Public speaking has been part of my job for many years
now. One thing all those sermons and
teachings have taught me is, sometimes your mouth says something your mind
doesn't intend. It is so easy to
accidentally swap words in a sentence, or to insert the wrong word, which means
something different than you intended.
And on an occasion or two, I have been criticized for such slips of the
tongue. I'm not sure that is what this
was, though.
This morning, when I flipped the radio on, I caught a
segment of the Pope, giving a public address.
I assume he was talking to Congress, as I knew he was going to talk to
them this morning. As I was doing other
things, something caught my attention.
The Pope made the statement that Jesus was born to homeless parents. I believe the point that he was making was
that Jesus understands what it is like to be homeless, because He was born
homeless.
The biggest problem with this (among many) is that the
statement is flatly incorrect, in the context it was meant. While Jesus was born in a barn, not a home,
this was not because His parents were "homeless," as that word in
understood. What you COULD say about Joseph
and Mary, is that they were "hotel-less." In fact, Joseph and Mary had a home, which they left to take a
trip, in order to register in a census that had been ordered. They had a home, but happened to be
traveling at the time. They were not
people who were experiencing the hardship of not being able to make enough money to live in any type of home. In their situation, they did
not experience what it was like to actually LIVE on "the streets." What they experienced was being travelers
who found only "no vacancy" signs, at seemingly the worst possible
time. I believe the pressures of true
homelessness to be far greater than this.
So, is this an important distinction, or a minor, insignificant
one? Well, that depends on whether you
think it is okay to generate false impressions in order to make your point, or
gain a particular reaction. The plight
of not having a hotel room to stay in, such as it would be in those days, even
when delivering a child, is very different than having to live on the streets
because you can't afford housing.
Joseph and Mary were NOT homeless, in the way that this word is understood to mean. It is just plain incorrect to make a statement like this. And reaching for things like this really hurts the credibility of the person
trying to persuade. Truth matters. Especially when making Biblical
arguments. When I see that you are
misleading me in order to impact my behavior, I will likely reject what you are
trying to get me to do, even if I SHOULD be doing these very things.
And this is the most frustrating thing about this spinning
of the truth. It is completely
unnecessary. Jesus spoke many times
about caring for the poor and the needy.
He even tied helping or neglecting the hungry and thirsty to helping
and neglecting Himself (Matthew 25:31-46).
And, if you want to make the point that Jesus understands what it feels
like to not have the stability of a home, you could point to the fact that
during His ministry, He regularly relied on the help of others for a place to
stay. This is not an argument I would
make for a variety of reasons, most significantly that there are much more
powerful passages about helping the poor (like the one above), but this point
could be made.
Jesus commands His followers to help the poor and
needy. And we don't get off THIS hook
by just giving a couple of dollars to a homeless shelter, or advocating for
another government program. In the case that Jesus makes in Matthew 25, He is speaking directly to His people, and tells us that,
"When you neglect those in need, I view it the same as if you are
neglecting Me in need." It is an
absolute command of Jesus, and a good thing to challenge us all with.
Just don't misrepresent truth to do it.
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