How LEGO’s founder loved his former Nazi enemies

[Jesus said], I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. (Matthew 25:35–36, 40)

On a spring day in 1917, a fourteen-year-old orphan named Viggo arrived in Billund, Denmark, carrying nearly everything he owned in a tiny suitcase. The founder of LEGO, Ole Kirk Christiansen, was there to pick him up at the train station for the start of his four-year apprenticeship.

But Viggo was treated as far more than just an employee. He soon became like an adopted son, sharing daily meals with Christiansen’s family.

As was customary in early 20th-century Denmark, Viggo wasn’t paid during his apprenticeship. But Christiansen went out of his way to teach him how to collect wood shavings from the workshop and sell them as kindling to earn income—a modern-day version of “gleaning” Christiansen learned from the Old Testament (see Leviticus 19:9-10).

Decades later, Christiansen showed compassion again, this time to a different group of vulnerable people: Nazi sympathizers who remained in Denmark after WWII. Each night, he and his bookkeeper patrolled the streets, not to hunt down these enemies, but to protect them and ensure they had a fair trial.

In the love he showed to orphans like Viggo and even strangers and soon-to-be prisoners like the Nazi sympathizers, Christiansen reminds us that we glorify God by proactively doing good to the most vulnerable and marginalized people we work with. Not outsourcing compassion to nonprofits or the church, but showing it personally, knowing that whatever we do for the “least of these,” we do for Christ himself.

Here are three ways to do this today.

#1: Create your own form of modern-day gleaning. Maybe you can offer discount windows for the poor, start an unclaimed PTO bank, or give first dibs on overtime to lower-wage workers. Personally, I’m creating a process where I pass some speaking invitations on to speakers who are often overlooked.

#2: Budget time to notice who’s vulnerable. This could take a hundred different shapes. Here’s just one: Schedule lunch weekly or monthly with a co-worker who has less privilege or status than you and talk about more than just work. Ask about their life and listen for opportunities to serve.

#3: Tell someone you see their unseen work. The intern, the janitor, the lunch lady, etc. Bless them with genuine words of praise and thanks for the work they do.

Like Ole Kirk Christiansen, let’s be known as people who see and serve the vulnerable, knowing that when we do, we serve Christ himself.