Dave's Shabbat sermon at Mount Zion June 2010

This week's Torah portion tells the story of Balak, a prince of Moab, and Balaam, a priest of a neighboring people, and their struggle to react of the coming of the Israelites into their lands. I also believe it offers an allegory of one person's courage to speak God's words of truth in the face of an unjust regime that offers him rich rewards for complacency and collusion.

Prince Balak sends the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian to ask the priest Balaam to curse the Israelites, who are so numerous and threatening that they "hide the earth from view". Twice they entreat Blaam to curse the Israelites, and twice he refuses, though they promise him silver and gold. Finally, God comes to Balaam and instructs him to go with the dignitaries to Prince Balak-- as long as he speaks whatever word God instructs him to speak. Ultimately, as we might expect, this is a pretty big disappointment to Balak, who was counting on a spectacular curse to give him an edge in driving off the Israelites.

We might also not be surprised that when our God said, speak "one word", God really meant "a whole bunch of words". Out of those words that Balaam ends of speaking, one passage caught my attention:

"... how can I damn whom God has not damned,
How doom when the Lord has not doomed?
May I die the death of the upright,
May my fate be like theirs?"

So how does this help us to think about ending homelessness?

I'll start with two propositions. First, in a society in which basic housing is a privilege with a fairly high price, instead of a basic human right, we will never end homelessness. Second, this society is not a Jewish society-- this is not a society we would willfully construct from scratch, from Jewish ethical principles, if we had the chance. Nor, I might add, is it a Christian or a Muslim society. All other difficulties aside, I don't believe that we would damn those whom God has not damned.

But just like Balaam, we are called to bless our society again and again with our passive consent and participation, with our silence and submission, and we are offered all sorts of rewards for assimilating into it and accepting its gold and silver.

We are called to bless a society that damns so many with mental illness to homelessness without treatment; a society that damns our children to grow up hungry and in poverty; a society that damns men and women with full-time jobs to poverty wages that strand them in shelters. And we are called to bless it every day, just by showing up wherever it calls us to be, in silent obedience.

It's interesting to me that God ultimately instructs Balaam to let the dignitaries of Moab and Midian bring him to the Prince, instead of simply sending them away. It's almost as though God wanted Balaam to go to the belly of the beast, where hatred and misunderstanding were thick, to pronounce God's word.

Who among us would have the courage to speak God's word in the belly of our beast? What would it sound like? Was Balaam fearful of retribution, for speaking in defense of these newcomers to his land? What retribution do we fear most?

What if we speak against the homelessness that racism creates? Minnesota has a race problem and we don't want to talk about it. Recent reports rate us among the worst states and worst metro areas in the country for disparities between white and black homeownership, educational attainment, rates of unemployment, and rates of high-cost loans originated to those with similar income levels. Who are we waiting for to speak God's words here?

My friend Velva is still waiting. She is one of the resident leaders of our foreclosure prevention and fair lending coalition in north Minneapolis. A few years ago, citations from the city forced Velva to seek a home equity loan for some repairs to her house. Despite her solid income and high credit, several banks turned her down, and she ended up with a predatory loan that ultimately led to foreclosure. I should mention that when she approached various banks for a loan, Velva had already paid off the mortgage on her home. Her young nephew ran up the stairs of her house to surprise his Aunt Velva, only to find strangers answering the door.

There is a kind of homelessness inflicted upon a person, a family, and a community, when injustices like these are multiplied so many times over; a homelessness of the soul when one is told, you will never be one of us, you will never thrive among us, you will never be at home here, and no matter what shelter you erect over your head, we may tear it down in the morning. This homelessness haunts any people of the exodus, and it haunts us Jews. Perhaps one reason this fatal stone of racism drops so deeply into the well of our collective conscience is that it finds in our depths an answering set of experiences, of migrations, of expulsions, of homelessness. Perhaps it is that stone we must clutch tightly in our fists as we walk with the dignitaries of our system, with their silver and gold, so that we don't lose our courage to speak God's word, that we will all lose if we damn those whom God has not damned.

Prince Balak asks Balaam three times to curse the Israelites. The first two times, Balaam builds seven alters and seeks an omen from God before pronouncing God's words. But the third time, we read that Balaam does not go in search of omens, but instead turns his face toward the wilderness, where Israel is encamped tribe by tribe. The spirit of God then comes upon him, as he turns towards those whom he is expected to curse.

When we turn our faces towards those on the margins of our society, those who are homeless, those who are forced into desperation by predatory lenders, poverty wages and poor health insurance, we have the chance to really see them, instead of relying on reports that they "blot out the earth". We have the chance to share stories, build relationships as peers, as human beings all created b'tselem elohim, in the image of God. This can begin to happen when a congregation hosts a homeless shelter and conversations emerge between volunteers and homeless families; it can begin to happen when a white Jew and an African American Christian knock on doors together to connect homeowners with foreclosure counseling.

When they are humble, and authentic, and enduring, these relationships can be transformative. They can help us realize that in order to end homelessness, we need to first accept the deep homelessness inflicted upon us, both historically as a people of the exodus, and today whenever another person, or another community is made homeless and an outcast among us; we can then struggle with how we are all embedded in this system where shelter is not a right. And we can gather all our courage and presence of mind as we find ourselves walking deeper into this system which is and is not ours. Only then can we pronounce God's words to end the homelessness that emanates from, and is reinforced by a thousand thousand decisions, policies and prejudices, generation by generation. Only then, I believe, and only through us can God's words achieve their true redemptive power, starting from and returning to and transforming each of us to our very core.

Shabbat Shalom!