Father Jeremy Lucas said he doesn’t hate the people who run United Grain but that he feels sorry and pity for them. ”Hate gets us nowhere,” he said. Lucas also called on the Port of Vancouver and on the city of Vancouver to repent their sins, including the city’s sin of choosing to send the police ”which you all pay the salaries of to harass you.” (Troy Wayrynen/The Columbian)
Excerpts from The Columbian:
Standing in the back of a Ford F-250 Ranger pickup, United Grain looming in the distance behind him, the Rev. Brooks Berndt of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Vancouver on Wednesday morning took aim at what he called the company’s greed. He urged the company to repent sins, including “the sin of barbarity in demanding a 12-hour workday to satisfy their lust for profit.”
A bullhorn magnifying his voice, Berndt, joined by the Rev. Jeremy Lucas of Christ Church Episcopal Parish in Lake Oswego, spoke on Ash Wednesday to some 75 members of the ILWU and their supporters who’d gathered outside United Grain’s gate on the Port of Vancouver’s east side.
Berndt accused United Grain of some 13 sins, including the sin of “theft in stealing the right to work,” the sin of “heartlessness in failing to acknowledge the humanity of their workers” and the sin of “manipulation in hiring replacement workers who need the money.”
Every time Berndt spoke of a sin, those who’d gathered replied, “O Lord, may they repent their sins.”
Both Berndt and Lucas quoted from Scripture.
Cager Clabaugh, president of the ILWU’s local unit in Vancouver, said the union has expectant mothers hurting from the loss of work at United Grain and “people struggling to put food on their tables.”