It’s an important story to read on Homelessness Sunday because it’s a story about a people who are coming home. It’s a story we read part of this morning, from the book of Nehemiah. I want to go back to another story, one that describes events that took place in the same century Aesop was writing his fables, that’s to say the sixth century before Christ. We treat these stories the way we treat Christianity – we try to boil them down to a moral that can prove to ourselves and the world that we were right all the time, not just in our judgements but in our actions, not just in our character but in our ethics, not just in our politics but in our practice. When a homeless person dies on the steps of the Palace of Westminster one side sees it as a shame on the heartless state, the other sees it as the folly of a person looking to government to solve their own problems. The real problem with both stories of homelessness is they’re both trying to get us back to Aesop, with a fable and a moral. I’ve caricatured both stories because I believe they’re both too sweeping and simplistic. One’s a story of the political left, always looking for government to be the answer, with hints of structural injustice and institutionalised oppression the other’s a story of the political right, always demanding individuals address their own problems, with mutterings about bootstraps and dads getting on bikes. The second is a story of human fecklessness, problems of people’s own making, a downward spiral of entitlement, disrespect, self-harm and good-money-going-after-bad.
The first is a story of statutory underinvestment, hapless Universal Credit, judgemental and sanctimonious disregard for people’s complex circumstances, and too-little, too-late intervention. In fact, there’s broadly two stories of homelessness. We want it to be an illustration of a moral we already know. We want things to be simple, and we want them to make us feel good, so we turn Christianity into a fable and ourselves into Aesop, the august storyteller who’s always a step ahead, finishing every story with a knowing, parental, ‘Now you mark my words.’Īnd this is the story we want to tell about homelessness.
If you detect a hint of cynicism in my voice it’s because I believe this is how our culture has carefully domesticated Christianity. Every episode would end with each light in the house going out and a parent lingering with a sleepy child drawing a moral out of the day’s events. The long-running American soap opera The Waltons, set in the mountains of Virginia in the hungry thirties, depicts a simpler time when teenage boys were content to wear short trousers and girls were glad to wear pinafore dresses and whole families could be decked out in gingham. There’s a part of each one of us that would like to be Aesop, always a step ahead of everyone else, constantly able to draw a moral out of every challenging moment. You’ll know the story because it’s one of Aesop’s Fables. ‘Was I not right?’ said the little Mouse. Just then the little Mouse was passing by, and seeing the plight of the Lion, started to gnaw away at the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. Some while after, the Lion was caught in a trap, and hunters tied him to a tree. I shall never forget it: and I may be able to do you a favour in the future.’ The Lion was so amused the idea of the Mouse being able to help him, that he let him go. ‘Pardon, O King,’ cried the little Mouse, ‘forgive me this time.
This soon awakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon the Mouse and opened his big jaws to swallow him. Once when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him.
0 kommentar(er)
