You might have come across a very odd case this week of an individual living in Vaughan who discharged his firearm at four individuals in front of his home because they were trying to break into his car to steal it. It was one of a series of attempted car break-ins by the same individuals, three in their twenties, and the fourth who is 16. One of the adults was recently out on bail and the 16 year old has an arrest and conviction sheet as long as your arm. The curiosity that this case raises was that the home-owner was arrested with the four perpetrators because he fired at them even though he wasn’t directly protecting himself from harm. In Canadian firearms law, his action constituted an illegal use of deadly force and is punished severely under the criminal code. As you can imagine, the public response to this is mixed, not because Canadians believe what is encased in American law, that is, the right to use deadly force to protect your own property (sometimes called the “Stand Your Ground” law), but that our collective helplessness against rampant crime and repeated criminality is at a boiling point. When asked what we should do under these circumstances, the advice of law enforcement is, “Do nothing. Be a good witness. Don’t confront the criminals.” The dissatisfaction of “doing nothing” seems both frustrating as well as illogical, yet doing nothing is probably the wisest thing to do to stay safe…and, in this case, out of prision yourself!
As I read the Scripture, I ask myself, “Why is doing nothing such a difficult pill to swallow?” Jesus spoke about the response to the lost and wounded when the Pharisees made the laws of the Sabbath greater than the compassion of God, “Which of you, if your son or your ox falls in a well on the Sabbath would not go and pull him out that very hour?” (Luke 14:5) The logic of taking action is in stark contrast with standing by and doing nothing. In fact, the act of intervening in times of difficulty is embedded into our human DNA by our Saviour God. We are, after all, made in the image of our Creator. The logic of the Good Samaritan who intervened in the stranger’s demise stands in stark contrast over those who walked on the other side of the street and did nothing. We call it bystander apathy; Jesus called it not being a neighbour. Over the next few weeks, we will see the debate played out as to whether or not this man in Vaughan should have opened fire on the would-be car thieves. But the larger question should be asked in our mind: What if we witness Satan’s work at leading our neighbour astray? What if we heard the roar of the demonic lion turning a young person’s doubt over self into a doubt over gender identity? What if we saw our son or daughter reading a school-approved book that is replete with sexually explicit material? Do we stand by and do nothing, and simply be good witnesses of the wrong? I read God’s word to Ezekiel who lived among a people in sin. God says, “Just tell them. Whether or not they do anything is on their conscience. But they will know that a prophet has been in their midst” (Ezekiel 2:5). Indeed. Don’t just stand there; do something.
Just Church
At Just Church, we call each person to be as Christ – loving God, loving others, loving the lost. “The vision of Just Church is to establish a church in just the way Christ called the church to be – true to His Word, loving Him, loving one another, and loving the lost.”
