We are the ominous signs?
We are drifting away, and we are doing so quite rapidly. We are aware of this and must return to God. Our drift is as a nation, a church and as individuals.
The alarming increase in violent deaths especially during the month of January - despite the growing numbers of persons dying from COVID-19 - ought to challenge us. The spike in violent deaths is a clear indication that we are drifting away from what it means to be human and to be made in the image of God. The wanton murder of homeless people in downtown Kingston, is a deep indication that we are losing our soul as we drift. The brutal gun slaying of a woman praying in church in a service being livestreamed is an act of defiance, rebellion and rejection of all that we hold dear as human decency, love and respect.
How did we get here?
We are drifting, but how did we get here? We cannot escape the reality of poverty in our country and the fact that people have been treated like nothing by different sectors of the society. We often tend to dismiss homeless people as mentally ill. Yet not all persons living on the streets are ill. Many homeless people are people who are poor. people with a history, people with a name and a face who have had to turn to the streets because the society has no reasonable options for them when they hit upon hard times. Politics and politicians exploit poverty for power. Businesses exploit the poor for profit. People with resources exploit the poor for personal pleasure. Should I daresay that sometimes even the church pimps on the poor when association to them enhances their ability and attractiveness for social project funding.
When did we drift away?
When did we drift away from embracing persons as a part of a common humanity, as our brothers and sisters created in the image of God and not just statistics or an embarrassing nuisance? Unfortunately, we have a poor history of how we treat the poor:-
Trucking homeless people by night and dumping them alive near a mud lake. Eventide and Armadale home fires, to name a few.
Does the church care as much about the lives of all those who are already born as we do about the unborn?
Why are those at the bottom of society treated as nothing and nothing is wrong with it? Why is the church so adamant about unborn lives matter, yet less concerned about those who are already born who do not have a chance at a decent quality of life. Do their lives matter? You say it is a double standard, I say all lives matter.
How do we go From Soup to Shelter?
We need to return to God and one of the ways is to change the way we treat one another. We need to repent of the way we treat our neighbours. While we commend the church for various initiatives to respond to human suffering in our country, we need to go beyond charity and relief. The church seems to have a monopoly on charity. While this is good, it gives a fish but does not change the status of the recipient. There is a place for charity, but like Jesus said, we need to tithe mint and cumin, but do not neglect justice. On a visit to a community project in Lima Peru, some years ago I noticed that the motto of the group was “what we need is justice, not charity”.
The church needs to engage in advocacy. Advocating for the rights of all human beings, all citizens of this country to have shelter, and I’m not talking about “correctional institutions.” No human being should be allowed to live on the street. That should be outlawed. The state should invest in providing temporary shelters until persons can get back on their feet. The church should continue to maintain dialogue with its community and not only provide soup for the homeless but shelter where this is needed. This could be a public/private sector partnership.
What makes the church a Crime scene?
As a society we need to change the way we deal with disagreement and disputes. Why should a woman be beaten almost to death, because the five women who did it ‘did not like how she looked at them? Was no one there to say “Stop!”? Was that level of anger generated by the incident, or leftover anger from previous issues, even unrelated to the beating? Are they not all victims? Why should Andrea Lowe-Garwood lose her life in such a brutal way, ironically in the house of God? Why should the house of God be transformed into a crime scene instead of a house of prayer? There is no room for pointing fingers, for when any member of the church has a disagreement with another and fails to resolve it amicably, the church is by default a crime scene according to Jesus who equates hatred and malice with murder.
Let the church return to God
Returning to God is to acknowledge that we cannot do this alone. We need the partnership of all. It is to recognize that the church is not free from evil, that’s why we ask God to "deliver us from evil”. We must also realize that as church we wrestle against principalities and powers.... Ephesians 6:12. Jesus himself reminded his disciples that the world will hate them, because the world hates Christ. A world that hates Christ will not stop it from committing murder in the church. This is darkness and this is the darkness that the Bible reminds us “cannot put out the light that shines” in it (John 1:5).
Let the church return to God through repentance, advocacy and building bridges. Let the church return to God through dispute resolution and peace making. Let the church return to God by loving its neighbour as it loves itself.
Your Pastor
Trevor Edwards