Sunday Morning Sermon

Third Sunday of Easter   19 April 2015

 Psalm 4:” I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety”

Do you know that there are over 100 million people world-wide who do not have a place to lay their head consistently night after night? The number of homeless people that were in the New York City shelter system last April was 54,667. Nearly a third of those in NYC’s shelter system work and 80 percent live with their spouses or kids….a frightening statistic.  Teachers across the city have commented again and again on the negative effect that homelessness has on children.  Some children travel over two hours each way to return to their old neighborhood schools often hiding the fact that they are homeless from their peers. When I was teaching at a local Intermediate School, we had a student who became homeless and lived with his grandmother in the Bronx travelling two and a half hours each way to go to school with his friends on Staten Island.
Children living in the shelter system in our city do not fare well on the standardized tests that students have been required to take.  These families struggle to just keep each other together and school work often comes in last when they are in search of permanent or temporary housing options.

And we are hearing more and more that many of our local residents are being pushed out of the housing market here on Staten Island. Do you know what the city’s income guidelines are? According to citywide guidelines, "low income" refers to an annual income for a four-person household of $41,951 to $67,120. "Moderate income" ranges from $67,121 to $100,680, and "middle income" reaches up to $138,435. That is mind blowing. To bring this closer to home, the median income on Staten Island was $71,966 in 2011.  In 2013 the median income on the North Shore was $55,272 in comparison to 82,921 in Tottenville. So many of our neighbors are struggling to support their families, buy food and clothing, and pay rent. The median asking rent for a two bedroom apartment on Staten Island has risen to $1817 in 2015 from 1250 just two years ago.

There is some good news on the horizon. For the first time in the last three decades, our city is going through its fastest job growth rate. However, the majority of the jobs that are currently being created and offered are in low-paying industries: hospitality and food services. In the construction trade, once a powerhouse industry in this town, over thousand jobs have been lost.

Many Christians contend that Jesus himself was a homeless person, and certainly, his time as an itinerant preacher would make it seem that he was without permanent residence. And he was laid to rest in a borrowed tomb.

We know that Jesus was interested in feeding both the soul and body of his followers.  One of my favorite stories of the Gospels is the feeding of the 5,000.  As someone who actually prefers to eat fish, the feeding of so many from so few fish is amazing…I often wondered if they were filleted or bone in. (I prefer filleted fish)

Last week I went to the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development from whom we get city council discretionary funding through our Council Member to run our Holiday Basket Program.  I actually had to provide numbers for how many people benefited from this program.  After calculating the numbers and dong the math I came up with the total number of people who benefited from this program: 3,630 in one year. If we also look at the number of folks served at the Trinity Soup Kitchen by Victor and the Second Saturday crew…a total of over 1225 last year alone, the total of meals provided to our community by Christ Church is very close to 5,000 meals. I was blown away by this figure; it is a credit to this congregation that we are able to do this with the support of a dedicated core of volunteers and financial supporters. 

Yesterday at the Soup Kitchen, where we feed 102 people, two very inebriated Mexican day-laborers caused a bit of a scene during which they tossed their lunches into “la basura” (the garbage),  and began storming out. They stopped at the door to inform us that they were homeless and wanted us to feed them and give them another plate. After several bi-lingual moments they finally realized that once you threw out your lunch, it was pretty much gone.  We tried to guide them to the adjacent Food Pantry that does create special bags for unhoused folk with no preparation needed items like crackers, peanut butter, canned fish, dried fruit, fresh apples and bread.  After some resistance, they both signed up and each got a bag of food-to-go.  But I also knew that their homeless condition could not be dealt with until they sobered up.

This made me think about the men from Project Hospitality who sleep in our gym every night. Just how many of them were in this very situation?  How many men have slept in our basement over the years? I understand that Christ Church has been a hosting site since 1997. At that time I was a newly ordained Deacon at St. Andrew’s where ten men had begun sleeping in the year before.  I recall that there was some push-back there at the time, and I was not surprised to learn there was also some push-back here as well. Yet today in both places, this has become a long-term commitment and is seen as part of the everyday running of the Church’s community commitment. This is a good and wholesome thing to be doing, but is there more? There always is, but what that might be is not yet evident.  Perhaps we need to put this to prayer and seek some spiritual guidance as to the next chapter of this work at Christ church.  I have no answers; I have no proposal; the answer lies with the whole community discerning in prayer where we are to go.