The prophetic voice of the poor
I grew up a multi-millionaire.
My family's rickety pickup was the only vehicle in town and served as an ambulance for the entire population. The water from our well was clean and plentiful. Our outhouse had a real tin roof. We owned more books than most of my friends had ever seen, two computers, a moped and toilet paper.
Though my missionary parents in the little West African village where I grew up tried to live simply, we were quite simply millionaires compared to our neighbours. To my soccer-playing buddies, the difference in wealth between me and the Sultan of Brunei was pocket change.
That wealth created a canyon between me and my village playmates that couldn't be crossed, and I hated it.
When I moved to Canada at 19, I was relieved to escape the nasty business of being rich while everyone around me was poor--thrilled to be going where my white skin didn't scream money.
I was moving from Burkina Faso, the fourth poorest country in the world according to the UN's human development index, to Canada, sixth from the top.
But I soon found out that Winnipeg is cracked by lines as unyielding as the ones I had left behind.
Physical lines like the railroad tracks that discriminate the North End from downtown are easy to see. Others, like class, wealth, race, gender and education, are not.
We are called by God to defy those lines, says Nathan Rieger, a pastor at Winnipeg Centre Vineyard. The church on the corner of Main Street and Sutherland Avenue searches to find roots on the narrow patch of land between the North End and downtown, the poor and the rich, the white and the colourful, those who burn gasoline and those who burn sweetgrass.
"Jesus said that to love across those lines of dividing is the primary credential of a church being from God," says Rieger. "He taught that loving those who are like yourself is not a credential--loving those who are different, maybe even enemies is what measures your practice as a Christian."
For me, learning to bridge those boundaries isn't about a missions trip. Instead it's about learning to live an everyday life in community with my neighbours who are different from me.
Unfortunately, stretching the brittleness of my own Caucasian, male, heterosexual, university-educated life across those boundaries requires the kind of miraculous intervention of grace that can coax a camel through a needle's eye.
While I wait for that miracle Rieger has some suggestions.
Find some common space where you can begin to live a life that overlaps with those who are marginalized, whether it's a church, a pow-wow or a Robin's Donuts.
For me that has meant choosing to be part of a community church in the North End, one where most people walk to church and possessions are for the sharing.
Go on a journey to seek and understand history.
I have discovered that my own good fortune was built on the misfortune of others. My white ancestors made a hard-working living on land bought from its people for a case of whiskey--sometimes with a complimentary case of smallpox. I'm an inheritor of privilege.
Share what you have.
Usually that doesn't start with giving money, says Rieger. "That's a distraction from the kind of face-to-face relationships we are called to have." It's about sharing our car, cabin or workplace, reminding ourselves that these things aren't ours in the first place.
Rieger also has words for those of us who are marginalized.
"Refuse to accept the stigma that society is putting on you," he urges.
"Know that your culture is crucial to the Kingdom of God. Don't shut up. Cross lines, make friends, breach dividing lines because your voice needs to be heard.
"If that voice is silenced, it's a terrible loss because there is no church that is just until it is deeply in touch with that prophetic voice from the poor."
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