedia reports “The State Commission’s reports helped modernize the state’s labor laws, making New York State “one of the most progressive states in terms of labor reform.” New laws mandated better building access and egress, fireproofing requirements, the availability of fire extinguishers, the installation of alarm systems and automatic sprinklers, and better eating and toilet facilities for workers, and limited the number of hours that women and children could work.”
One of the people who was there the day of the fire, who watched as people jumped to their deaths was Frances Perkins, who was raised over in Worcester. Frances Perkins was an active, convinced Christian. Her values were the values of love and acceptable that Jesus taught.
She became an advocate for workers’ rights, for safety for us as we work, and served on the task force to make changes after the fire. Through that service, she made friends with Franklin D. Roosevelt and in 1933, he made her Secretary of Labor – the first woman to serve in that role. I’m not going to give her full bio, but I’d bet that almost every person in this room today lives a better life because of Frances Perkins – she was the person who came up with Social Security.
Now, why have I begun with the really depressing story of the Triangle Fire? For two reasons – first I want us to remember that evil exists in the world. And second, remember that we can make changes; we can make things better.
The owners of the factory weren’t unusual. It was common to lock the doors to the factor to keep people from sneaking out, from stealing what they made. It was common to put kids to work at a young age (the youngest who died in the fire was only 14). It was common to put in long hours – the first act to limit how many hours you could work came out of this fire, and the cap was 54 hours a week – which tells me they’d been working a lot more than that.
And then people who saw the tangible effects of those oppressive conditions said change had to happen, and so it did.
Evil exists, but it doesn’t get to win.
Ezekiel passes along God’s warning to the Hebrew people: “… if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity. . .” And then God says, “…I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.”
And in Romans, Paul adds: “love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” In Matthew, Jesus says: “if your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault…”
Pointing out the fault, calling for change, that’s what people in New York did after the fire. They named the evils that resulted in those deaths, and made changes to make working life safer – they didn’t just name the individual owners, as responsible as they were, but also took on the wider working life. We all live safer, better lives today because of their work back then.
It’s not evil that wins, it’s love.
Sometimes, evil is pretty innocuous… just doesn’t seem like that much:
Last week, during a really ugly Red Sox game, the radio announcer Will Flemming, called for the Red Sox pitcher to deliberately hit a Yankees player. The news reports said he was over the top, angry, agitating for a physical response.
Now, I don’t think we want to make too much out of this, but it seems to me that having an announcer call for the pitcher to hit the player deliberately is not right. I’m not alone in that. Flemming had to make a public apology and there was an article in Saturday’s Globe criticizing his tendency to be aggressive in what he says.
But evil is evil, spouting hatred is spouting hatred, even if it is just a baseball game.
And sometimes, it goes further.
This summer, the highly respected Biblical scholar, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, who teaches at Hartford these days, was elected president of the Catholic Biblical Association. AJ Levine is not just a teacher; she is one of the primary translators of the Bible into English and author of some of the best commentaries around. Her primary interest is seeing Jesus as a Jew, and understanding how that clarifies what he’s trying to say and do. She “has written dozens of books on the New Testament, taught a New Testament course at the prestigious Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, served on the editorial board of Catholic Biblical Quarterly and spoken privately with Pope Francis three times.” ((Forward: 9/1/26)
A perfect person to serve in this mostly honorary post, right? Except that, you see, AJ Levine is a Jew, an Orthodox Jew from New Bedford MA, and since the election, she’s been attacked, over and over, as a Jew, called a Christ-killer and all sorts of other vicious lies. I’ve seen some of the comments and they are so vile I cannot share them with you.
In fact, while Levine is the first Jewish president of the Catholic Biblical Association, she is not the first non-Catholic. Several Protestants have served in the role, according to chair of the executive board Gregory Sterling. Levine was nominated by a committee and then ran unopposed for the presidency, Sterling said. It is an unpaid, one-year position. “She was not elected because she is Jewish, but because she is an exceptional scholar and has played a very important role in Catholic-Jewish dialogue,” Sterling and the association’s executive director, Archie Wright, wrote in a joint statement. “The vitriol of some of the comments only reinforces the need to address the problem of Anti-Semitism.”
Greg Sterling is, himself, a former president of the Association. I know him; he’s the Dean of the Yale Divinity School, and a member of the Church of Christ. It’s hard to get further away from Roman Catholicism. So the problem clearly isn’t that she’s not Catholic; it is that she’s a Jew.
Sometimes evil is deep-rooted and dangerous. Sometimes it makes us uncomfortable; sometimes it puts lives in danger. Sometimes it kills.
We are Christians. Our faith calls us to stand up against evil. Our faith calls us to support leaders like Frances Perkins to make life safer and better for everyone, but especially for those who have no power.
Some of us will do it alone, like the White southern father who tells his children that they have to treat Black adults with respect and models that behavior for them. It’s not a PTA program; it’s just one man standing up for what he believes.
We have even more effect when we stand together, when we stand out in public.
It’s not easy, of course. Evil is slithery, sly, creeps into our lives because it gives such sweet immediate rewards. It’d be easy to keep to diets, don’t you know, if the only food that tasted good was what’s good for us … and stepping away from evil is the same. Doing the right thing doesn’t give immediate positive feedback; it can cost us money (safe, locally grown food can be more expensive than the mass produced lettuces in the chain stores); it can cost us social acceptability, it can cost a job, or even a life. Never the less, each time we stand up for what is right, for the way of love, the way of Jesus, we make a change, we make a difference, even if we don’t see the results, then, or even ever.
In the past week or two, we’ve had a number of deaths in our country – each of them a person who stood up against evil, each in their own way.
Dolly Parton, so much more than a singer, a woman of Christian faith, a quietly subversive agent for change, for the growth of love of all.
Gloria Steinem, not the least bit quietly subversive, standing up for the idea of women as full human beings, part of the movement that destroyed the laws that kept women from having bank accounts or credit cards in their own names, that prevented women from starting businesses or having homes of their own, that had kept women “in their place” for so long.
And Wendell Berry, devout Christian, teacher and farmer and poet, visionary, able to see what is, and what can be, and to describe what he saw to the rest of us.
I’m going to close today with a quote from his poem, The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”. Listen as he points out to us the places where temptation, evil, lives in our world, and suggests to us how we might stand against it:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry
“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Amen
© 2026, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 