I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that poor innkeeper in Bethlehem. You know, the one who turned away Mary and Joseph on the night Jesus was born. I realize it seems odd, given that it’s February and no one thinks about the innkeeper except on December 24^th.

Let me explain.

Several weeks back, I saw this post on a friend’s Facebook wall:

One of my [homeless] clients this morning: “You wanna know why I slept on the street last night? Because I got turned away at the shelter on account of it not being cold enough outside.” <angry-face emoji>

I think it was the angry-face emoji that got me.

Confessions of a Reluctant Shelter Keeper

I was struck by this post mostly because my own church, Mercy Community Church of Little Rock, runs just such a shelter. If it’s precipitating, we’re open when the temperature dips below 32 degrees. If it’s clear, below 25 degrees. We might as well have been the shelter that turned that guy away.

For context, my church consists almost entirely of people who have lived on the streets at one point or another in their lives—and many who live on the streets now. When we opened in 2015, we had no paid staff and no building of our own. Our total annual budget was less than $3,000, most of which came out of my pocket.

We never intended to run an emergency shelter. Our vision was to create a space of hospitality where people living in all circumstances could find community, to laugh and pray and worship together every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. But as the weather got colder, it became more and more difficult to close the doors after worship and send our friends out onto the streets to make do for the night.

So we opened a shelter. We borrowed 15 cots from the local Red Cross and begged local churches to help us prepare food for those taking shelter together. Because we wanted our friends to be safe, and because we want to be good neighbors to the church that lets us use their building for free, we committed to having two members of our visioning team at the shelter any time it was open.

That means every single night the shelter opens its doors, there are two members of our team spending the night away from our homes, away from our families, away from our children. We are sleeping poorly on army cots in a church basement and then going to work the next morning. At least one of us is staying awake at all times in case someone in the shelter community needs us. That to say—opening a shelter is not without its costs.

I think this is the situation in most emergency shelters. I know it is the case in the emergency shelters in Little Rock, where I live. They are run by volunteers doing the best they can given the resources they have.

When these are your realities, you have to make some decisions about how often you can be open. It is too much of a burden to staff a shelter every night with no money and—more importantly—limited volunteer staff.

So that angry-face emoji really got to me. It felt personal. It felt unfair.

Turning Away Angels Quite Aware

But I think the angry-face emoji mostly got to me because deep down I know my friend is right. It is unconscionable that we could let our brothers and sisters sleep on the streets when it is 33 and raining. It is unforgivable for people to be sleeping on concrete sidewalks at 26 degrees. I know it. And I feel it every time I turn folks away from our shelter. Every time I make the call that we will not be open.

Hebrews 13:2 instructs, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels unawares.”

Given that logic, I can only imagine how many angels I have turned away to shiver in the cold.

So I have been thinking about the innkeeper in Bethlehem, and how hard it must have been for him to refuse a pregnant woman and her husband traveling from afar. I now imagine him having limited space and limited resources, making the best decisions he could make given the circumstances he was in. I have been thinking about how hard a time we have given him in our sermons and Christmas pageants over the millennia. Like a 2,000-year-long angry-face emoji. Poor guy.

Redirecting Anger

Then I think that our anger is misplaced. Instead of directing our anger at the innkeepers and shelter staff, maybe we should be angry with an economic system that enriches the 1% while leaving others to sleep in the cold. Maybe we should be angry with “urban renewal” policies that force low-income residents out of their homes so the hipsters can move in. Maybe we should be angry about cities that fail to build low income housing units anywhere near places that people can work. About a lack of mental healthcare that leaves those with untreated mental illnesses to fend for themselves without jobs or housing. About interstate highways that divide and devastate thriving neighborhoods.

Let’s be angry about that, I say. Let’s take our anger to our community leaders and policymakers. Let’s take our anger to the town halls. Let’s take it to the ballot box, shall we? Maybe we can make life better for an angel or two.