the homeless--

I was at a meeting yesterday with a couple of local clergy talking about expanding the winter emergency shelter program to Ephrata/Akron. The winter shelter program was initiated in the city last year. Churches, in connection with Lancaster Co. council of churches and the drop-in center located at Water St. rescue mission, host as many as forty people in their church building for a week. They provide overnight shelter, cots and blankets, for people who receive a voucher from the drop-in center. Most beds, most weeks are pretty full. But I've never been.
As we think about expanding this program to provcide shelter for unsheltered homeless people, we realized something significant. I don't know who these people are. I don't know any unsheltered homeless people. I know a couple of sheltered homeless---people living in someone else's house or apartment---domestic refugees, without their own home, living in the graces of some friend or family member temporarily. But I don't know any unsheltered homeless people. Where do they sleep? How do they eat? Before I help to initiate a "program" I should know a person. Because isn't homelessness another one of those issues that we treat objectively, rather than relationally? I believe it is so for a couple of reasons. People with homes do not concern themselves with people who do not. We live in different worlds and cultures for the most part. And we culturally isolate the poorest of the poor and the homeless. Also, if some of us knew homeless people, they wouldn't stay homeless. We would have to make room somehow. That is the real issue. Can we make room in our lives for someone who needs food, clothing, shelter, the basics? Can we make room in our hearts for such a one? I'll be accused of being a typical bleeding heart liberal. Home ownership is not a right, I know. This economy has taught us all that lesson. But dwelling in safety, especially in cold months when exposure becomes life threatening, is a human right. Some of us treat our pets better that that. And really the relational piece is about Jesus, isn't it? To know a homeless poor person is to know Jesus face-to-face. So, my next task is to seek out and meet an unsheltered homeless person. I may need some help to do this. I will also spend a night at one of the winter shelter churches in Lancaster city before Christmas. Anyone like to join me?

reading from the sermons of St. John Chrysostom

Do not adorn the temple while scorning your afflicted brothers and sisters.
"Do you want to honor Christ' body? Then do not scorn him naked now, honoring him here in church with silk vestments but neglecting him out there where he is cold and naked. He who said, "This is my body," also said, "You saw me hungry and did not feed me." The deed we do here in church requires a pure heart, not splendid vestments; but the deed we do out there requires great concern and effort.
Let us become wise, then, and honor Christ as he wishes. The sweetest honor for anyone is the honor he really wants, not the honor others may mistakenly choose to give him. Peter thought to honor Christ by refusing to let him wash his feet; yet to Chris the refusal was anything but an honor. Show him, then, the honor his commandment requires by giving your riches to the poor. God does not want gold vessels but gold hearts.
I am not trying to prevent you from using gorgeous vestments but only asking you also, and first, to give alms. The Lord accepts the ornaments, but he is much more eager for the alms. Only the offerer profits by the adornments; both the giver and the receiver profit by the alms.
What use is it for Christ to have golden cups on the table if he is dying of hunger? First fill the hungry person; then adorn the table with what is leftover. Will you provide a cup of gold and not give a cup of water? What good is it to Christ to have a gold tablecloth when he has no clothes by which to be covered? If you see a man hungry and you abandon him in order to deck the altar with gold for his sake, do you expect him to be grateful to you? If you see people freezing in rags and refuse them clothes but erect golden columns in their names what response do you expect/ Will they not think you are making fools of them?
Think, then, how Christ feels as he wanders homeless. You do not give him a roof, but you build a glorious temple for him! Once again, I am not attacking all these adornments; I am only bidding you to put first things first. No one who has failed to adorn churches has ever been accused by the Lord, but hell awaits those who scorn a brother or sister in need. A brother or sister is a far more precious temple that a church."