Homelessness and Thanksgiving...measuring a good society

 As we groan and digest Thanksgiving Turkey and Pumpkin Pie in the confines of warm homes, likely we will not give a thought around the plight of our friends living rough on the streets, parks and back alleys in Victoria. Out of sight, out of mind.

 

A good society, is measured by the extent to which those with responsibility attend to the needs of the weaker members, especially those most in need. A good society is one in which all benefit from the common good, and nobody is left outside the common concern.

We often don't think in terms of society, its easier, a more convenient truth to make yourself apart of something much smaller...everyman is an island, a mans home is his castle...even suburbia is small thinking.

My imagination has always got the best of me, and sometimes the worst...it's got me in trouble. But I dream often of the redemptive imagination of Jesus. What would happen if this " Body " under went a great transformation, when all the members like cells in a healthy body worked together, communicated, supported and revealed the incredible life of Jesus.

Inner city poverty is just not an issue for churches in the downtown core. It should be an issue for the suburban churches, penninsula churches. A good society is one in which all benefit from the common good, and nobody is left outside the common concern.

There is a growing disease of poverty, illness, homelessness, injustice...its spreading. You can retreat to the suburbs, the tranquility of the the rural peninsula but even there, it will eventually spread.

I've been all around your dirty old city
been all around your dirty old town
i've slept in your alleys, i've slept in your subways
hunger and cold, they follow me down

hunger and cold, hunger and cold
i wouldn't mind but i'm growing so old
but as low as i am, you know i'm still a man
and i wouldn't mind but i'm growing so old

only last year i was rolling in money
only last year the good times would roll
only last year my friends were so many
but only last year was so long ago


it's all so easy to throw me in prison
it's all so easy to just walk on by
but it's not so easy to see a man hungry
it's not so easy to look in his eye


yes there's poison in my cheap rotten liquor
there's poison in every old garbage can
but the worst kind of poison
is in your own brain
when you look at me and forget i'm a man.

( Phil Ochs...a great protest singer from the 60's )

We, look at these people and forget their humanity.

I dream of God's Kingdom where all benefit from the goodness of God,

and nobody is left outside...absolutely no one.

That the church would live this dream, 

building the Kingdom Jesus imagined and lived in constantly.