Ep. 232: How Can We Help? (Part 1)

Welcome to the indoubt podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Erika:

Hey, it’s Erika and welcome back to another episode of indoubt. Today, we’re joined by Jonathan Evans, leader of the Salvation Army Boundless Vancouver. A church plant in the Downtown East side of Vancouver. Jonathan is joined by Daniel to discuss the challenges surrounding the poor in our society and how we can best serve them. This is a big topic to cover and this episode is part one of two as Daniel and Jonathan, begin to break down some of the stigmas and biases surrounding the poor.  Poverty is all around us, whether we choose to pay attention to it or not, but what role do we as Christians have? Are we called to serve the less fortunate or are we called to turn a blind eye? We all know the answer to that question, but how do we practically live it out? This is a great episode and we hope you enjoy it.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt, my name’s Daniel Markin and I’m joined today by Jonathan Evans, who is a pastor. Who works for the Salvation Army and has planted a church in Vancouver, in the Downtown Eastside, but lives in Chinatown, in Vancouver. Welcome to the program, Jonathan. Good to be with you.

Jonathan Evans:

Thanks. Good to be here.

Daniel Markin:

Now, Jonathan, the first thing that comes to mind, as I’m thinking about the Downtown Eastside, as I’m thinking about Chinatown, if people don’t know Vancouver, Chinatown will merge into an area that a lot of people might actually know Hasting street, where you see a lot of poverty. What we’re going to be talking about today is, what does it mean to be a Christian and to interact with poverty? Because, we see throughout the scriptures, Jesus going to the poor, proclaiming to the poor, but it’s also something that I don’t think Christians do a great job at. It’s easy, especially living myself in Abbotsford, being away from a massive amount of homelessness. You still see homelessness here, but not in that type of scale. I want to have a discussion around that and explore a little bit of what we see with God’s bias for the poor. My question to lead this off is, when you look at the City of Vancouver, what breaks your heart the most?

Jonathan Evans:

What breaks my heart most is when I see. I think that’s the other part, the way that we structured our society, is to not see and to not care, to protect ourselves and live in our own comfortable places. Often you’ll know people who go on a mission trip and they’ll come back changed and they want to talk about something because they saw something. They put themselves in a different situation to see. I may walk out my door and see something, and I could describe some of that right now, but it would be probably manipulative for me to do so. I would just actually encourage your listeners to have a look for themselves, but to look, seeing that these people are God’s children. That these are people made in the image of God and what breaks my heart is to see people who are created for something. They’re not living that out, you don’t take away their humanity, but they’re living less than human. That starts in their broken heart, they’re broken story, they’re broken lives. We see that now in broken relationships, broken bodies, broken ways of living in the world and it’s devastating. It’s compelling to do something about this.

Daniel Markin:

Walking around the area of Hastings and walking around Vancouver, there’s this juxtaposition that you see because from Hastings, from this vantage point of these homeless people, this broken area, it’s a few city blocks it looks completely different. You have these skyscrapers in the distance, overshadowing people who are so broken. I do resonate with you, in the sense that, they’re not living the way that God intends, it’s just easy for Christians to try and throw a band-aid on it, and be like, but you need to now live the way that God and that’s going to solve all your problems. But I think what you’re seeing is it’s not that easy.

Jonathan Evans:

Yeah. Well, it depends on our understanding of the gospel too. I think that’s like when we look at the gospel as a band-aid solution, just believe this and then your life’s going to be an order. That’s just a huge reduction of what God’s good news is for us today. I look back to the Old Testament and what righteousness was, was right relationships. Most of the righteous relationships were described, especially in the profits, but you even find it in the law, is having right relationships with the marginalized and being a person of mercy and compassion. I think we really miss out on that and we might try to jump to band-aid solution. Here’s the other thing, so it hurts me when I see people who are less than human, but then often what I see is, let me give you an example. I saw a school bus park, right at Main and Hastings and a bunch of teenagers got off and they had guitars and drums and signs, repent for the kingdom of God is near. They really reduce this Christian message and then they began feeding people. They were feeding people, not a great meal. They were feeding a meal that made them feel really good for people. Then, they proceeded to sing their own worship songs and preach messages that further marginalized, further made people less than. They were not on the same level. [inaudible 00:06:31] even they were on platforms and standing on chairs and they were literally talking down to people. And I think, this is a picture of how we, Christians can really get this wrong, because sometimes we think the gospel has made us better than people. Being a Christian is not about being better, it’s about being in the process of being saved and knowing that God’s doing that in our lives.

Daniel Markin:

Can I ask what they were preaching?

Jonathan Evans:

Like, if you give your life to Jesus, you can get out of addiction or Jesus loves you. They would say things like that, Jesus has a plan for you. They would do testimonies. The other kind of part is, we need to be wise on how we try to share the gospel. A guy named Marshall McLuhan, he’s a Canadian thought guy on communication-

Daniel Markin:

He is the “The medium is the message” guy, right?

Jonathan Evans:

That’s exactly it, and so what other contexts do we have teenagers, forcefully preaching at people who could be their grandparents. People who are suffering and needing healing, we don’t bring teenagers into a hospital ward and say, hey, and here’s this triumphant message. It’s just not considering your audience and it’s not considering how you’re doing it. I’ve seen this multiple times where, and it’s like me, I do this too. I remember my wife said, what’s this, a dish cloth. And she’s like, what’d you use this for? Cleaning up. And she’s like, did you wipe the kids’ faces with this? I was like, ah, yeah. See, I had good intentions, I wanted to help my kids. I wanted to clean up their face, but I didn’t do it the right way. By doing that, who knows what bacteria or viruses I put on their face and you just don’t do that. Sometimes we think Christian mission work, we’re coming to the Downtown Eastside or interacting with people who are in the margins. We think, oh I can do that, but we haven’t put our thought. Another example, a church might come down here, set up some tables and hand out some sandwiches. It seems really good, but sometimes those sandwiches are made with mayonnaise, that sandwich doesn’t go into a refrigerator right away or anything. People actually get food poisoning, you might have meant something really good, but in your interaction and even in the way that you’re dealing with and trying to help somebody, sometimes you can hurt it. There’s actually books about this, like one book by Bob Lupton that I’d recommend is called Toxic Charity and another really well known one is, When helping hurts.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I’ve heard of that one. John, did you grow up in Vancouver?

Jonathan Evans:

I grew up all over the country [inaudible 00:09:43] pastors or Salvation Army officer’s kid. I had a different upbringing and the Salvation Army is always been sort of on the side of the poor. Often where I grew up was the wrong side of town. I went to a elementary school where pretty much half of the school came off the First Nations reserve. I went to Booth Memorial High School after General William Booth. They shut the school down now, but about half the population, came from the Outport Newfoundland, they were called bay wops. They were like poor marginalized people from out around the Cove. The thing is I just saw my parents interact with people in the margins, like they’re normal people. If you’re wondering, what should I do? I would say, treat them like you would your best friend or your aunt or your mom, like people first are people. The best way to interact with people is by acting normally.

Daniel Markin:

Treating them like they’re actual people. I guess it’s not that easy? Let’s use Hastings again, walking down there and you see people strung out sometimes. Let’s use that group of teenagers that can seem really overwhelming. To them when someone’s strung out on drugs or these people are, and I feel so horrible saying these people and correct me if that is insensitive. Just seeing the homeless population and those who are on drugs, walk around aimlessly. It’s almost like you’re watching The Walking Dead. Where you know that’s a person, a human person, but it seems like there’s nothing, it just looks like a body. How did you, overcome that initial fear or maybe because you grew up around it, there wasn’t a fear there, but how do you encourage people who see this and they’re just afraid?

Jonathan Evans:

Well, I think that’s a really good point that you’re making and you’re really helping me understand how other people view this because you’re right. This has been a part of my life and normal, that’s what salvationist do, we give hope today. We look and care for the last, the lost and the least, that’s normal to us. What I want to pick up on, is when you said, these people. How do we categorize? How do we describe people who are other or different than us? There’s different ways like professionals and stuff, we might say, these are our clients. Or we might say, like you said, I don’t really have a word, those people. What I like to do is use biblical language and I think it’s helpful. The story of the good Samaritan does it well, because Jesus uses the word neighbor, very shocking about this is nobody is a next door neighbor in that story. We have a Samaritan on a road, he’s traveling and we have robbers and thieves. We have an innkeeper and we have a Samaritan and there’s racial stuff in there. What we know is, this guy is marginalized and beaten. And Jesus says, who was the neighbor? The Samaritan was, and he says, go and do likewise. But the neighbor was a neighbor because he helped and he saw a need and treated somebody with what they needed and was generous and sacrificial and that. I think that the best way to view people as is that’s my neighbor, that person, that the Bible talks to me about and says, hey, are you going to cross the other side of the road? Are you going to avoid this for very good reasons maybe cultural reasons and that’s the other side of the road. What is that to your listener today? Is it not going to a certain part of town? Is it not looking at those things? But I think that this is what we get in Jesus is, he leaves comfort, he leaves privilege and he enters dangerous, uncomfortable spaces to engage in relationship with humanity.

Daniel Markin:

Well, that’s a great place to jump in here because there’s a fancy word we use for that, which is the incarnation. When I think about Jesus coming down to earth, what you just described is exactly that in the incarnation, Jesus leaves, that the palace of heaven, all the comforts of heaven, of living in bliss with the father and the Holy Spirit, them being together. He leaves that, comes down to our dirty, broken, fallen earth, and then begins to serve all who would listen, especially the poor and the marginalized. You see this prophesied that the Messiah would come. I think it’s Isaiah 61, the year of the Lord’s favor. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom to the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. You see this early on, Jesus comes and does this, he’s meeting with the poor, the sick, the marginalized, telling the children who are marginalized to come to him. He’s a magnet for this, we need to do likewise.

Jonathan Evans:

Yeah. I think this is all about the movement of heaven to earth. This is the announcement of the kingdom of God. In that, and in Luke’s gospel, that’s what Jesus uses to announce the beginning of his ministry. This is what the kingdom is all about, is the leveling of the playing field. He in his richness becomes poor and why does he do that, to lift the poor into his richness and that happens through his relationship. This is the great thing about the incarnation, God doesn’t send an instruction book. He doesn’t send a program. He doesn’t tell people to enlighten themselves religiously, super fasting. He does everything on our behalf and he approaches us, it’s the movement of God to humanity. This is the implication for Christian missions or how we respond to the poor and this is pretty commonplace talk in the church now is, you don’t go into missions to bring Jesus to people. You go into missions to discover Jesus is already there. That’s the great thing is there’s something in Wesleyan-Arminian theology, which the Salvation Army subscribes to, called prevenient grace. It’s the grace that goes before and God’s activity, that’s already at work. If we’re at work and we’re finding Jesus in the poor, like Mother Teresa called the sacrament of the poor. So we’re finding God in this. Then we find out this is devotion. Devotion isn’t just a quiet time that I have with God, how important that is. In fact, please, don’t try to do Christian mission if you’re not daily connecting with God and in your Bible, because you can do much harm. The other thing is, this is a devotion to God, what you treat the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do want to meet. The question is, in this passage Jesus referring to just Christians, there’s some good evidence that he means that, but I’d like to extend that even further and say because of the incarnation, Jesus shows us, we are all his brothers and sisters because he became one of us, Jesus is brother, whether we’re in the Salvation community or not, or sister everyone’s included because of the common humanity. What we want to realize though, is the interconnection of divinity and humanity colliding in the same place. I got to say, that happens so profoundly in contexts, like the Downtown Eastside, where there’s a poverty and here’s the other thing is, and anybody doing missions on the other side of the world, or even in America can recognize, the poverty we experiencing Vancouver or the Downtown Eastside is not the same kind of poverty as elsewhere. People actually have a lot of resources, so if you’re in the Downtown Eastside and on disability, you’re in the top 85% of the world. So there’s got to be another kind of poverty that people are experiencing and that kind of poverty should actually inform what we should do.

Daniel Markin:

So when you say another type of poverty, what are you referring to like a spiritual poverty, emotional poverty? Is it just physical?

Jonathan Evans:

Universally poverty is not being connected to what we need, and so, it’s a lack of connections or a lack of a way of living in the world, in a way that we can get what we want in healthy, livable ways. There’s many different spheres that we can talk about, if this was like a Bible school class, we’d probably have the time to explore those, but the obvious ones are physical and then social, relational, the connection with oneself, the psychological, and then ultimately the spiritual. In a great book, this guy isn’t a Christian, but he’s the Downtown Eastside doctor, his name is Gabor Maté. He wrote a great book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and it’s about addictions. He talks about addiction being poverty and spirit. He does rely on the Bible for that. It is, I’ve got this hole in my life and I’m trying to fill it, in many different ways. And his, he says, [inaudible 00:20:05] classical music is CDs, he just has this urge, it completes him, it fills him. That’s one of the things about humanity, is to say you know what, the way that you set up the world, I’ve got a better way God, and I’m going to fill this… Even church, even Bible reading, even prayer can become that addiction. Anything apart from the relationship with God can become that addiction. We actually have [inaudible 00:20:32] self examination and make sure that we ourselves… And I would say we are an addicted society. We live in a materialistic consumer… Even for our identities, brands sell to us to complete ourselves based on whatever product we sell or we use, hey, there is our identity.

Daniel Markin:

There’s status level that you have. I had this conversation with someone yesterday, we talk about original sin that we’re born into the world as sinners. That’s the dark original sin, it taints us and I would just add to what you’re saying. We were almost born tainted by individualism so much that, we don’t know anything else and so we just live in the reality that the individual is all that matters and I got to take care of me, I got to take care of mine.

Jonathan Evans:

Yeah. We’ve developed these individual rights and freedoms. Those are the things that you cannot take those away, from anyone and they’re [inaudible 00:21:39] but one of those things is, that’s been very good.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Oh yeah, 100 percent, lots of good has come from that.

Jonathan Evans:

Yeah, but if taken to the extreme there’s people who right now we’re in COVID, they are so angry that they’re being told to wear a face mask. They have these public outbursts, these freakouts, you can’t tell me that I need to wear this mask. It infringes my human rights and freedoms. So where are we going with this, is actually like, there’s a better way. Jesus or God, doesn’t say, it’s the individual right or the communal right. What creates and builds up this tension and I use that phrase, builds up really intentionally, is love. Love builds up and love lays down our rights, our privilege, our ways for the other. And so when we talk about relationship with the poor, that’s the way we need to enter and that’s incarnational. That’s how Jesus enters our world. It’s really surprising. He comes as an Aboriginal, a First Nations in an occupied Latin Roman world. Then he becomes a refugee, he has to flee to Egypt. Why? Because, of infant side. So, that’s kind of like what’s happening in the world right now, around abortion and the rights of the unborn or the young. Every single social and physical marginalization, Jesus enters. Why? So he can enter and redeem all those spheres of poverty.

Daniel Markin:

And, then he calls us to now follow me and be a part of that renewal that we see in the world.

Jonathan Evans:

That’s really good because the thing is, if love God, you will love the things he cares about. It’s not like an option for Christians to care for the poor, because God cares for the poor. If I hang out with you, I’m going to start loving the things that you do and where you’re at, I’m going to go where you are. It doesn’t mean that God is excluded or like he’s not… My friend, Craig gave me a really good example, he has a ministry in Cambodia in the slums, all based on the incarnational model. He was really trying to teach on God’s buys for the poor, because some people mainly rich people go, well, doesn’t God care about us. Well, no, yeah he cares about us. This is what Craig said, my daughter broke her leg and she was in a cast. She was totally marginalized. She couldn’t do things for herself and different rules kind of apply to my house. I’d say to my son, go take care of her. Go help her, bring this to her, go help her out. This child in nearly a full body cast became the center of the home. Why? Because, they needed more help. Well, that’s the same with the poor and actually one of the things, his mission and taking care of the marginalized is a great remedy for fighting in the church, agendas in the church, personalities, because and this is what you’re talking about too is, this individualism or self focus, great healing comes when we take our eyes off ourselves. One, put them on God and the things he cares about. I think about Isaiah 58 on this, Israel’s trying all these fasts and they’re like, God, why don’t you hear me? He’s like, this is the fast that I’ve chosen to lose the oppression on the poor and to visit the prisoners. And then he says, then you will become a well water garden. And so there’s like, actually you want to become better, serve others. If you want to have a better life and this is it, a lot of people are living life quite opulently, quite comfortably, but there’s a lack of meaning and purpose. When you discovered this, hey, I’ve got something to do. People appreciate me. It does feel good, but I would just caution also, don’t do this so that you feel good because [inaudible 00:26:14] for that. It’s not going to work.

Daniel Markin:

Well, Jonathan, thank you for your time and your passion and your knowledge on this subject and we just in other words using you in such an amazing way and we ask that [inaudible 00:26:28] continue to use you in it as well.

Jonathan Evans:

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

Erika:

Thanks so much for listening to part one of the conversation with Jonathan Evans. Part two will be out in a couple of weeks. So check back to make sure you don’t miss. If you’d like to learn more about Jonathan and the Salvation Army, you can check out salvationarmyvancouver.com. We’ll have it linked on the episode page on our website. We can’t wait for you to join us. Next week, as Daniel is back with Dr. Josh Cruz, a psychologist who will be discussing with Daniel, the differences between Christians and non-Christians when it comes to conversations around our mental health. indoubt is all about answering the tough questions of faith in God and the Bible. If this is something that you’d like to be a part of, would you consider participating in our fiscal year end this month? The goal for indoubt is to reach $75,000 by June 30th. Your gift would mean so much as we continue answering the tough questions of life and faith that young adults are asking. Check out indoubt.ca in Canada, or indoubt.com in the US, to give today. If you’ve been enjoying the indoubt podcast, we’d love to hear from you, shoot us a message on social media. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or send us an email to info@indoubt.ca letting us know how indoubt has shaped your worldview or answered some of the toughest questions that life has thrown at you. We’re all about community here at indoubt, so feel free to connect with us. Thanks again for listening and we’ll see you back here next week for our episode with Dr. Josh Cruz, were we’ll talk about the connection between our body, mind and soul. See you then.

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