Homelessness Awareness Sunday - The Ven. Gigi Miller
The most recent Point in Time Count, an annual in-person census of people experiencing homelessness, revealed that approximately 182,000 Californians are unhoused; nearly 110 of them reside in Encinitas. On average, 65 of our neighbors experiencing homelessness arrive at St. Andrew’s every Saturday morning for showers, haircuts, mail, clothing, health care, and breakfast. Today parishes throughout our Diocese are observing Homelessness Awareness Sunday, and during our Second Sunday Salon you’ll have the opportunity to hear from your St. Andrew’s friends who volunteer on Saturday and advocate with city and county officials for our neighbors in need.
The Diocese’ Homelessness Task Force hosted a book study of Kevin Nye’s Grace Can Lead Us Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness in preparation for today’s Homelessness Awareness Sunday. Nye counters common misperceptions about people experiencing homelessness, including the idea that programs like those of St. Andrew’s are magnets for unhoused individuals. The thinking is that our efforts at lessening the pain and anguish of being homeless draw people to Encinitas from other parts of San Diego County or from other states. Statistics consistently show that approximately 85% of unhoused folks are in the same area in which they last had a permanent address, which makes sense. They’re staying in the neighborhoods they know, close to friends, family, jobs, educational opportunities, and health providers. Many friends who join us on Saturday morning have told me stories of growing up in Encinitas, attending school here, and surfing at local beaches. They’ve seen a lot of changes, especially in the way our city treats its unhoused neighbors, from the closure of the safe parking lots to restrictive city ordinances.
Another common misconception is that all people experiencing homelessness are addicts or have serious mental illnesses. Again, the numbers refute this notion. Only approximately 1/3 of unhoused individuals have substance abuse or mental health issues before they lose their homes. However, remaining in unstable housing situations, such as couch surfing or living in cars or on the street, are contributing factors for both. The anxiety of living without permanent shelter and untreated medical and mental health diagnoses can lead people to use street drugs and alcohol to minimize their suffering. Overwhelmingly, addiction and mental health problems are a direct result of homelessness, not the cause of it.
But the most significant theme of Nye’s book for faith communities like St. Andrew’s is his focus on the spiritual aspect of outreach to our unhoused friends. Our baptismal covenant calls us to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”, especially those forgotten by society and who were Jesus’ companion, like our neighbors experiencing homelessness. If we take that mission seriously, Nye writes “then not only [are we] called to be kind and to offer help, but [we are] called in many ways to sit at their feet – to listen, to learn, and to change.”
This invitation to meet Christ in everyone reminds me of an example from our recent clergy conference. The speaker, Tim Soerens, drew three nested circles on a whiteboard to illustrate how the church usually responds to challenges, for example, ending homelessness. Church members, start by asking what we’re going to do about the issue, so the question “what?” is in the center circle. After we settle on a solution, we move on to how we’re going implement it – how many committees we’ll need, how much money we have to raise, how we’ll measure success, etc. The third circle, the one furthest from the center, is reserved for Why? – Why are we doing this? For the church, that question comes down to asking why God wants us to get involved in the first place.
Soerens suggests we shift Why to the center. We begin by asking why God wants us to act in a situation. This question encourages listening, especially to those most vulnerable, spending time in prayer, and discerning the Spirit’s call. Then, we’re confident that, as a church, we can move forward as a beloved community to address the What and How of an issue. Nurturing relationships, not desired outcomes, should drive our projects.
Today’s reading from Exodus shows what happens when we cease to center God in our plans. The Israelites are anxious, since Moses has been on the mountain talking with God for about 40 days. With no Wi-Fi or cell phone, they haven’t heard from either of them, and they wonder if Moses is still alive or if God is still with them. In the words of today’s psalm “They forgot the God their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt.”
What will the Israelites do without a spiritual leader or proof of God’s presence? Well, they’ll create a new god. They’ve solved the what question and come to Moses’ brother Aaron for help with the how. Aaron agrees to gather up all the gold from their Egyptian oppressors and melts it down to make a bull-calf for the Israelites to worship. Aaron belatedly tries to address the why question by declaring that the ensuing festival will be devoted to God, who brought them all out of Egypt. But Aaron’s half-hearted attempt to bring YHWH into the picture gets drowned out in all the revelry. God is not happy at all; it takes Moses’ intervention to, in the psalmist’s words, “stand before God in the breach, to turn God’s wrath from consuming” the Israelites.
When we start by asking “Why does God call us to serve the most disadvantaged among us?”, we realize it’s because in serving them, we’re responding to Jesus’ command to love our neighbor. Their stories of courage, hope, and resilience in the face of despair can inspire programs that we, housed and unhoused neighbors, create together, enabling us to leave behind the all-too-human need for control. Nye observes, “If every unhoused person is Christ, we are beckoned into an actual relationship that eschews traditional power dynamics. Instead of offering answers born of superiority, Paul reminds us, in his letter to the Philippians, to “Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”
The parable in Matthew’s Gospel shows us how to live in a community immersed in God’s dream of abundance. It’s a wild tale about a king who just wants to celebrate his son’s wedding. Tensions rise as invited guests ignore the king’s messengers, even kill them, prompting the king to destroy the city and gather up the survivors to join the feast. Scholars think that, given hospitality rules of the time and the unexpected circumstances of this new invitation, the king’s servants give all the guests a wedding robe upon entering the hall, but one of them chooses not to wear it. When the king asks him about it, the guest refuses to answer and is thrown out of the reception.
Jesus is comparing the kingdom of heaven, not God, to the king and his eccentric methods. Matthew tells us that, in God’s vision, everyone, “both good and bad” are invited to the party. Divine grace includes and reconciles us all, and there’s always room at the table for one more place setting. The only thing preventing us from enjoying God’s rich banquet is ourselves.
I wonder if the Divine kingdom has something to do with how we participate in it. Paul writes, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable…. Think about these things.” But when we forget God’s promise, when we’re sure we have all the answers to problems like homelessness, when we rush to solutions without including and honoring the people with lived experience, we are choosing to remove our Divine wedding robe and leave God’s celebration. Paul’s advises us “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and seen and heard” from Jesus as he stands with those at the margins. God’s only requirement for attendance in the new creation is a heart transformed by love, grounded in grace.
