Jesus the Homeless

In 2014, a church in nearby Davidson, North Carolina erected a statue depicting the risen Jesus as a vagrant sleeping on a park bench. He is huddled under a blanket with his face and hands obscured; only the stigmata on his uncovered feet reveal His identity. There is room on the bench to sit with Him. The reaction from the community was immediate… and mixed. Some residents felt it was an "insulting depiction" of Jesus that "demeaned" the neighborhood. Someone called the police, mistaking the statue for a real homeless person. Others were open to living amidst this powerful image.

The artist, a Canadian sculptor named Timothy Schmalz says he understands that his Jesus the Homeless is provocative. But, "that's essentially what the sculpture is there to do," he says. "It's meant to challenge people." He explains that it is intended as a visual translation of the passage in the Book of Matthew, in which Jesus tells his disciples, "As you did it to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me."

The statue has been offered to and considered by many prominent churches around the world, but its acceptance has not been universal. It did, however, find an admirer in Rome where Schmalz traveled to the Vatican to present a miniature of the statue to Pope Francis. "He walked over to the sculpture, touched the knee of the Jesus the Homeless sculpture, closed his eyes and prayed. It was chilling," Schmalz says. "It was like, that's what he's doing throughout the whole world – the pope is reaching out to the marginalized." A few years later, the installation of the bronze Jesus on a park bench was completed on the Via della Conciliazione, the avenue leading to St. Peter's Basilica.

About the same time, the Westminster City Council in the center of London rejected an application for a homeless Jesus sculpture on the grounds that it would "fail to maintain

or improve" the character of the area. What was later proven to be incredibly coincidental, the Manchester City Council jumped at the opportunity to have that sculpture be sited outside the historic St. Ann's Church in the heart of its city “to raise awareness of the plight of homeless people in the city”.

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On May 24th, as Manchester, the entirety of Great Britain and the rest of the world were coming to terms with that country’s deadliest terrorist attack in more than a decade, Chris Parker, a 33-year-old who was and had been homeless for about a year, together with Stephen Jones, were being hailed on social media for their selflessness and courage for coming to the aid of the wounded after the Manchester bombing. You see, rather than running for safety upon the explosion, Mr. Parker went to the aid of victims. He pulled nails out of children’s arms and from the face of a small girl. He comforted another girl who had lost her legs, wrapping her in a t-shirt. He cradled a dying woman in his arms. “Just because I am homeless doesn’t mean I haven’t got a heart, or that I’m not human still,” he told ITV News. “I’d like to think someone would come and help me if I needed it,” he said, adding that he had been overcome by an “instinct” to pitch in.

So, while most people who see the statue reflect on how the homeless are seen and treated, Mr. Parker showed us what just what Jesus would do if He were able to come off that park bench! How about that for a plot twist?

In his autobiography Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen opined that “art is art … life is life … and, life trumps art…always”. He could not have spoken any greater truth as it related to the situational irony that just played out in Manchester, in the shadow of that Jesus the Homeless statue.