June Robinson-Trinity Victoria BC
Readers from small towns and rural communities will need to think about the people we struggle to look after at home, or try to pretend aren’t nearby, or send into town. Those who go to church in the city, who have been in ministry downtown, will recognize people like Jerry. Jerry died on Christmas Eve a few years ago.
Jerry lived on the street, in and out of rooming houses, at the men’s shelter. For God knows how many years. God knows. Few others knew, or cared about his story. Jerry was schizophrenic.
For the first part of the month, Jerry could stay at the shelter. He could be polite to people when he asked them for spare change. But the medication would wear off. The meagre allowance his trustee managed for him would run out. That’s when I’d see him. Hear him first. You couldn’t miss his big, gravelly voice. Or his rages.
Jerry made a lot of money at Christmas time. All those shoppers, feeling guilty about spending so much to fill those shiny shopping bags. All those workers, their charity fueled by a drink too many at the office Christmas lunch.
No one asks why the Jerrys are there. On the streets with their hands out. At the most wonderful time of the year.
There’s no Christmas charity for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. No allowance, however small, from the government. Just an order to pick up and travel a dangerous road. They’ll meet beggars and bandits along the way.
There’s no room for them in the shelter. The Bethlehem Inn is one big room. Above a tavern or a public building.
It isn’t a cozy bed and breakfast. More like the Metro Turning Point in Halifax. The Downtown Shelter in Vancouver. The manger where they put the baby, wrapped in rags, is most likely in a courtyard. A parking lot. Who will even think to look for them there?
Maybe that’s why it has to be the shepherds! Homeless men and women. Counted less valuable than sheep. Predators and poachers can take the mentally ill, addicts, ex cons. So long as the sheep are safe.
When I picture the shepherds, I see Jerry. Abiding in the field. Wondering when he’ll get a bite to eat.
Angels come. Biblical angels aren’t all cotton wool and misty light. They’re God’s tribunes. The heavenly host isn’t a choir. It’s an army. Picture an angel, with the scroll of imperial decree in one hand and a sword in the other.
Who else will have the sheer gall, despite their fear, to stand their ground in the face of such an invasion? It has to be people who are used to confrontation with agents of Empire. The city police. The hired security of the Merchants’ Association.
The angels announce the end of the Empire that enforces and profits from the poverty of people like the shepherds. The Jerrys. The Marys and Josephs of the world.
The angels take Caesar’s titles: Son of God, Saviour, Christ, Lord. And put them on Jesus’ head!
It has to be the shepherds! Who else will be crazy enough to believe and do what the angels say? Who else will be desperate enough to catch this vision of a world turned upside down in the hands of a baby? Who else will know where to look for the manger and the baby? It has to be the shepherds.
Near the end of his life, Jesus talks about where we should look for him. He says he’ll be in the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, people without warm clothes, the sick, and the prisoners.
He says our response to people whose needs frighten us, people we don’t want to see, people we dismiss with our charity, is really our response to him.
Given the circumstances of his birth, and the first visitors to his cradle, this shouldn’t surprise us at all!
