I was in a local neighborhood last week behind a private school bus, slowed down by regular stops in front of palatial homes in one of Charlotte’s more expensive neighborhoods. Little children leaped off the bus and walked up to multi-million dollar homes without a care in the world. Or maybe they had so many cares in the world. Who knows?
I was wondering, “What is it like for a child to grow up in a house like that?“
People – as adults – often refer to their childhoods by saying “I didn’t know we were poor” or “I had no idea we were rich.” Kids imagine that their worlds are like everybody’s world . . . until they experience visiting a classroom friend whose home life is very different from their own. And some kids are never exposed to anyone who’s life is in a different caste from their own.
Yes – we live in a caste system in the United States. There are kids (I was one of them) for whom college was an expectation. And there are kids for whom college is a dream . . . unless they go into profound debt and then they might spend the rest of their lives paying it back. Unless they sell a multi-million dollar app to Silicon Valley, they will never be able to own a home in a middle class neighborhood much less in the Home Alone neighborhood pictured above. And there are kids who know from an early age that they will never escape their circumstances.
Remember that Jesus was born in a cave.
I have visited that cave – or at least the space below the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem which is presumed to be the site of Jesus’s birth – and it was safe and dry. But it was not a proper home. It was a space to keep farm animals. In spite of the plethora of creche sets framing the Holy Family in a wooden stable, there were no stables except for caves. Jesus was born in a cave.
[Note: Although it’s for another blog post, also remember that the birthplace of Jesus along with many places where he taught are now under fire and/or being settled illegally by people dispossessing those who’ve lived in the West Bank for generations.]
Especially today when money seems to be everything, when young people aspire to “be rich” rather than serve a calling that brings them meaning or purpose or offers service to others, we need authenticity and goodness and grace and altruism and compassion for other human beings. Even in my Church Bubble, I find it surprising when people make sacrifices for each other. (I just watched Leave the World Behind which illustrates our tendency to take care of our own families at the expense of our neighbors.)
As we approach the day when we remember that our Creator came to us in the form of a poor Palestinian child who was called The Son of David because of his Israelite heritage, we must remember that wealth separates us in more ways than one. Most of us don’t live in million dollar homes or drive new cars or have college educations or travel internationally on a regular basis or eat in 5 star ( or even 3 star) restaurants or have dependable health care. The wealthiest among us are generally separated from what our poorer neighbors goes through every day.
And so we wait. We wait for justice. We wait for the coming of God’s reign. We wait in hope.
A Church for Starving Artists 