What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see the word? A drunkard? A panhandler? A swindler? A substance abuser? A lazy fool? An unkempt societal plague?
Many people have ill conceived, disappointing, and quiet honestly, sinful, perceptions of what it means to be homeless. The definition of what it means to be homeless is in the very word itself:
If you do not have a place to call home then you are homeless.
There is a difference between being houseless and homeless. A house is a physical structure. A house provides shelter from the cold, the rain, the snow, and the wind. A house can be opened up to welcome in family and friends or shut up to exclude criminals and enemies. A house can be built or torn down and then rebuilt because it is a physical place.
Over the past few years in Colorado, there have been several destructive forest fires and terrible thunderstorms that caused massive flooding. Thousands of people were displaced from their houses. The fires consumed hundreds of structures and the floods destroyed hundreds more. However, Colorado's homeless numbers didn't drastically surge during this period. Despite being houseless, many families still had a place to call home. Their home wasn't defined by the physical walls and roof that surrounded them but it was defined by the family unit's love for each other, their determination to overcome tragedy together, and their ability to draw closer to each other during this time of struggle, want, and reconstruction.
Their is a stark contrast between being homeless and houseless. By pointing it out to you I hope that I can maybe start to re-paint an ugly picture that your thoughtless and impressionable mind and heart have allowed our materialistic culture to create within you.
Let me start out with the background. The background is usually dark and bleak. The portrait of a homeless person typically starts off with a canvas of a much darker hue than most people's. The environment is filled with hostility and animosity. Parents that are physically and verbally abusive. Pedophiles and molesters. Drug dealers and gang members. Domestic violence and murder. This is no Bob Ross painting. There are no fluffy clouds or happy trees with their happy tree friends here. The landscape is desolate, destroyed, scorched, and devastated. The trees lie torched by firestorm after firestorm and the rocks that cover the landscape have a thick layer of soot on them.
Many homeless people don't have a home and they never have. Since they were young children they've never had a place to call home. They may or may not have grown up in a house or apartment, but this place wasn't home to them. For some it was a torture chamber and for others it was a dungeon. This place housed them, their few belongings, and their tormentors. They couldn't stand the place, and they knew that any other place in the world had to be better than their house. Many of them made a dangerous and sometimes a courageous decision to risk life on the streets rather than housed under the roof of their greatest enemy.
Other homeless people's backgrounds aren't as dark. They start off with a beautiful canvas covered with every color of the palette in every shape and shade. They grew up in a house, a beautiful home, surrounded by people that loved them, cherished them, and called them family. They were homeful. However, disaster struck. Something turned their homeful life upside down, inside out, and discombobulated it in every way. Rape, molestation, domestic violence, abuse, drugs, alcohol, human trafficking, infidelity, death of a loved one, tragedy, war, unemployment, or coming out to their family. Tragedy forcefully dismantled their emotional home. The family they loved was lost or disowned them. Their friends grew few and less supportive. They had no one to turn to. No one to trust. No one to believe. They had no one.
This is the portrait of homelessness. Notice that the portrait of the person doesn't matter at all. It is the background. It is the environment that defines homelessness. A homeless person never ceases being a person. Their portrait resembles yours and mine down to every blemish, wrinkle, hair, feature, and facet. There is nothing about their essence that separates them from you and me.
What might happen if a homeless person was given a place to call home? What if they had a place to go when they were scared, tired, or at their wits end and were welcomed home with arms wide open and accepted by a warm, firm embrace? Isn't that what most of us appreciate most about our home? Is it not the fact that no matter how hard our weekdays, workdays, schooldays, and holidays are we have somewhere we can be surrounded by the people we love, the people that love us and accept us for just who we are, both the good and the bad? That's home.
If you give a homeless person a house you have not cured what ails them. If you give a homeless person a twenty dollar bill you are not helping cure what plagues them. If you give a homeless person a meal from McDonald's you shouldn't pat yourself on the back for doing your good deed for the year because you haven't accomplished much of anything.
"'For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’"
(Matthew 25:42-45 ESV)
I know of a place that should be full of people that desire to give food to the food-less, drink to the drink-less, clothes to the clothes-less, hope to the hopeless, and homes to the homeless. However, this place is struggling with an infestation of materialistic, worldly minded, prideful, ungrateful, and lazy people who have turned their ears from their Lord and have allowed others to tickle their ears and their egos. These people call themselves Christians but there is nothing about their lives, behavior, or faith that resembles the Christ they claim to follow.
I do not desire to point the finger at others, but rather, I will be the first to admit that my view and my response to homelessness needs drastic reformation. In the neighborhood that I live in I'm only about a mile away from our city's largest concentration of homeless citizens. The opportunities abound. My neighborhood is literally an oasis amidst a community of homeless transients. Ironically, a mile away in the other direction is arguably one of the richest and most opulent neighborhoods in all of America: the Broadmoor. I go a mile north or east and I am surrounded by homelessness and I go a mile in the other directions and I am surrounded by mansions, million dollar estates, and a less known side of homelessness.
I do not venture into the Broadmoor area often, but rather, I frequently travel to the Walmart that falls almost in the center of this homeless community and my workplace, a human services non-profit that serves the homeless, impoverished, and addicted in our community. I am surrounded by homelessness and my job is to use my talents and skills to benefit a ministry that seeks to give the homeless a home. In the year and a half that I have worked at this ministry I have grown more and more ashamed of my Christian walk and that of 99% of the Christian and human population of Colorado Springs.
Our culture views homelessness as a plague and problem that is somebody else's problem. Our culture in America is up in arms about equal rights, fair treatment of minorities, and justice for every citizen. I watch the outcries on the news and see the social media protests of friends and family members every day. Civil rights, gay rights, women's rights and justice for the underdog. They protest outside the civil centers, they parade their rights down main street, and yet, none of these individuals or groups see the pain, frustration, abuse, and dehumanization of the homeless population of America. The homeless people are outside the civil centers every day and they parade down main street several times during the day asking for help and attention, and yet, nobody picks up their banner along with them.
Christians in this city, myself included, don't really know what to do when a homeless person approaches them and asks them for help. We're instantly skeptical of anyone asking us for money, we quickly discredit their story or need, and we find some excuse to escape their presence. On the other hand, some of us pride ourselves with our care and compassion for the poor by giving them some money and saying, "God bless you." Or perhaps we think we have outsmarted them by buying them a meal rather than giving them money for food or filling up their gas tank rather than giving them money for gas. All of these approaches, however, are not helpful responses to homelessness.
Maybe you think that I'm coming down too hard on Christians in my city and around the country. If so, then I challenge you with these questions:
- Does your church have a homeless ministry?
- Does your church support a local homeless ministry?
- How many people participate in this ministry?
- How often do you participate in this ministry?
- How much of your church's annual budget is ear marked for homeless ministry (either running one or supporting one)?
Homeless people need a home. Homeless people need to know that they have a home. Homeless people need to know they have a family that loves them. Homeless people need to know that they have a Father that loves them despite their past sins and the past sins that were inflicted upon them. Homeless people need to know that there is a home waiting for them filled with people just like them that needed a place to call home. Homeless people need to know that the Christian Church is the perpetual home to the homeless. After all, the Church is Christ's home and those whom He welcomes into His family He will never forsake, cast out, or allow them to be homeless ever again for He sacrificed Himself to secure them within the household of God forever and forevermore.
Perhaps you are not a Christian and you find it offensive that I would say that the Christian Church ought to be the home for the homeless. However, the last time I checked, Christian ministries are the only ones seeking to care for the impoverished and homeless. Secular homeless shelters and ministries are near non-existent. As much as you despise Christians for their political views of equality, you ought to be completely heartbroken and ashamed that you fight for equal rights, justice, and freedom for every minority EXCEPT the homeless, arguably the most despised, mistreated, and dehumanized minority of them all. Sadly, if the secular agenda of this generation continues to make it harder and harder for Christian ministries to serve the homeless in this country with the Gospel (what the secular world refers to proselytizing) the worse and worse the problem of homelessness will grow. The secular world doesn't have an answer to the homeless soul looking for a home. They will throw money, food, clothes, and houses at them, not realizing that they need something money cannot buy, food cannot fulfill, clothes cannot cover, and houses cannot build: a place to call home.
I cannot tell you what you and I do from here. Like I said, I'm feeling more and more ashamed of my view of the homeless and my lack of a ministry to them. How do we care for and provide a home for the homeless? That should be the headline of newspapers tomorrow. That should be the overlay of every Facebook profile picture tomorrow. That should be the topic for tomorrow's prayer time. That should be the conversation around the dinner table tonight. That should be on the top of the church's priority list, but it will take more than me writing this and you reading this to change that. We actually have to put our faith to work. We actually have to take a risk, do something we don't know much about, and travel into uncharted territory. I can think of no better home for a homeless person than the church of Jesus Christ.
How will you make your church a home for the homeless?
