For the last five years, Atlanta has been my home. In comparison to other cities in the United States, Atlanta is unique because it is so green. Often called “the city in the forest,” 36% of the city of Atlanta is made up of trees. That percentage only increases when moving beyond the city limits to the surrounding counties of the urban region.
Because there is forest throughout the city, the number of homeless people is deceiving at first glance. That’s because many homeless people (and families) create places to live in the wooded areas of the city. That’s true in the woods behind my home. I’ve also heard friends mention the homeless people who live in the woods behind their homes.
A couple blocks from my home, at a corner gas station, several of the homeless people from the neighborhood hang out. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t particularly bother anyone. They’ll often get take-out from the fried chicken place next to the gas station and sit along a cement wall and socialize. They are mostly men, but there are some women as well. When I purchase gas at that station, I know I’ll be panhandled. Sometimes, before pumping gas, I’ll go into the convenience store and pick up some bottled water and food so that when I am panhandled I have something worthwhile to give.
There are many causes for homelessness. Living in a Southern state, I am aware that the social safety net is frayed, at best. There are few services available to help with job placement, temporary housing, and other services like alcohol and drug rehab. Because I’ve chatted with folks who hang out at the gas station, I know that they typically have jobs but just don’t make enough to afford housing. A couple of them ask if I have odd jobs at my home so that they can earn a few dollars. While I know that most of them drink more than they should, they clearly aren’t lazy people. The structure of our economy just doesn’t make room for them. While they are no better and no worse as people than any others, they are generally viewed and treated as outcasts. Most people would rather that they not loiter in the neighborhood. Let’s be honest: when many people see a group of homeless people hanging out, they assume that the people are lazy, homeless drunks. No one wants them around: not in their neighborhood and not in their churches.
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Two of the Christian gospels present stories of the birth of Jesus: Matthew and Luke. Each story is different from the other. On the whole, the writer of the gospel we attribute to Luke had a unique theme not found in the other three gospels: the importance of the outsider, the marginalized, those people not viewed as acceptable in society.
It’s Luke’s gospel that relays the story of the Good Samaritan who not only cares for the man along the road who was robbed and assaulted but also pays for his long-term medical care and recovery. Luke also tells us about the Samaritan women Jesus spoke to in public at the well. Pious Jews had no dealings with Samaritans, who were considered as unclean, deviant people. Pious Jews would never speak to a woman to whom they were not related, especially in a public place.
It’s striking to note that this theme of the importance of the marginalized people is a prominent theme in the story of the birth of Jesus. In this narrative, homeless people who just didn’t belong anywhere are prominent. Who were the homeless people in the story of the birth of Jesus? Remember: there was no room at the inn, so Joseph and Mary slept in a cave with the animals. Jesus was born and laid in the feeding trough for animals. In other words, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are portrayed as homeless people.
There were also drunk, good for nothing homeless folks in the story of Jesus’ birth: the shepherds. While we have romanticized the shepherds in the story, in fact they were dirty, smelly guys who weren’t welcome in town. They slept with the animals and probably had more than a drink or two on a cold night. They wouldn’t have been welcome in the temple or synagogue because their work made then ritually unclean. Yet, the very surprising part of the story is that they were the ones to whom angels sang. They knew before anyone else that Jesus was born. The dirty drunks were the ones who met Jesus first.
What does it mean to keep Christ is Christmas? Clearly, it’s time for us to look again at the Christmas story presented in the gospel of Luke. The story isn’t about fashionable people. No, Luke makes it clear: tidings of great joy were received by those on the margins of society. It was the homeless drunks who played a central role.
As we prepare to observe this Christmas, how do we view the homeless people in our communities? Do we see them as people? Are they individuals unique fashioned in the image of God and carrying in them the light of Christ? Can we be open to them as heralds of good news? Or do we treat them as does most of society as worthless folks — nothing more than lazy drunks? As you encounter homeless people, perhaps it would be worth considering what it truly means to keep Christ in Christmas.
