“It
is impossible for a man who is warm to understand
one who is cold.” Alexander Solshenitzin,
author.
A case can be made that Jesus was born homeless.
His family was of course forced to leave their
home, to become transient and to sleep rough
(and give birth) for at least that one night.
But what is perhaps of greater interest is
the fact that Jesus chose the way of homelessness
during his three years of ministry. In Luke
9 Jesus responds to a man who says he will
follow him wherever he goes: 'Foxes have holes
and birds of the air have nests, but the Son
of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'
In other words, Jesus told the man, 'If you
want to follow me, you will have to give up
the comforts and security of home.' The Kingdom
of God takes precedence over everything else,
family and home included. The very things
that we think are most important in this world
must take a back seat according to Jesus -
there is something more important.
But did Jesus really advocate homelessness?
Did he really tell us to reject our families?
That seems very irresponsible of him, does
it not? Jesus does urge his followers to take
no thought of their life; he tells a wealthy
man to sell everything and give it to the
poor and he makes some shocking demands of
family disloyalty. But Jesus is talking about
where people put their trust, where they find
their security. Jesus was a man who had conquered
fear, and did not need the security of an
earthly home, because he knew exactly who
he was and where his security lay. His home
was the Kingdom of God, and the work of that
Kingdom was first in his life.
This is what he called his followers to as
well. His message denounced the love of money,
and even warned against putting trust in 'basic'
things like a home and a family. This speaks
directly to the great fear of the human condition
without the security of the Kingdom of God.
We store up our treasures on earth out of
fear that things may fall through. We put
our trust in tangible things, create contingency
plans, and refuse to risk our reputations
and our possessions because we fear what will
happen to us if they are lost.
The question we must ask (and it is not a
comfortable one) is this: where is our heart
and our home? That is, where have we stored
up our treasures? Where does our security
lie? Does it rest in our families, our material
wealth, our society? It is not enough to simply
follow a path that is deemed safe from the
perspective of the world. We need to find
our home elsewhere, to fix our eyes on things
that are eternal, and we need to live that
out in our daily walk.
We can also see just how powerfully Jesus
identified with the homeless, and the poor.
He had nothing to fall back on, no social
safety net, no place to call his own. The
difference of course is that Jesus chose this
way, and could walk this path without fear.
Many in our world are homeless and they have
had no choice in the matter. They are victims
of a society in which money and possessions
are simply more important that humanity. In
a frightened world driven by materialism those
without a home and without resources are completely
disempowered.
Jesus’ identification with the poor
and homeless is therefore a potential source
of great strength for the homeless in our
world today. But we who are his followers
must be prepared to identify in the same way,
to see ourselves as brothers and sisters of
the destitute, to treat them not as objects
of our pity, but as sharers in our love and
community.
Jesus was homeless. It is too small a thing
to say we follow Jesus but still cling tightly
to our earthly security. Are we prepared to
give up our 'homes'? Are we prepared to see
Jesus in the face of the homeless today?
