I do not easily love every guest that comes to Manna House. There are a few, in fact, that I would be quite happy if they never came back. Most are easy to love, to welcome, to serve. Some are not. In other words, guests at Manna House are human, and so am I. We all have our rough edges; places where we rub one another the wrong way.

I love to love those that love me (and laugh at my jokes). Loving those folks is easy. Offering them hospitality is a snap. Jesus however, has a higher bar for being his disciples. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:44-47).

I struggle with this teaching of Jesus and ask for the grace, the loving presence of God in my life, so I might be able to love those who are not lovable. This gets a bit complicated sometimes. At Manna House, like elsewhere, the unlovable might be more than merely unpleasant, they might also do things that hurt others.

I think of a guest who flares up in anger and threatens to do violence to another guest for the smallest of bumps in a crowded house. I think of a guest who mocks other guests who are “different,” not meeting certain standards for sexuality or sanity and personal hygiene. How to love the guests who sometimes threaten the very practice of hospitality at Manna House?

Love does not mean accepting wrong behavior by another person. Did Jesus love King Herod who had John the Baptist killed? Yes. But Jesus also clearly rejected Herod’s execution of John. Did Jesus love Peter who denied him three times? Yes. But Jesus also clearly called Peter to repent. It is a mistaken notion of love to equate it with accepting abuse, injustice, or any wrongdoing.

So love sometimes involves confrontation, conflict, and challenging another person, all with the purpose of creating a loving (and just) community. This is how God loved King David when God sent the prophet Nathan to confront him about the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. This is how God loves each of us when we are called to account for our sin. In Ezekiel we read, “ Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11).

Correction for the sake of conversion and community is loving. Paul points to such love (and more) when he writes, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

So, I can ask a guest not to smoke on the front porch because the smoke blows into the house. I can tell a guest that his language is not acceptable because it degrades another guest. I can even ask a guest to leave when her behavior threatens the well-being of another guest. This can all be done in love, with kindness in the words used, without recourse to violence, with continuing respect for the guest being corrected.

At the same time, love requires that I treat the guests I find difficult to love with as much love and respect as I treat the guests who are easy to love. This is when I especially have to practice patience and kindness, and I have to leave behind arrogance and rudeness and insisting on my own way.

I fail at this kind of love on a regular basis. Trying to offer hospitality to a cantankerous or sullen or irritating guest is humbling. I have to face my own shortcomings in the practice of love. Maybe that is how God reminds me of how unlovable I am, how I have rough edges, how I fail to love. And maybe that is how God tells me of God’s love for me. God loves even the unloving me. Does not the Bible tell me so?

Cleaning the front yard at Manna House, picking up a few stray coffee cups, I came across the latest issue of “Awake!”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses distribute “Awake!” I do not know how this issue arrived at Manna House. We have had a Jehovah Witness or two occasionally come by to pass out their tracts. Or maybe a guest brought it. Either way, it was now abandoned on a picnic table in the front yard.

I thumbed through it. I am always curious about things religious. The articles (including one trying to debunk evolution) all pointed to a triumph of Christianity. Funny, I thought, how a magazine called “Awake!” was nearly putting me to sleep. Maybe that was also why it had been discarded. But the title stuck with me, “Awake!”

I thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. who once gave a talk, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” He said, ““One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”

Jesus said something similar to his disciples, “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” (Mark 13:33-37)

Black Lives Matter has a saying, “Stay Woke.” The hashtag #StayWoke has been a way to urge people to remain vigilant about social issues, especially those related to police violence and white supremacy. It might be another way to update the old school Public Enemy, “Don’t believe the hype.”

I thought about the morning at Manna House. An hour or so earlier a few men in bright fluorescent orange vests had come down the street. They were picking up trash. Following them were two men in a white Shelby County truck. The two men picking up trash were prisoners supervised by the men in the truck. A guest said, “The chain gang returns.”

A guest before had told me about his pending appointment with his probation officer.

“I’ll be heading there soon. If I don’t go, I get fined or go back to jail. I had a job for today, but I can’t go to work because I have to see my probation officer. It’s a catch 22.”

A Memphis police car went by at one point in the morning. “The occupation force” a guest said.

A Shelby County Sheriff’s car went by at another time. “They’re out serving warrants” a guest said.

A long time guest, who we had not seen for quite a while, had come into the house about half way through the morning. “I’ve been in jail,” he said. “A year of jail. Now I’m looking for work. Probably won’t find any, but I’m looking. Can I get some gloves and a hat?”

There’s a deadly system at work running through these events of the morning. There’s an education to be had if you pay attention and listen to the guests. Things are not as they might seem. William Stringfellow wrote, “In the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, speak the truth. Confront noise and verbiage and falsehood of death with the truth and potency of the Word of God.”

“Awake!” “Stay awake.” “Keep awake.” “Stay woke.” “Don’t believe the hype.”

 

“I’m most treasured, not ‘most wanted’” a guest said pointing to his photo on the wall at Manna House. Like any home, Manna House has lots of pictures of our “family members,” our guests, up on the walls. The photos span the years we have been open.

Some of the guests in the photos have died. Semaj. Freddie. Elvis. Harmon. Sarah. Abe. They look into the rooms where they once came for coffee and jokes and conversation. We hope they are enjoying heavenly housing. We enjoyed their presence when they were alive. We still treasure their lives as we share stories about them from their time with us.

Some of the guests pictured are also gone. We just do not know where. Maybe they are housed. Maybe in jail or prison. Maybe they moved to another part of town, but are still housing deprived. Maybe they have gone to another city. Or, they might have died. Wherever they are, they enriched us and moved on. They, too, have stories we remember that bring a smile even as we worry about where they are now.

Some of the guests pictured still come to Manna House. Among them some have homes and others do not. June Averyt’s organization, “Outreach, Housing, and Community” can be thanked for getting a number of the guests at Manna House into housing. Housed or not, Manna House remains a gathering place for people in need of some support and some community, a place where they will be welcomed. People come and share their lives, and in that there is the great wealth of human warmth.

Looking at these photos of our guests the other day, I thought of the story of St. Lawrence. He was a deacon in the church when the Roman Empire still conducted sporadic persecutions. The role of deacon in the early church was distinguished by service of the poor. Deacons were appointed to both the service of the table (corporal works of mercy) and to the service of the word (spiritual works of mercy). Lawrence was a deacon in Rome.

An imperial official in the city, the prefect, imagining the church to be rich, ordered Lawrence to bring to him all of the church’s wealth. Lawrence asked for three days to complete the task. During those three days he quickly gave away all that the church had to the poor.

On the third day he returned to the prefect and brought with him a motley crew of poor people, including those who were blind, lame, and I imagine, mentally ill, addicts, prostitutes. Lawrence pointed to these people struggling in poverty and said to the prefect, “Here are the true treasures of the Church.” Then he added, “The Church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor.”

The photos on the wall at Manna House point to the treasure, the richness that are guests bring to us. As Kathleen says, “They bring us their best.” Like Lawrence’s group, they are a motley crew, marked in a variety of ways by what has been denied them: housing, work, health care, friendship, trust, love, hope, basic human compassion and justice. At the same time they are not defined by that denial; rather they persist in their particular personalities. The photos give some hint of those personalities: smiles and frowns, and various poses from arms crossed to arms thrown around each other in a hug.

Lawrence’s act of defiance led directly to his martyrdom. He was tied on top of an iron griddle over a fire. Spectators hoped he would writhe and wriggle in pain, but Lawrence disappointed them by laying there quietly. Finally he said, “Turn me over, I’m done on this side!” Then shortly before he died he said, “I’m cooked.”

I think it likely that Lawrence had his sense of humor deepened by his love for and service to the poor. When you face the deprivation a society places on people deemed “failures” or “losers” and then find those very people are really the winners, you can only laugh. Laugh at the powers and principalities who so harshly judge and exclude based upon material possessions. Laugh at the politicians who pander to people afraid of the poor. Laugh at the stupidity of social policies designed to hurt and punish them even more. Laugh at those who claim to be “Christian” and despise the poor.

“I’m most treasured, not ‘most wanted’.” Indeed, this guest has it right. He is not a criminal because he is poor. He is rather the very treasure to which Jesus pointed to when he said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). Lawrence’s heart, his treasure was with the poor. My hope is that at Manna House our hearts are too.

“I’ve been trying to enjoy the cold, but it won’t let me,” said a Manna House guest Monday morning. Nighttime temperatures in the low twenties and daytime highs in the low forties are not the worst temperatures that people deprived of housing will experience this winter. But stay outside for a few hours and see how the cold seeps into your bones.

Monday night I helped Kathleen get people signed in for Room in the Inn. Three churches offered free shelter to thirty six people. That’s three churches in a city of at least a thousand churches. About a half mile away the Union Mission was jammed with hundreds more seeking shelter. Other shelters were also full.

After the Room in the Inn churches picked up the fortunate thirty six, five people walked away into the cold night. Unwilling or unable (for a variety of reasons) to go to any of the other shelters, they faced the night’s cold. Even before this, another twenty or so people had left to try their luck with shelters or stay outside.

Shelter, of course, is not housing. Those of us who are housed might not realize that housing is a matter of life and death. If you live on the streets your death rate is nearly twice as high as those who are housed. And the average age of death for those deprived of housing is around 48 compared with nearly 78 for those who are housed. Without a house not only are people directly exposed to the elements such as the cold of winter and the heat and humidity of summer, they are also exposed to direct, individualized abuse and attack.

I have been reading a challenging book by Craig Willse, The Value of Homelessness: Managing Surplus Life in the United States. He writes, the truth is that “Housing insecurity and housing deprivation make people sick and make people die,” and “this insecurity and deprivation roll out along entrenched lines of gender, sexual, and racial difference” (Craig Willse, p. 24).

The majority of those seeking shelter Monday night were African American men. Sixteen women, also mostly African American were also there. Among the African American men was an elderly man, recently released from a mental health facility. He was incoherent, and all of his possessions were in two medium-sized Christmas gift bags. Our society systemically deprives those who struggle with mental illness of housing and then blames the individual, “He’s homeless because he’s mentally ill.”

Willse further observes, “The systemic nature of housing insecurity is masked by the objectifying work of the term ‘the homeless.’ When we speak of ‘the homeless,’ we mobilize a pathological category that directs attention to an individual, as if living without housing is a personal experience rather than a social phenomenon. Instead, we might talk in terms of ‘housing deprivation.’ This phrase expresses that living without housing is systemically produced and must be understood as the active taking away of shelter, as the social making of house-less lives” (Willse, p. 2).

I have been meditating on that statement for several days now. I have been putting it into dialogue with Isaiah the prophet. Isaiah warns that if we do not share our bread with the hungry, house those without homes, clothe those who are naked, and recognize our shared humanity with those oppressed, we will be rejected by God, our humanity will shrivel and die, and our society will fall apart (Isaiah 58).

And, of course Isaiah brings the opposite prophetic promise as well. “If you remove the yoke from among you, the giving of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noonday sun. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places… Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt… you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in” (Isaiah 58:10-12).

As a society we have the resources for everyone to be decently housed. Our military budget is larger than the next eight nations COMBINED. Rev. Earle Fisher shares that “yesterday Powerball sold $323,000 worth of tickets PER MINUTE. They made $29.7 BILLION YESTERDAY ALONE.” We have the resources. Isaiah is clear. In a good society, no one is left out in the cold.

When I was a child part of our family Christian celebration included us kids putting on a Christmas “play.” My only sister, Donna, was typecast as Mary. The youngest, Mike, was Jesus. Two of my younger brothers, John and Jim, along with myself were variously Joseph or shepherds or magi. My oldest brother, Steve, provided the music (he played the guitar). I do not remember who came up with the idea to put on such a play, but was a regular occurrence for a few years.

Like so much of Christmas, our play conflated the two different stories of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, making them into a seamless unified story. First the angels sang, then the shepherds came, and later that same night the magi entered the scene. Through it all Jesus lay in a manger surrounded by Joseph and Mary along with a few barnyard animals. The magi, of course, left their camels outside.

But such conflation does not do justice to either Luke or Matthew’s distinctive stories. Since it is Epiphany, Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth takes center stage. He is the one who has the story of the magi and the star and he does not have Luke’s shepherds and angels singing (angels have other business in Matthew, like warning about impending doom).

My focus is on what this story in Matthew might reveal about the practice of hospitality. First we get a picture of duplicitous hospitality in the figure of King Herod. Herod, like the rest of the Jerusalem elite, fear the story of a new king being born as such a king is a threat to their cozy relationship with the Roman occupiers of Jewish lands. Herod feigns interest in order to try and find out where this new king is located, so that he may later kill him. His evil plan shrouded in the cover of hospitality is thwarted by the dreamy intuitions of the magi (Matthew 2:12).

Second, we can note that Matthew does not have Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. They apparently already live there, in a house (Matthew 2:1, 11). So when the magi come to pay homage to Jesus it is Mary and Joseph who offer them hospitality, even as the magi offer their gifts.

Third, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph soon need hospitality themselves as Joseph is warned in a dream of the threat to Jesus’ life. They flee to Egypt as political refugees. Herod meanwhile in finding his lie to the magi unmasked flies into a rage. He orders the murder of all male infants under the age of two.

What might this story mean for the practice of hospitality today? Three lessons I see. First, not all that appears to be hospitality is actually hospitable. Some forms of welcome are not centered on the wellbeing of the guests but rather on preserving the power of the persons offering the welcome. Herod offers hospitality to the magi in order to use them, not to help them. Their journey and quest are not respected. Instead Herod seeks to impose his own agenda, by stealth if necessary.

Second, true hospitality is a mutual exchange of gifts. Jesus, Mary and Joseph offer welcome to the magi, and the magi offer their gifts as well. The magi experienced the joy of being in the presence of the one they sought, and the holy family, no doubt, enjoyed the gifts the magi brought. Just as Abraham and Sarah offered hospitality and received the good news of their having a child, so do Jesus, Mary and Joseph offer hospitality and receive the gifts of the magi.

Third, we all are going to need hospitality along the way. We all will have times in our lives in which we have need, when our vulnerabilities will be of such intensity that we necessarily seek help from others. Not long after Jesus, Mary, and Joseph offered hospitality to the magi, they are forced to flee to Egypt, where they had to rely on the hospitality of others. I just learned this week about a Coptic Church in the old city of Cairo, Egypt which by tradition was devoted to the holy family. The story is that it was in this neighborhood that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph came to find refuge. Fr. Eric Hollas writes, “It was in that neighborhood, most likely Jewish, where somebody reached out and offered hospitality to an impoverished and frightened couple and their child.” (See Fr. Eric Hollas, O.S.B., A Monk’s Chronicle: 4 January MMXVI — Epiphany: a Way of Life,

https://monkschronicle.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/a-monks-chronicle-4-january-mmxvi-epiphany-a-way-of-life/ There are many times in the Gospels where Jesus’ humanity comes front and center, and this story of his seeking refuge and need hospitality along with Mary and Joseph is certainly one of them. Perhaps Jesus’ own emphasis upon offering hospitality was formed in some way by his experience of being welcomed in Egypt as a child.

Epiphany is a rich feast, with many meanings upon which to reflect. On this Epiphany I am going to reflect on these three.

 

 

Biblically, joy comes with the presence of God. Nehemiah wrote, “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Neh 8:10) while in the Psalms we read, for “all who take refuge in you [God] rejoice; let them ever sing for joy” (Psalm 5:11). God, says the Psalms “put more joy in my heart” (Psalm 4:7) and in God’s “presence there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). When God is present, there is joy.

When we opened Manna House this morning, we prayed with our guests on the front porch. We always hold hands for this opening prayer. This morning the hands of the guests that I held were icy cold. I made the prayer short so people with cold hands could get inside quickly and wrap their hands around a hot cup of coffee. About 500 cups of coffee were served through the course of the morning. “Manna House coffee sure hits the spot!” “This coffee is strong. Thank God.”

Kathleen worked with a guest and her husband to get them housing. He had been spending most nights outside while she had stayed at various shelters. Thanks to generous donors, Manna House has the resources to cover a few months’ rent. They moved into their new apartment this afternoon. It is one mile from where she works and on a bus line. Now she will be able to keep her job and take care of her husband. He is hoping to find steady work too.

A guest came out of the shower room to let us know that someone had crapped in one of the showers. I went in to see what needed to be done to clean up. The shower stall with the crap was still occupied. I was surprised. The elderly and frail man in the shower said, “I’m so sorry. I just go. I can’t help it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, “it’s only crap. I’m glad you came to shower.” Given my sense of smell, the clean-up was not that bad. The man left showered and with clean clothes, smelling fresh.

Carolyn and Bergen staffed the clothing room, offering “socks and hygiene” and getting guests set up for showers. Hats, gloves, scarves were also given freely.

Byron shared the story during our time of reflection at the end of the morning at Manna House. Two guests, one a white male, the other a black woman. Both struggle with mental illness. The man usually has an angry scowl on his face and his hair is disheveled. The woman smells of urine. The zipper on the woman’s coat was not working. The man offered to help. He worked diligently and patiently for about ten minutes. He got the zipper fixed. The woman was able to close her coat against the cold.

Read a few stories in the Bible about hospitality and a common theme emerges: joy. Abraham and Sarah offer hospitality to three passing strangers (angels disguised as men). Before long Sarah is laughing at the joke these strangers were telling that she and Abraham will have a child when they return a year hence. Turns out, it is better than a joke. Sarah and Abraham have a child in their old age and experience the joyously surprising way God keeps God’s promises. (See Genesis 18).

A widow and her son are near death from starvation. The widow welcomes Elijah the prophet to share her last meal. Only it is not her last meal. There ends up being enough for her and her son for years to come. And later, when her son takes deathly ill, the prophet heals the son. (See 1 Kings 17). Elisha the prophet is welcomed and he shares the blessings of God’s abundance with a widow who was in poverty. He is welcomed and he heals the only child of the couple that welcomed him. (See 1 Kings 4). In the New Testament, Jesus affirms that in offering hospitality we will welcome him (Matthew 25:31-46), and that those who offer hospitality will enjoy a banquet with God (Luke 14:12-14). Then there is the story of those who welcomed the risen Jesus and shared a meal with him. They find their hearts strangely warmed (and they were not even Methodist) (Luke 24:13-32). In Hebrews we read that in offering hospitality the joy of welcoming angels will be experienced.

The angels came this morning with cold hands, with struggles for housing, with struggles for health, mental and physical. They witnessed to the injustice of the world. They also brought with them the very presence of God. And when one of the angels asked for the “Word of the Day” we found this passage that speaks of God’s just priorities and a joyous day which is to come:

We give you praise, O God of life; both now and evermore we bless your name.

From east to west, and north to south, from sunrise to sunset may your name be praised.

You, O God are the eternal light. Your glory reaches higher than the heavens.

Who is like you, magnificent in holiness? And yet you live so close within.

You raise the poor from their lowliness; you lift the oppressed from the depths.

You give dignity to their lives, a place of honor with all the faithful.

You renew and strengthen all that lives; you make empty hearts content. (Psalm 113)

She was dancing in the living room of Manna House. It was Christmas a few years back. We had music and she took the floor. As she rhythmically moved about, a knife fell from somewhere in her clothing and clattered upon the floor. In a graceful move she bent low, scooped it up and put it back in her clothing and kept dancing.

I would guess that if we had metal detectors at Manna House we would uncover knifes or similar weapons each day among the clothing and belongings of our guests. The streets can be dangerous. Some of our guests carry knifes for protection. Our simple rule is that they not be displayed or pulled out in a threatening manner.

Yet, on some rare occasions, a knife has been pulled, or a brick has been picked up, or a stick brandished about as a fight has broken out. Usually a fight just involves fists or “fighting words.” But the potential is always there for worse.

How do we respond to fights? We break up fights by getting between the assailants. We ask all the parties involved to leave. In a worst case scenario, which has happened just a few times, we have closed Manna House for the day.

Violence at Manna House is very rare; so rare we rarely think about how offering hospitality to strangers can be dangerous. Of course by now, most of our guests are no longer strangers. We know them by name and they know us by name. And they are just as concerned as we are to keep Manna House a sanctuary from the violence of the streets. We work consistently along with our guests to urge politeness, to not use denigrating or dehumanizing words, to treat everyone with respect. All this goes a long way toward keeping Manna House peaceful.

The threat of violence has also come as we have practiced hospitality in the form of the occasional police officer who wanted to throw his weight around. About a year ago, two volunteers were arrested for videoing police officers harassing homeless persons near Manna House. Several years back, I was told by a police officer to “watch my back” when I refused to allow him and his fellow officers access to Manna House. The official violence of the state comes down hard on our guests from time to time.

Given these realities, we would be naïve to think we can offer hospitality with no danger to ourselves. In “Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition,” Christine Pohl writes, “In a fallen, disordered world, strangers may be needy, but they occasionally take advantage, bring unanticipated trouble, or intend harm.” And when the Christian people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France offered hospitality to Jews during World War II they knew they risked their lives in defying the Nazi regime. Disciples of Jesus practicing hospitality should be realistic about sin, about the brokenness in the world, in themselves and in the persons they will serve.

But Christian realism accepts the reality of sin without allowing sin the final word. The final word is not sin but redemption. Redemption means living into the hope that love is stronger than sin, stronger than violence, stronger even than death. Redemption means offering hospitality in a sinful world. Redemption practices the risk of hospitality so that strangers can experience welcoming love consistent with their being children of God. As Paul wrote, “Welcome one another in Christ as Christ has welcomed you” (Romans 15:7).

Redemption cannot happen without risk and neither can hospitality. Ask Jesus who both urged hospitality when he said “Whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me” (Matthew 25:31-46) and also realistically told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

Christmas Day was Friday. Saturday was the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. Today, Monday, was the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which remembers Herod’s slaughter of children under the age of two in his attempt to kill the baby Jesus. Jesus and his family fled to Egypt, refugees seeking shelter in a foreign land.

The Church’s liturgical calendar is not very subtle in its point: the powers that be quickly threaten Christmas, the coming of Christ. The domination system acts quickly to suppress movements for liberation. Or as Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross [be prepared for the Roman method of execution] and follow me.” (Mark 8:34).

Christmas and Cross were in contention this morning at Manna House.

Christmas: We opened Manna House an hour early so guests could come right in from the rain as soon as they arrived.

Cross: The domination system produces homelessness spitting expendable people out into the streets. Housing is just another commodity in the free market. Homelessness means having no shelter from a storm. Homelessness means being soaking wet and cold when it rains. And this morning it was raining, hard. Even those who had enjoyed some shelter also arrived drenched. They had been turned out at daybreak, as is usual shelter practice. Their dry night became a wet morning as soon as they stepped outside.

Christmas: Hot coffee was served all morning to anyone who came through the doors seeking shelter from the rain. Dry socks were given out to any who asked. Dry shirts were also available.

Cross: A guest told me as he waited in the coffee line, “I got evicted on Christmas Eve. I’ve been on the streets ever since. Some neighbor complained about me. I still don’t know what I did.”

Another Cross: A guest came in with a split lip and a visible lump on his head. “I got jumped. They took everything I had, which wasn’t much. I told them, ‘Don’t leave me in pieces.’ And I’m still in one piece.”

Christmas and Cross: A guest needed some medical attention. He had cut his finger severely a few days previously. He needed some new bandages and antibacterial ointment. Volunteers in the clothing room patched him up.

Cross: Some of the guests who struggle with mental illness seemed worse today. They were very agitated and edgy. People who had been doing well are descending back into chaotic suffering and the system does not care. Check that, the system will care to arrest a mentally ill person who acts out badly.

Christmas almost Crossed: Guests on the shower list looked forward to getting a hot shower and a dry set of clothes. Then the hot water heater stopped working. No hot water. A few bravely went in to take cold showers and put on the warm dry clothes as quickly as they could. Then, as Kathleen described it, “A Christmas Miracle” happened. The hot water heater started working again. All those on the shower list except the first three got hot showers.

Christmas: We had a lot of cookies to share with guests. Chocolate chip were clearly the favorite with oatmeal raisin a close second.

Cross: We closed at 11:30a.m. as usual.

Christmas: The rain had stopped an hour earlier.

“It’s not fair!” The cry came out as I volunteered at Room in the Inn helping get guests on the list for shelter for the night. A guest was not happy about the method by which the limited number of shelter spaces would be allocated to a large number of people hoping for shelter. There were forty nine people seeking shelter. There were twenty four shelter spaces available. Not everybody seeking shelter through Room in the Inn would get shelter this night. More churches are needed to offer shelter. And also needed is more commitment by people to the justice of housing for everyone, housing as a human right.

But for now, the problem. How to distribute the limited good of shelter in the face of abundant need? This guest who complained had the solution, drawn from the capitalist culture which cast him into the streets. “I was here two hours early and I waited. I earned a spot. Those who came later, who were lazy, should not have an equal chance.” Ah, meritocracy! Goods are distributed according to hard work, effort, competition. Goods are rewards for winning the war of all against all. It is survival of the fittest.

Room in the Inn worships a different God. In the distribution of goods the needs of the most vulnerable have priority. Women and children are the most vulnerable on the streets, so they are put on the list for shelter first. On this night that meant twelve shelter spaces went to women.

How to avoid meritocracy in distributing the twelve remaining spaces? Another biblical response: distribution by lottery. (see Acts of the Apostles 1:26, Luke 1:9, Numbers 26:52-56, 1 Samuel 10:20-24, 1 Chronicles 24:5-19, Nehemiah 11:1 and Proverbs 18:18). Such biblical distribution sometimes serves the purpose of revealing God’s will, but more commonly it an exercise in humility in the face of a difficult decision. Lottery distribution recognizes when there is equal need and when a meritocracy distribution would harm the weak while also increasing the arrogance of the strong.

Maybe this is behind “the great reversal” theme present throughout the Old and New Testaments as well. God frees the Israelite slaves from the Pharaoh and his government. In the New Testament, Mary sings “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53).  And Jesus proclaims, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last” (Mt 20:16). In perhaps the greatest reversal, Jesus rises from the dead, overturning the death sentence imposed by both the Roman Empire and the power of sin. At the heart of the Christian Gospel is the gracious of God who freely loves us not based upon our merit but upon our being joined to Christ.

But the culture of meritocracy is strong and so are the judgments that come with it. To go with a biblical view of justice challenges meritocracy. The biblical view of justice overturns fairness defined as reward to those who are already dominant.

Another guest came up to me after I had a little discussion with the one who cried foul about the lottery allocation of shelter space. “He doesn’t get it,” this guest said, “we’re all in this together.” Another added, “Sometimes I go; sometimes I don’t. It’s in God’s hands. I just wish more churches would get on board. And besides, no one should be rewarded for getting here two hours early. That’s against the rules.”

Through the kitchen window at Manna House, I see a man walking down the street. He pulls behind himself a tattered nylon rolling suitcase. It is crammed with his possessions. He had greeted me when I had arrived to open the gate ten minutes earlier. I was there early to start the coffee.

“Are you open?”

“Not until eight.”

“What time is it now?”

“Six forty-five.”

“I’ll be back.”

As I see him going away from Manna House, I remember a question Ed Loring of the Open Door Community in Atlanta asked many years ago. We spent twenty four hours on the streets with guests from the Open Door acting as our hosts. Ed had asked, “Where do you go when you’ve got nowhere to go?” I wonder, where is this man going? Will he come back?

Sometimes I have to simply sit with the emptiness I feel, and that I hear about and so often see in our guests. And in these days, emptiness seems prevalent. The landscape has turned stark. The daylight is shortened. There is a chill in the air. I look outside from the kitchen window at Manna House and see a lone shriveled leaf clinging to the end of slender tree branch.

When I get to Manna House at this hour to start the coffee, I have about forty five minutes to sit in the kitchen. I take the time to quietly wait, to listen to the coffee percolating, to read, write, and pray. These days of Advent are a particularly good time to sit with emptiness and to let it feed expectation.

I read of the “Saint of the Day” from Robert Ellsberg’s “All Saints.” Today was the feast of Walter Ciszek. He was a Jesuit priest who spent twenty three years in Soviet prisons. He had been swept up by Soviet troops at the end of World War II after entering Russia several years earlier to serve as a priest.

During his long years of imprisonment, which included many years in Siberia, he maintained a daily discipline of prayer. He also served as priest to other prisoners. He came to realize in this time of emptiness, “There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God’s will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. … I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God’s sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul.”

I turned to Psalm 130, praying with expectant emptiness, reflecting on Fr. Ciszek, on the man going down the street, on my own life.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in God’s word I hope;

my soul waits for the Lord,

more than those who watch for the morning,

more than those who watch for the morning.

I saw at the end of the day the man who had left so early. He had returned. He got coffee and some fresh socks. He learned about Manna House. Then he was off again to somewhere. He may come back Thursday. I will have to wait and see.