The View From Here

Give-up playing church: Greg Paul

It wasn’t even a full moon – I checked.

We had an ‘incident’, or maybe two or three, at a drop-in the other night. The room had been very full when supper was served: every seat occupied, the couches and the floor in front of the fireplace full of sprawling people, late-comers lining the walls and watching hungrily for seats to come empty.

That special damp, bitter Toronto kind of cold outside, the kind that sneaks into your bones and makes itself at home. Many of our folks still wore toques and several layers of coats and sweaters after a half hour inside. Still more people trickled in: traffic jams at the coffee urn.

Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart is afflicted. From the sole of your feet to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and welts and open sores… Isaiah 1:5,6

All conditions calculated to ratchet up the tension, and yet the room was filled with a loud happy hum of conversation, laughter and the clinking of cutlery and dishes. By the time I sat down to eat with a couple of friends, everybody who had been waiting had been served. The rush was over, the tense time was past. I excused myself momentarily to cross the room, wanting to greet an old friend from the street who has been having an especially hard time recently. I had seen him come and go a few times, and had noticed that he was twitching a lot – a symptom of extended drug use. Later, I would find out that a couple of other staff people had checked in with Larry (names have been changed) too, recognizing that he was in a volatile frame of mind. I just gave him a hug, told him it was good to see him, and went back to my supper. He didn’t seem that bad to me.

I was barely sitting down again when I heard that peculiar combination of scuffling, grunting and muttered curses that mean a fight is under way. Looking up, I saw Larry and somebody else hurtling across the room, landing with a thud against a closed door. A snarling windmill of arms and legs. As staff began to converge on the main event, the brother of the somebody who was now on top of Larry – call them Thing 1* and Thing 2* – galloped into it too. A staff person headed Thing 2 off at the pass, arms wide, simply trying to get him to calm down and stay clear while other staff hauled Larry and Thing 1 apart. (Won’t add staff names in here. It’ll just get too confusing.) Thing 2 took a long look into the staff person’s eyes before deciding to go for it, shoving a forearm under the staff’s chin and slamming him against a bank of lockers.

Well, from there, it just got silly. Thing 2 never did make it into the fray, but he and Larry engaged in a vile round of verbal assaults, while Thing 1, who had clearly got in the best licks, beat it to the other end of the room and cooled his jets. Practically everybody in the room was standing up, motionless, staring with big round eyes like Herefords up against a fence, watching a pick-up rattle down the road. For a second, I thought the whole room might erupt.

A kitchen volunteer decided he needed to get in there too, but Donny (our kitchen manager), who is twice his size, simply grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back to the kitchen. Three times. A couple of staff made sure Larry exited the building, and kept Thing 2, for the moment, from following him.

Although violence is the norm for many of our people, they don’t expect it at Sanctuary – and, I’m happy to say, they witness it only very rarely. It’s upsetting for everybody, though, so I tried to speak to the room about what had just happened.

I was interrupted by a gent with some distinct psychiatric difficulties, who began braying that the church is evil, he was an atheist, and that the government should outlaw places like Sanctuary. Oh, and he complained about the plate of food that lay half-devoured in front of him, too. Another man responded, through a heavy French accent, that the food was better here than anywhere in the city, that this was a holy place, and ‘these people, they give their life for us’. It would have been touching, if he hadn’t been shrieking and red-faced. The atheist started up again. I turned to him, got right up close, and told him to be silent, that we needed peace and he was fomenting violence. He had the grace to look vaguely embarrassed, and clammed up. For about thirty seconds.

Somebody announced that Thing 2 and Larry were getting it on outside. As it turned out, they were just performing a little pre-engagement two-step on the icy sidewalk. I stood between them until it became clear they were more interested in posturing and insulting each other’s race, family, personal hygiene and taste in women than in doing any physical damage. (I’ll confess I was tempted to say, “Girls, if you want to fight, would you please get started? I’m freezing here.”)

By the time the dust had settled, two people had been barred for a month, one for a week, and a couple more had been asked to leave for the evening. I think that’s a record for us. It had been a long time since we’d had an incident like that, but it was amazing how little it took to get it going – one hurting, bent-out-of-shape guy determined to bleed on somebody, anybody. (Larry, it turned out, had baited Thing 1 mercilessly before throwing a cup of hot coffee in his face.) And how quickly it tapped into the wounds, welts and open sores lurking in all our hearts, including mine.

In that first chapter of Isaiah, quoted above, God tears the lid off a nation that seems okay on the surface, comforting itself with its cosmopolitan nature and veneer of religion, but which is seething with pain, oppression and corruption. Give up playing at church, he says – “ Stop bringing me meaningless offerings!” (vs 13) Here’s what will begin to set things right: “Seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (vs 17, NASB)

The condition of many people in my community – bruised, broken, angry, afraid; unhealthy from head to toe – is an indication not only of the poor choices they have made, but also of unacknowledged ‘illness’ in our nation. My friends do need to embrace the personal salvation and healing available to them through Jesus, and some have. But they also need God’s people to act like God’s people in seeking justice.

In addition to his painfully blunt assessment of the state of his people, God has these tender encouraging words to offer – not only to the extravagant sinners of my neighbourhood, but also to those want to help address the overwhelming problems that face us:

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be as wool…”

Writer: A former carpenter, Greg Paul has been involved in inner-city ministry for over twenty-five years. He is the founder of Sanctuary Ministries of downtown Toronto, Canada and the current director. Partnering with other organizations, Greg has developed the vision of building a community in which he and his family, as well as other staff and volunteers, live, work and share the experiences of the people they help. Greg is the lead vocalist and keyboardist for Red Rain, the band that planted the seed for Sanctuary in the mid-1980s. Shaw Books published Greg’s first book, “God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World” in the fall of 2004. He’s currently working on a novel.

 

1 Comment to The View From Here

1. Just wanted to say thanks for living out the faith where you are and doing what you do. May God bless you, your family and your colleagues.
Katie on March 23rd, 2007

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