By Editorial Board December 24 

​JESUS OF Nazareth was born a displaced person. As the writer Garry Wills relates it: “He comes from a despised city and region. Yet he cannot be allowed a peaceful birth in that backwater. His parents are displaced by decree of an occupying power that rules his people. For the imperial census to be taken, Joseph his father must return to his place of birth. . . . Joseph does not even have relatives left in his native town, people with whom he can stay. He seeks shelter in an inn, already crowded with people taken away from their own homes and lives. Because of this influx of strangers, he is turned away. There is no bed left, even for a woman far advanced in pregnancy. She must deliver her child in a barn, where the child is laid in a hay trough.” Soon afterward, the infant and his family become fugitives from King Herod as he seeks out the child he fears will one day replace him on the throne. And so it went.

Long ago, John Milton wrote, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” But well before that, governments were showing their ability to do much the same thing: to bring either peace, order and a measure of prosperity to their people or to create a place where destruction, hunger and hopelessness drive many into the deserts and overseas.

This Christmas there are many such people fleeing violence, living hand-to-mouth, without warmth or medical help or food, desperately seeking refuge wherever they can find it for themselves and their children. In prosperous Europe, the most encouraging response has come from Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel, the conscience-driven leader of a nation that, three-quarters of a century ago, created its own version of hell on Earth. But this openness to the dispossessed and the desperate has not been entirely matched in other parts of Europe or even remotely so in our own country. In part this is because of fears about possible violence by some small number of the refugees and in part because of anxiety about the burden they might place on Western societies. As always, domestic politics has played a role for better and worse — here and in Germany and elsewhere.

Christmas has become an almost universal holiday, celebrated, observed or at least tacitly acknowledged as a festive occasion even by peoples who have no history of Christianity. And, indeed, many of the values of that faith are universal, if sometimes honored only in the breach. But the word “Christian” is often misused in our times, in a way that implies some allegiance to a particular political party, economic doctrine or set of moral strictures that are not representative of large numbers of true Christians. (The media are often complicit in this confusion.) There is a broader concept of the term, one that is succinct, relevant and all but imperative in this season when we face a humanitarian crisis that tests our character and our compassion. It comes from the Gospel of Matthew and is stated as an ideal voiced by Jesus:
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“I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you game me drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Pastor Joe Brosious
Bethel Lutheran Church
Madison, Wisconsin
November 4, 2013

Five years ago November a homeless man was found dead on the doorsteps of our downtown Madison, Wisconsin church.  It was an event that sparked action on the part of the congregation and staff.  Today we have a homeless ministry that, although nowhere near problem free, operates five days a week and attempts in every action and detail to be a solution as opposed to a band-aid for our homeless friends.  If you lead or pastor an inner city church you have no doubt dealt with some of the same problems and growing pains we have in getting the ministry started.  Inner city ministry is both a blessing and a curse.  Blessing insofar as you are faced with a myriad of opportunities to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to live out the gospel on a daily basis.  But at the same time cursed because you are faced with the hungry and the naked and no matter what you have on your “to do” list the gospel smacks you right between the eyes on a daily basis.

The church I serve is in the midst of a massive capital campaign, the largest it has ever imagined, raising funds to expand the current campus.  The proposed additions would have several multi-purpose spaces, an auditorium, coffee shop, preschool, daycare and a whole host of other facilities designed to help us “be” the church in our downtown locale for generations to come.  In discussions about the project I hear a lot of people comment that it will help us “meet people where they are at.”  But the more I hear the phrase, the more I think it is as loaded as the term ‘evangelical’ or the phrase ‘missional church.’  In order to meet people where they are at we have to first understand where we are at.  In order to meet people where they are at we may have to ask questions to which we may not like the answers, and realize that a shiny new building may not solve many of the problems and concerns in people’s lives.

So I will be thinking a lot this month about where people are at.  Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist Chris Hedges defines the point from which I am starting.  Hedges’ defines where America is “at” in his book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.  He testifies that Americans are dulled to reality, the economic, environmental, educational, and political realities of this modern US democracy, which look nothing, like the country we pledge allegiance to (that is in places where the pledge is still allowed), or stand to sing about during the 7th inning stretch.

Instead of facing and challenging the realities of injustice and discrimination that have permeated this meritocracy or oligarchy (take your pick) that we love, we retreat into the pseudo-realities of our modern world; reality TV, WWF, pornography, Facebook, video games, fantasy football, the list goes on.  What many view as a culture of rampant individualism and materialism is, in Hedges eyes, a society where the biggest fear is to be unknown.  Our cultural habits “expose the anxiety that we will die and never be recognized or acclaimed, that we will never be wealthy, that we are not among the chosen but remain part of the vast, anonymous masses.  The ringside sagas are designed to reassure us.  They hold out the hope that we, humble and unsung as these celebrities once were, will eventually be blessed with grace and fortune” (5). 

As opposed to individuals Hedges would say America is mired in self-absorption.  We have taken the neighbor out of Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), and sacrificed relationships and the difficult realities of our world for extreme forms of entertainment posing as reality.  The modern American society is characterized by “superficial charm, grandiosity, and self importance; a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation, and the inability to feel remorse or guilt.  This is, of course the ethic promoted by corporations (and I painfully add most politicians).  It is the ethic of unfettered capitalism.  It is the misguided belief that personal style and personal advancement, mistaken for individualism, are the same as democratic equality.  We have a right, in the cult of the self, to get whatever we desire.  WE can do anything, even belittle and destroy those around us, including our friends, to make money, to be happy, and to become famous.  Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality.  How one gets there is irrelevant.  Once you get there, those questions are no longer asked” (33).

It may sound like a dark or macabre place to start but it feels real to me.  It feels stripped of all the buzzwords and pithy aphorisms we so often use in church circles.  It feels real because it is exactly where I find myself each and every morning (maybe this is one of those questions I didn’t want the answer to).  Martin Luther once defined our Christian vocation as “daily rising and dying with Christ.”  I think this is what he was talking about, the daily shedding of our own self-absorption so that we may be used to advance the Kingdom.  Used to be in relationship with the homeless person at our doorstep, to advocate, to visit, to vote, to write letters and send emails, to challenge and invite, to listen and teach and share the love of Christ in a world that does not play well with others. 

Real love, true sacrificial love that can only be shown by serving our neighbors.  The kind of love that is so countercultural it can produce a reality that starts a movement.  This kind of love finds value in understanding differences; it leads to communal transformation as opposed to individual, and transforms our narrative from self-interest as selfish, to self-interest as the self among others; love that leads us to the self-realization that the Christian life happens when my self-interest or concerns are united with the concerns of others for the sake of the common good.  This is where all started for the Apostles.  It is what we as Christians strive for every day.  To prayerfully change our communities and local governments through the challenge and promise of God’s love.

http://www.bethel-madison.org/

With shelters full, homeless families have nowhere to goBy Annie Gowen, Published: October 7When Janice Coe, a homeless advocate in Loudoun County, learned through her prayer group that a young woman was sleeping in the New Carrollton Metro station with a toddler and a 2-month-old, she sprang into action.

Coe contacted the young woman and arranged for her to take the train to Virginia, where she put the little family up in a Comfort Suites hotel. Then Coe began calling shelters to see who could take them.

Despite several phone calls, she came up empty. Coe was shocked to learn that many of the local shelters that cater to families were full, including Good Shepherd Alliance, where Coe was once director of social services.

“I don’t know why nobody will take this girl in,” Coe said. “The baby still had a hospital bracelet on her wrist.”

In a region with seven of the 10 most affluent counties in the country, family homelessness is on the rise — straining services, filling shelters and forcing parents and their children to sleep in cars, parks, and bus and train stations. One mother recently bought $14 bus tickets to and from New York so she and her 2-year-old son would have a safe place to sleep — on the bus.

As cold weather descends on the region, the need will become increasingly acute, advocates say. That will be especially true in the District, where continued fallout from the recession and lack of affordable housing has contributed to an 18 percent increase in family homelessness this year over last.

The city has recently come under fire for turning away families seeking help as 118 overflow beds that were added last winter at D.C. General — the city’s main family homeless shelter — sit empty. A few places have recently opened up, but 500 families — some of whom are living with relatives or friends — are on a waiting list for housing.

“We’re hoping we can keep pace with those in the more dire situations,” said David A. Berns, director of the city’s Department of Human Services.

Berns said the city is trying to keep the overflow beds open for hypothermia season, which begins Nov. 1. The city is mandated by law to shelter its residents if the temperature falls below freezing. The agency does not have the money to operate the extra beds, Berns said.

D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who has been critical of the agency’s handling of the crisis, wonders why families are being denied help when the District has a $140 million budget surplus.

“Never did I imagine that beds would be kept vacant,” Graham said. “It’s very upsetting.”

Family homelessness around the Washington region has increased 23 percent since the recession began — though the total number of homeless people stayed fairly steady at around 11,800, according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which did its annual “point-in-time” survey of the homeless in January. This included some 3,388 homeless children, the study showed.

“These families are the most desperate because they have young children and have nowhere to go,” said Nassim Moshiree, a lawyer for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

Moshiree spent a good part of the day Friday trying to help a homeless mother of three who Thursday night slept with her children on the steps of a church in Northeast after unsuccessfully asking the city for help. After Moshiree intervened, the city found space for them late Friday.

“It’s a complete abomination,” said Antonia Fasanelli, executive director for the Homeless Persons Representation Project, a Maryland legal services and advocacy group based in Baltimore. She noted that in Baltimore — where homeless families from D.C. sometimes end up — three family shelters have been closed in the past five years, for a loss of about 100 shelter beds. “There is just not enough space.”

Throughout Maryland, Fasanelli said, 38 percent of homeless families are living on the streets. That’s the seventh-highest rate of unsheltered families in the country, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development study on the homeless released in December.

At the Comfort Suites off Route 7 on Thursday, Helen Newsome, 25, fed her 2-year-old son, Cameron, an orange from the breakfast buffet as her infant daughter Isabella slept on the bed beside her.

Newsome said she became homeless this summer after she was evicted from her apartment in Prince George’s County. Since then, she and her children have slept most nights on a bench or the hard tile floor at the New Carrollton Metro, she said. Although she called several area shelters before she was evicted, she said she could never find one with room.

“I’m not asking for a whole room for myself, as long as I have someplace to sleep, somewhere soft,” Newsome said.

On Thursday, Coe took Newsome to the Loudoun County Department of Family Services, where a social worker helped her sign up for food stamps and other aid and said she would try and help her find a subsidized apartment. Finally, Newsome said she could see an end to her ordeal.

“They’re leaning on me,” she said, gesturing to her kids. “I’m their only hope. It’s okay. Everybody goes through something, some people worse than others.”