Living in coronavirusworld 151: Shabbat reflections on homelssness

8/ 28

Shabbat Shalom

                                                                

Today Chadwick Bozeman died at age 43. AKA “Black Panther.” Wakanda forever. Also starred in the  movie “42” As Jackie Robinson.  Today is also the anniversary of Emmet TIll’s murder in Mississippi,1955.And Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream”speech in Washington, 1963.  And the anniversary of  Barack Obama’s acceptance of the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. Major League Baseball usually celebrates Jackie Robinson Day on April 15tth, the anniversary of his first game. This year in coronavirusworld that was not possible. So, when play resumed,  they set it for this day, connecting it with “I have a dream.” All players wearing (now retired) number 42. Recalling Pee Wee Reese, the shortstop, with his arm around Jackie saying, “Tomorrow let’s all wear 42. They’ll never tell us part.”  And with Chadwick Bozeman as Jackie, a circle closed. 

Rabbi Steve has asked me to preach his shabbat service tonight and to preach about homelessness. So this what I had to say:

Last Wednesday I put a post on facebook. On Monday I had attended a ZOOM meeting of our local Community Board. The issue was the placement of homeless people form the shelters in rooms in our empty Upper West Side boutique hotels. It gave people living in critically dangerous situations a place to live and the touristless hotels a source of income. Neighbors are incensed. Over the course of the meeting, I followed the chat stream and was very upset by the use of the acronym MICAHs as pejorative term for these new residents. As in Mentally Ill Chemically Addicted Homeless.  I was upset for three reasons.

singing Micah 6:6

First, we named our son Micah. We were part of a national group of young Jewish and Christian leaders who chose Micah 6:6 as our watchword. More than one family in the group had a Micah.  My Presbyterian Health Education and  Welfare Association also chose Micah 6: as its theme and commissioned a hymn to those words.  And here in New York City I am a member of the MICAH Institute’s Faith Leader’s Table, the most diverse group of faith activists in the city.  

Micah was a working class prophet, not a liberal elite court prophet. And of course Micah 6:6 is simply “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God…”   

Finally, to categorize people by situation or circumstance is to rob them of their individual personhood. We have learned from our friends in the disabilities community to use people first language, as in not the disabled, but people with disabilities. Not the homeless, but people without housing. In Berlin, the don’t say the poor, they say, people with  little money. We are not our conditions or situations. We are more than that. To call people MICAHs is even worse. Because for many the adjectives are not even accurate. 

Let me also say neighbors are assuming  the new residents are responsible for everything they see they don't like ignoring the precovid reality io an all time record high city homeless population of 70000. 

I have learned that you can’t make assumptions. My congregation, in BC times, serves a meal for guests of a homeless shelter at a  neighboring church the first Sunday of every month.  It’s important not to just serve the meal but to share the meal, break bread together. One night wee were having a discussion and the woman beside me translated a phrase from Biblical Greek.  Turned out she had graduated from the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. I remembered that my own thesis advisor form Yale had been found homeless in Penn Station, too embarrassed to share his situation with his colleagues. Many of the homeless women I met held jobs and worked long hours but at $7.50 an hour how can you afford a home in the city?  Included in the comments to my Facebook post were a  member of my  congregation and open mic participants sharing their own experiences. Many of us are one paycheck away from being homeless.

There is in our shared scriptures much to guide us here.  One of the most repeated phrases in the Torah is the command to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger at your gate, in other words, the most vulnerable among us.  When they asked Jesus what the most important commandment was he said to love the lord your God with all our  heart, all your soul and all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22: 34-40.) Jesus was of course quoting Leviticus 19:18. Our church Bible Study took 2 1/2 years to read every word of the Torah. I was amazed to learn that the verse about loving your neighbor is at the  exact center of the Torah. Just as many verses before as after. On this, as Jesus said, hang all the law and the prophets.

Consider this….the children of Abraham were homeless for 40 years wandering around with only temporary shelters. And all politics aside, when Jewish people returned and created Israel in 1948, centuries of homeless exile came to an end, a home at last. The Jewish people have known homelessness. 

So when we look at this issue, I believe the the best advice is simply this…do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God…

Shabbat shalom…..