I was houseless and you took me in

Around 2015, I was called to labor as a missionary in the hills of Altadena, California.

Altadena lies tucked into the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains and was the home to several of our members and friends. It was treacherous climbing those hills in the California summers, but it was beautiful, draped in the evening shadows of tall Palms or rain-drenched sidewalks that put all the snails on display.

Today, what remains of the beautiful landscape and unique or historical homes are just chimneys–chimneys with no one to gather and no one to warm. The recent Eaton fire has left many destitute, including several from my old Pasadena congregation. In response to their struggles, many have sought aid and shelters from friends, but although such service is wonderful and needed, they still face a long road of healing ahead. Today, in the world and cities around us, many are facing similar struggles.

According to the UN refugee agency, by the middle of 2024, 122.6 million people were forcibly displaced and around half of them were children. In the United States alone, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, homelessness is at a record high with a record high of these individuals experiencing it for the first time and without any access to shelters.

At one point in my life, as an upperclassman in college, I spent a week or two on friends' couches living out of a car and even cooking in churches at one point. I had been caught between paychecks and housing situations in the middle of a semester and ended up pleading with an apartment complex to take me in on a reduced rent.

During those couple of weeks, I wasn’t certain of anything, couldn’t find a sense of independence or schedule, and was exhausted with stress and worry. At one point, I considered camping out in Idaho’s frigid winter to “take care of myself” and be less dependent on others. It was nothing compared to the unhoused populations who face this urgency and constant worry in the long term. Nothing compared to the refugee or those seeking asylum.

But in all this, I have learned that no struggle is too distant from Christ’s understanding. Wasn’t in reference to his ministry that Jesus described his own unhoused situation, saying to his disciples, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He understood me for a moment, and He will understand the displaced through their continued struggle, but that burden of service and understanding is not his alone to bear.

Christ teaches us, “I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me….Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” What a beautiful doctrine and one tied to another exemplary instructional metaphor by Paul when he says, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

Jesus tells us that if part of the body is weak or less beautiful that we give it more attention. Thus, he pleads with us, care for the poor, care for the afflicted, care for the chained, for they are part of my body of saints, they are part of the covenantal body of Christ's children. We are a symbol of a body who laid down all that he had, his very life for the love of his neighbor and his friends. When we serve his body we serve him, when we cry and struggle with our neighbors, it is as when he felt the sinner whose tears poured and cleansed his feet. We take on his struggle to mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and invite all to the shelter of his arms.