Sanctions, Sanctions and the Vulnerable Poor

food bank

Life at Coventry Jesus Centre

It’s Friday afternoon and, letter in hand, they walk into the training room; heads are bowed, spirits low. They speak little English and don’t understand: they’ve had a letter from Jobcentre Plus to say they will receive no JSA (Job Seekers' Allowance) until October; that’s several weeks and they can’t make ends meet ....

 I ring up Spire House (home of Coventry city council offices); are my friends eligible for a Community Support Grant? No, not if they are on sanctions. Are they on sanctions? The trouble is, they don’t seem to know. I ring up Jobcentre Plus on their behalf and after a wait, yes, I find out, they are on sanctions - definitely. What’s more, they’ll be on sanctions for three years if they don’t do what is required. The trouble is, my friends don’t seem to have a clue as to what is required or even why they’re on sanctions.

Sanctions aren’t necessarily bad. It’s no good for anyone’s self-respect to live off benefits if they’re fit for work. And, believe me, I come across very few people who don’t want to work. They’re desperate to work.

But who’s worked this one out?  There’s a very vulnerable group of people who find the new benefits system and this new system of sanctions a bewildering maze, simply because they don’t understand: their English is not sufficient. And they end up destitute.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this story.  A few weeks ago a young African walked into the centre; he was on sanctions too, simply because he had not understood what was expected of him.

There’s only one thing I could do: write to Jobcentre Plus on my friends' behalf: a Polish interpreter is needed - please. I just wish someone had thought of it before. And yes, a form please for a Hardship Payment.

They’ll be in the food bank queue, next week, most likely.

But, who will stick up for these voiceless people? They're being overlooked, misunderstood just because ... English is not their mother tongue and they have not understood.

Waiting, The Gethsemane Experience and Excited Anticipation

"Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."  Luke 22: 39-44

That’s how Doctor Luke describes the depth of agony Jesus experienced as He waited in Gethsemane for arrest, torture and crucifixion.

It appears that Jesus’ emotional stress was so great that He excreted bloodied sweat, a condition known as hematidrosis or hemohidrosis. In extreme stress tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can rupture, causing sweat and blood to mingle  – a condition Doctor Luke was very likely aware of. 
about hematidrosis

Waiting can be agony and often waiting for the thing is even harder than the thing itself.

Last Saturday my friend texted me to say her husband was having unexpected and major brain surgery on Monday. Eleven hours of surgery awaited him and on Monday she was waiting, waiting for him to go in, waiting for him to come out, a Gethsemane  experience. Agony.

I’ve had the experience myself, waiting, waiting in an ante-room as my father was given treatment for a heart attack, the outcome being so unsure.

Waiting can be a 'Gethsemane' experience.

Yet, not all waiting is bad. We’re waiting for a New Earth, for the mortal to be swallowed up by immortality, for the untold splendours of eternity.  Now, that’s a different kind of waiting. The sting of dread is not present; waiting is marked by excited anticipation.

I remember this latter kind of waiting when I was at boarding school. Not having seen my parent for several weeks, the excitement of seeing them again built up so the heart itself raced and time seemed to move slower; it was a waiting game. Then the sound of the old familiar school buzzer that dictated our movements for weeks on end broke the air and we could go; the term was finished.

Sometimes I think about that moment of excitement. It speaks of eternity.  The term has finished, we are released, and the holiday has come.


Does lingering on future excitements and living filled with hope cause us to be wasted idealists? Not according to  CS Lewis who wrote: "If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next."

Excited anticipation of eternity puts a different light on present suffering and all our  Gethsemane’s, whether small or great. And yes, my friend’s operation went well. Thank God ...

Twin Sisters: Love Obedient and Love Unoticed

I was hoping for a relatively quiet morning in the Bridge (Coventry Jesus Centre’s drop-in for homeless and vulnerable people) this morning but, as it goes, the team is down one member and you know what that means?  Me, in the kitchen, on the baked bean trail again: 35 breakfasts AND the washing up is piling up and up and UP.
Read previous blog: destitute, homeless, the baked bean trail
 
As it happens *** (she won’t like me mentioning her name) was in the bathroom early this morning and she felt one of those inward nudges to come down to the Jesus Centre. No, she’s not on the rota today, she’s got a morning off, but a nudge is a nudge (I call it the Holy Spirit’s whispering) and she has come. 

Yes, she came, unasked for. And there was I, struggling. And there she was, hands deep in the washing up – and there was a lot of it. O no, here we go again: another call at the hatch from the guys, “We’ve run out of knives ...”,  and another, “We’ve run out of forks ...  more cups please...” Yes, yes; can’t you see? I’m, I’m drowning in demands.  But she was there.

Now, if dear Holy Spirit, You had given me one of Your nudges today, I think I may have said, “No, it’s my day off, I’m not on the rota the today.” But she heard You and she came. 

One hour later, we’re in our Sunday morning meeting and we sing those priceless truths from the book of Lamentations: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22,23).

Yes, I thought, God is very faithful but often He shows that faithful character of His through others. And God’s faithfulness is often displayed in a very practical way – in this case, help with the ever-increasing pile of washing up. 

You can have all the great preachers you can think of and the gifted and the great in your church but, if I had my way as to who I could build the church with, hands down, I’d choose a group of people ready to choose a path of love obedient and love unnoticed. 

When Jesus said, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me (Matthew 16: 24),’ I’m sure He was talking about the possibilities of martyrdom.  But He was talking about Sunday early morning risings too, going to places when you aren’t asked or even expected because you love Him ...

One of our church mottos is, ‘Love, power and sacrifice.” I’m not sure if I like it. Why? Because we don’t always own it.  But this morning it was apparent alright; I saw love and sacrifice and within it the faithfulness of God. And whenever love and sacrifice are present, the power of God is wedged between the two, abundant, bursting out, filled with unexpected anointing.

And those nudges ... they don’t have to have great ‘spiritual’ contents. I’ve learned for sure, God is interested in the practical things of life - even washing up. 

Loan Sharks, Credit Unions and Justin Welby

“Walking up the shadowy, half-lit path towards the flat where we sat, he knocked on the door and entered.  He did not look round at the little group of people sitting in the room.  Instead his gaze went straight toward the older lady in the wheelchair by the door. She felt for her purse and handed him some money. Then he was gone. “A while ago he lent me some money,” she explained. "Now I have to repay at 30-40% interest.”

‘Loan shark!’ I thought.  ‘What a beastly thing to do!  Preying upon the poor who find themselves in debt and then charging them exorbitant interest.'

In ancient Bible times God commanded His people never to charge interest on loans to their neighbours. Why? Because God is on the side of the disadvantaged, the poor and the destitute and is against all who oppress them. He does not want anyone to be short of food and the everyday things that are needful.  God says that when the poor cry to Him, He will hear for He is full of compassion towards them (Exodus 22:25-27).


The above is an extract from my diary when I lived on the St Ann’s estate in Nottingham.  (I lived there for seven years: 2004-2011.) The woman mentioned did live in poverty and, no, she did no smoke, take drugs or for that matter drink alcohol to eat away her benefits.

 Middle-class people take some things for granted; an annual holiday (at least one), new furniture when the old gets scruffy, enough credit to pay the electricity bill, a car. Indeed, one middle-class colleague at the college where I worked made this comment to me when a fourteen year old girl, Danielle Beccan, got shot and later died whilst walking home one late evening from the Goose Fair: “Why didn’t her parents pick her up from the fair?" I looked at her, incredulity in my eyes. Most people I knew in St Ann’s did not have a car. In the close where I lived, only one person out of twenty-two, as I far as I knew, owned a car.

In the same year as I wrote this extract (2008), Nottingham City Homes, which manages council owned properties in Nottingham, published this statement: "Up to 10,000 households in the East Midlands are exploited by loan sharks each year. Loan sharks charge extremely high rates of interest and often use violence and intimidation and blackmail people who fall behind with payments.”
 
 I really welcome Justin Welby’s intervention in recent days, his support for credit unions* with their low interest rates, his offer of church property to house them and his encouragement to church members to offer their expertise in running the unions and so help the poor out of debt.  He’s siding with the poor. He’s standing in a great tradition.
“If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.  If you take your neighbour’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbour has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.” Exodus 22: 25-27 NIV

*Credit unions are organisations offering financial services and are owned and run by their members for their members. Interest rates offered by credit unions are much lower than most loan companies.