By James Paulgaard

LAST summer, as our family journeyed to Alberta for our annual pilgrimage to visit family and friends, we passed a single vehicle roll-over on Highway # 1, west of Salmon Arm.

Whenever I encounter such a scene, the question runs through my mind: “Should I stop to help?”

We slowed down, and while we could see that the emergency response vehicles and personnel had not yet arrived, we also noticed there were about a dozen vehicles lining the sides of the road – and several people were already ministering to those involved in the accident.

Reasonably certain that the victims were receiving the needed care and that there was little more we could do, we continued on our journey – though not without some second-guessing of that decision.  

Living the life

Sometimes the church finds itself in a similar predicament. The early church was not only concerned with spreading the good news of forgiveness, and a new, eternal and abundant life with Jesus Christ. They also lived out that life, by caring for the needs of those around them.

Acts 2 records the response to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit: “All who believed were together, and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings, and distributing the proceeds to all.” There’s no dichotomy here between the gospel and social ministry.  

Over time, the main areas of societal concern in which Christians involved themselves – education, health care, and caring for the weak and poor – became areas of concern for the societies-at-large in which they lived.

In countries such as Canada, the United States and several in Europe, the public and/or private sector took over responsibility for these areas – thus developing the dichotomy we see today. Why should we stop to help, if others are  already meeting the needs?  

While much is being done – and we can thank God for the wonderful  health care, education system and social safety net we have in this country – this system is not meeting the needs of all Canadians.    

Although Canada’s public programs have helped keep 674,700 children  from living in poverty, one in nine (760,000) children are still living in families with incomes below the poverty line. Food bank use has risen 86 percent from 1989 to 2007, and 39 percent of those 720,230 food bank clients were children. That is 280,900 children.  

The cost of housing has risen beyond the reach of many of our nation’s poor, resulting in an estimated 300,000 people living on the streets.  And the incidence of poverty is unequally distributed across various segments of society.

One third of mother-led, single parent families live in poverty – as do 49 percent of children of recent immigrants, and 49 percent of aboriginal children.

The working poor

The problem of poverty is not explained by slothfulness. A full time job in Canada at minimum wage will not provide enough funds to lift a family above the poverty line. Two in five children living in poverty have at least one parent working full-time, in year-round employment. Three in five children living in poverty live in families where the parents must cobble together various part-time and seasonal employment opportunities to support the family.  

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And beyond our borders, there are countries where the situation is much worse. Nearly  30,000 children die each day due to extreme poverty; and 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, a situation that results in the  death of five million people per year from water-related diseases.

The estimated cost of providing clean drinking water to everyone is 12 to 35 billion dollars per year – expensive, but affordable when compared to the $20 billion spent each year in America on ice cream, or the $1.3 trillion spent annually worldwide on military resources.  

There are still wounded strangers at the side of the road who are not receiving the care they need.  

As we read Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37), there are several characters whose place we could take. We could be the learned lawyer who knew all the right information, and wanted to show himself to be right before Jesus. We could be the religious folk, the priest and the Levite, who avoided helping the beaten man in Jesus’ story.

Bruised and naked

But we most definitely are the bruised and naked person lying at the side of the road. Most of us are very wealthy, in comparison to the rest of the world.

But in spite of our material wealth (or perhaps because of it), our spiritual poverty is vast and deep.  

We tend to exchange the true and lasting joy of life with God for the false and fleeting pleasure of gathering up wealth for ourselves. And there is no life in that.

But, when we were at our moment of deepest need and weakness, this Stranger knelt down, scooped us up, carried us to a place of rest and paid in advance for our healing.

Jesus’ compassion for the whole world, shown to us most clearly on the cross, is what gives us hope – when, on the one hand, we are confronted with the enormity of our own sinful self-centredness; and, on the other hand, we are confronted with the enormous challenge of trying to do something about poverty in our world.  

Jesus takes away all of our sin, including our sin of failing to love our poor neighbours.

Jesus gives us a full, rich, eternal life with him. He enriches our lives by giving us opportunities to serve others with the gospel, and to provide for their social needs as well. And he even gives us the  money to do it. As forgiven followers of Jesus Christ, we are the innkeeper, too.

As we care for the poor, we not only extend love and care to others for whom Christ died, we also do it to Jesus – the one beaten and bloodied for us.  The need is great, and while we work alongside others with concern for the poor, only the Christian church can bring to the poor the hope that does not disappoint. And this hope is no small thing.

World Vision Canada identifies hope as one of the four key elements necessary for a child to develop their full God-given potential. And the hope we share is not for this life alone, but for eternity. So we not only have an opportunity and the resources to help people in need. We give, along with our loving service, the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ – and that is the best gift anyone could receive!

First published in The Canadian Lutheran. James Paulgaard is associate pastor at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley. 

July 2010