National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day takes place on December 22, the longest night of the year. Tonight some 200 communities will gather to read the names of their neighbors — neighbors who have experienced homelessness and who have died in the course of the year.

Tonight in Tallahassee, we will gather at the Kearney Center, a facility built to be both an emergency shelter and a one-stop center to assist folks who are either homeless or on the verge of homelessness.  My primary connection to the Kearney Center is through Operation I.D., a program which helps folks to acquire a state-issued identification care.  For many, getting an i.d. is the first step in the transition from homelessness to housing.

That Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day should come on the day Congress is poised to pass the largest tax cut in a generation is more that ironic.  Among those who will pay for this egregious legislation will be neighbors served by the Kearney Center.

I was asked to give the “eulogy” at tonight’s memorial.  Here is what I plan to say . . .

We have gathered to mark the passing of brothers and sisters in the human family, people who are often overlooked or even purposefully avoided in our everyday lives. 

Homelessness is a moral issue.  The fact that so many people are coping with homelessness in this land of plenty is evidence of a moral failure on the part of us who elect our officials, make our laws, and set our economic priorities. 

The elimination of homelessness should be toward the top of Congress’ priorities.  Instead, Congress has spent the past few months cutting deals for the wealthy and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the electorate.  Just a portion of those billions that Congress is about to hand over to folks who don’t need the money could be used to end homelessness pretty much overnight. 

Although homelessness is a moral issue, to be a person coping with homelessness implies neither virtue nor vice.  People become homeless for all sorts of reasons, and none of us has the right to judge. 

Tonight is the longest night of the year, and it is also very close to the holy day Christians call “Christmas.”  It is important to remember that the child born in Bethlehem was laid in a manger because there was no room for him, and that he grew up to be the Son of Man who had no place to lay his head.

If you want to find Jesus this Christmas Eve, don’t be so sure you will find him in church.  He is just as likely to be here at the Kearney Center or camped in the woods, or sleeping rough in a doorway. 

Tonight we read the names of fellow human beings who died in the past year.  On this list will be friends to some of you, or acquaintances, or clients.  Whether you know them personally or not, you can be sure that they are somebody’s child, or sister, or brother.  Somebody’s mother or daddy, perhaps. Somebody’s lover. 

I know at least one person on this list. We had become friends through the years, and he would drop by the church occasionally to let me know how he was doing.  I was surprised to see his name on the list.  I didn’t even know he had died.

It is a privilege to read his name.  I believe that God knows every name on this list, and that is pleasing to God that we should remember these, God’s precious children.

Carl Alcorn
Joseph Burelli
Marva Chester
Rick “Dirty” Daniel
Steven Davis
Walter Dupree
Thomas Hodge
Brian Farley Jones
John Kennedy (aka Dan/Casper)
James Arthur Lewis
Deatrice Louis
Stanley Rall
Harold Reimer
Mark Reimer
Joey Tran
Shawn Whipple
Kaylyn Van De Wostine

 

In one of his sermons the great preacher Fred Craddock talked about going to a funeral for a word that had died.  I don’t remember the word in question, but just now I’m mourning the death of the wonderful old word “evangelical.”

Well, the word hasn’t exactly died.  Instead it has been appropriated by Christians who seem to have lost touch with the word’s original meaning.

The English words “evangel,” “evangelist,” and “evangelical” are derived from the Greek word euangelion, which means “good tidings” or “good news.”  That same Greek word euangelion passed through Latin and Old English to emerge as the word “gospel.”

The lectionary texts for the season of Advent are peppered with “good news.”  We hear it on lips of the ancient prophet Isaiah, in the preaching of John the Baptist, in the message of the angels to the shepherds, and, of course, on the lips of Jesus himself.

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized by John and spends 40 days in the wilderness.  When he emerges from the wilderness, he takes up John’s message, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news (euangelion).

The “good news” of the gospel is Jesus himself – the one who sets captives free, who heals the sick, who restores sight to the blind, who forgives, who touches lepers, who reaches out to women, who welcomes children, and who brings euangelion to the poor.  The message of Jesus is itself the “good news,” and whoever bears witness to Jesus is, quite literally, an evangelist.

I believe that the message about Jesus is still “good news.”  In my mind at least, that makes me an evangelical Christian.

Alas, I fear the word “evangelical” has come to mean something else altogether.  Now it refers to a subset of Christians who believe, among other things, that President Trump is God’s agent to hasten the End Times.  For this reason, many “evangelicals” are jubilant over Mr. Trump’s declaration that he will move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, signaling that Jerusalem is the true capital of the modern State of Israel.

According to this strain of thinking, known as “Millenialism,” the stage is now set for a worldwide conflagration.  When the dust finally settles, Jesus will return to earth to gather up true believers and dispatch the rest of humanity to hell.

If you don’t find much euangelion in that way of thinking, I don’t blame you.

I interpret Biblical texts differently.  I don’t see this End Times formula in the Bible, and I don’t think it is consistent with the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ.  While I respect sisters and brothers in Christ who adhere to this line of interpretation, I don’t agree with them.  And, frankly, I don’t think there’s very much good news in their version of the Good News.

To them, I’m not a “real” Christian.  I’m certainly not an “evangelical” Christian.  In my heart, however, I know otherwise.

I’d call myself a “classical evangelical” if it would help, but it won’t.  Let’s just say that I agree with other evangelicals, that, in the end, all of this is up to the Triune God.