As I am writing this, it is National
Housing Day in Canada. Two days before
was Universal Children’s Day. A sad fact
connects these two days. Thirty-one per cent of children
in my hometown of Saint John, NB live in poverty. This breaks Jesus’ heart. It should break everyone else's heart too,
not least of all his followers in Saint John.
“Jesus wept.” John
11:35
Poverty is a scary word. The word smacks of the idea of being less than
everyone else. “Certainly”, we tell
ourselves, “we are all equal. No one is
less valuable simply because they are poor.”
In reality, however, this is not the case. Not even close. It is too simple to define poverty as only not
having enough money, but in a world where everything costs money – prosaic
things like food and symbolic things like status – not having enough money is
certainly a big part of poverty.
"In the image
of God he created them..." Genesis 1:27 (NLT)
Homelessness slaps me in the
face every day. The shelter I work at
has been getting around 18 men a night for the last few weeks. I call them “my guys”. I want every single one of my guys to have his
own place. As a man of faith, I pray for
this regularly. If you are also a woman
or man of faith I would appreciate it if you would pray for this too. Please pray for something in particular
though. Pray that the place my guys get
is both safe and affordable. I will not
be satisfied if one of my guys leaves the shelter for a slum apartment. As a Christian, I will not accept slums as a
solution to homelessness. To do so is
not only bad social policy, it is
sin. Nor will I be satisfied if the only
safe and healthy housing available costs so much as to be out of reach of my
guys. Again, this would be bad social
policy and sin.*
"...for love
comes from God...if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom
we cannot see?" 1 John 4:7 & 20 (NLT)
An astute reader will notice
that I began this essay with a statistic about child poverty and a mention of
the recent past of Universal Children’s Day before moving into a bit about a
men’s homeless shelter. Perhaps this
seems odd to you, but it does not to me.
I see child poverty and adult poverty as intimately connected. It is very easy to get behind plans that help
poor kids. Who wouldn’t, in fact? Frankly, it would sort of sting to be
compared to one of the grown-ups in Oliver
Twist. Adults though, they may be
another story. It can be easy to look at
adults and think that some adults deserve to be poor, even when other
adults appear to be unwilling victims of poverty.
This means that sometimes people, even for folks like me who are
Christians who work with poor adults and should theoretically know better than
to judge, will make this judgement.
"Away with
your noisy hymns of praise! I will not
listen... Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of
righteous living." Amos 5:23-24 (NLT)
I don’t want to argue about
poor adults now, though, so let’s save that for another time. I want to talk about kids and to offer us a “perhaps”
to ponder. Perhaps all of the helps that
we want to get rid of for adults will actually take help away from kids too. Perhaps the benefits that a “deserves to be
poor” adult receives actually help children too. Perhaps the 1/3 of Saint John children that
are poor live with poor parents and perhaps it will hurt kids when we decide that
their adults deserve to be poor so receive no help. Perhaps.
“And the King will
say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my
brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ Matthew 25:40 (NLT)
Being a Christian is
hard. Sometimes very. Despite being raised in the church, despite
making my very own faith commitment at eleven years of age, and despite having
a degree from a fancy seminary, my instinct doesn’t always line up with Jesus. My instinct says to keep everything I
have. After all, I work hard and earned
it. My instinct says to think loving my
neighbour means only loving people like me.
After all, I know their struggles are the result of nothing more than
bad luck. My instinct says to protect
myself when I see a poor person. After
all, I know enough to realize that I might end up like them. Jesus sees my instincts. He died and resurrected to recreate me as a person
without these instincts. He is changing
my instinct to love even when love seems foolish, even if I grumble the whole
time he changes me. My instinct says to
follow the culture. My God says to
counter the culture.
“...tell him what you have seen
and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.”
Luke 7:22 (NLT)
I am a Christian. I will end with a call to those of you who
call me brother. I write to sisters and
to brothers. Here are three concrete actions for
you to do in the face of the disgusting amount of child poverty in Saint John
and the equally disgusting housing crisis in Saint John.
1. Pray. I really hate the idea starting with a cliché here,
but I think prayer is a good idea rather than mere cliché. Pray for people in need that God will fill
their needs. Pray for yourself that God
will use you to fill these needs. Pray
for everyone that we will remember Jesus’ claim that we don’t live by bread
alone. So much of the problems that
allow poverty are problems with attitude.
The very nature of prayer will fix that.
2. Advocate. Ending child poverty and ending the housing crisis
will have, in part, a political aspect.
We live in a democracy so are self-governing. This means you will need to learn about these
issues and learn about potential solutions. Then, tell your city council, your mayor, your
MLA, and your MP. They were elected to
represent you. Don’t hesitate to bug
them. (Politely, of course. Being a twit
won’t help anything. Christ was humble
so his followers are too.) If they don’t
want to hear from you, then they shouldn’t have run for office.
3. Minister. This is the other side of advocate. Child poverty and lack of safe and affordable
housing are both complicated issues.
Believing that they will be solved in a day – or even a political term –
is, well, stupid. This means that
alongside our advocacy we must meet immediate needs today and again tomorrow
and again next month. God tells us as
much in Micah 6:8 when we are told to love mercy and to do justly. Reality is too complicated for eithers and
ors.
"...this poor widow has
given more than all the rest of them... poor as she is, has given everything
she has.” Luke 21:3-4 (NLT)
Change Starts at Home from Community Council on Homelessnes on Vimeo.
*Since you are praying anyway, would you mind adding the folks who use Coverdale Centre for Women and Safe Harbour Transitional Youth Services to your petition? A pair of other great shelters in Saint John.
No comments:
Post a Comment