Every society has some form of poverty. As Jesus said, we will always have the poor with us (Mark 14:7). And one can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its poor. In America, there are many who look down with disgust, disbelief, or derision at those who have been forced out onto the streets. The harshest and ironic part of this tragedy is that much of the derision towards the homeless comes from Christians.
They Deride the Homeless in Universities
Of course, Christians are not singularly guilty of this sin. As a college student, I hear no end of “crackhead energy” quips or hobo jokes on campus. Not to mention those who use the word “homeless” to bash on another person’s poor taste in fashion or unkemptness.
It seems that the homeless poor are derided on two grounds by the students I am around. The first is that they mock the homeless because the homeless are poor. In our society, wealth is almost always associated with goodness. So poverty is almost always associated with trashiness, classlessness, poor taste, criminality, evil, and lack of dignity.
The second ground is that many of the homeless suffer from mental health and substance abuse issues. These are people who society is either unequipped or unwilling to keep alive. And because their mental sufferings inconvenience their families and our institutions, they are excluded from participating in the structures of society.
Living through the sheer uncertainty of life on the streets, the pain of living outside during long, cold winters, and other forms of suffering, drug use presents itself as the only realistically accessible coping mechanism. The astounding and piercing manias and strangeness that these drugs lead their users to perform, it seems, makes for good comedy for college students.
It is ironic that college students would deride the poor. Students, especially in the humanities, see themselves as readers of Marx. They see themselves as revolutionaries who stand on the right side of history. They think they stand against classism. And yet, they reproduce the very same antagonisms towards the poor that they seek to challenge.
Anecdote of the Shuttle
One day, I was sitting next to a student on the university shuttle. To our left, we saw a man who was not in his right mind. He was screaming and yelling. His clothes were torn. And his eyes were wide and wild. The injustice of it all struck my heart, but the student next to me began laughing at the man. And he continued to laugh until the man was out of our sight.
They Deride the Homeless in the Churches
Worse than self-proclaimed Leftists and liberationists mocking the poor is Christians mocking the poor. The hypocrisy of deriding those who Jesus called the least of these is far greater than the hypocrisy of anyone else.
These Christians, including even pastors, have absolutely lost sight of what some theologians call God’s preferential option for the poor. They forget the various commands that the Bible gives to care for the needy. They forsake Jesus’s commands to show compassion unto others. And they forget that Jesus Himself was a homeless man (Matthew 8:20).
The derision that comes from Christians against the homeless is much the same as the derision that comes from non-Christians. But even more sorrowfully is that we have commands from Jesus to serve the needy. Shall we drop a dollar in the collection jar, then turn around and laugh at the ones we are collecting for? Will we neglect doing justice to the hungry when we see them in our neighborhoods, and then complain that we share our area with–heaven help us!–a poor person?
It is ironic that so many Christians pretend that they are the ones who the world mocks and persecutes. These Western, privileged, comfortable Christians attempt to read themselves into the histories and traditions of Christian martyrdom and suffering for the faith. But in reality, it is not the world that mocks these Christians. Rather, these Christians join the world in mocking those that the world trods down upon.
Anecdote of the Baptismal
One day, a man entered onto a church campus. He had visited before. He was a gentle man, and seemed to be all the more at peace when he was on the church grounds. I went out to greet him and welcome him to church. We talked about the weather, dogs, and Jesus. Our discussion was cut short when the pastors called security on the man because he did not have a home to return to.
Would Jesus Deride the Homeless?
As I said before, Jesus was a homeless man. Were He alive today, He would face the same injustices, insults, and slights that the homeless bear every day at the hands of their housed, Christian neighbors.
Yes, the Church would hand Jesus a plastic cup of soup one moment and mock His haggard appearance the next. It would performatively give Jesus a dollar bill, and forget about Him before the sun went down. It would donate to a charity to serve Jesus for them, and keep a safe distance from the Christ that they see as addicted, lazy, and insane.
But let’s set the mockery aside. Let’s talk about the excuses that Christians give for why they will not help their neighbor! How would Jesus respond to these?
- I won’t give to the poor; they might use my dollar bill to buy drugs or alcohol!
- Their suffering out on the streets is entirely their choice. (Homelessness does not come about by individual choices. It is caused by economic inequality, mental health issues, poor housing policy, and predatory landlords).
- They are so ungrateful.
- They won’t pick themselves up and get themselves a job. (It is very difficult to land a job that pays well enough to get oneself back off the streets all by oneself. America is not the meritocracy it has made itself out to be.)
The Final Judgment
How would Jesus react? That question is no hypothetical, for we have the answers in the Bible. Remember Jesus’s words in Matthew 25? He said He would judge the nations, not based on what their beliefs are, but based on how they treat the poor.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me (Matthew 25:35-36, ESV).
Of course, there are those who will ask Jesus when and where they ever saw Him. And Jesus, King of the Universe, will respond to them:
Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me (v. 40).
It is bad enough to deny the dignity and humanity of the poor. It is even worse to deny the dignity and divinity of God Himself by deriding and neglecting the homeless.
Anecdote of the Parish
My mother and I went to see a movie at a local parish. There were no more than fifteen of us, mostly elderly Catholic folks. As the movie went on, I looked behind me. I saw men and women coming in from the street. They were tired. And they did not have a home to go back to. The priest welcomed them into the room and offered them pizza and popcorn and water. They thanked him and took and ate. None of the housed Christians wished them gone. The housed and the houseless shared an evening in peace.
A Call for Repentance
I do not mind the college students who mock the homeless. If they are not religious, they do not really have anything higher to hold themselves to. They do not know any better. I pray, like Jesus, that God would forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
But Christians? Christians know better. We worship a God who took on homeless flesh. A God who humbled Himself so much that He did not just talk about the least of these; He became them. He told us that what we do to them, we do to Him. When you mock the “crackhead” or make the “hobo” an object of derision, your words are spoken directly to the Lord of Creation.
No amount of justification or sidestepping or mental acrobatics will ever make it okay to take away the dignity of another human. And no amount of excuses will ever excuse not living a life of service in giving up what you have to those who need it.
May God forgive those who pray for forgiveness from a Homeless Son of Man, yet hide their sins against His homeless brothers and sisters in their hearts.
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