The Homeless Christ

You still walk the streets, our streets,
looking for a place to put your head,
still poorer than a bird in its nest.

You still knock
on the double-latched bolted-shut door
with Christians inside.

Christ, you are still discarded
and dropped in the wastebasket
of sometime or never.

Christ, your chance is still slim
in our land of goodness and keep-smiling,
where we live by your ethics without knowing you.
Proclaimed: teacher among teachers, king among kings,
God among Gods, one of the may ways to salvation,
take it or leave it.

Jesus, don't let me live outside of you, outside of the heart of the world.
Smash down my locked door, rest in my house and sit at my table.
Let me be on your side, drown me in your love.
Neglect the name and number that I am,
the address and place in or out of society
and break through to me to release the weights
clinging to my hands and feet.

And love me into your love, into your Christmas.

by Ulrich Schaffer, in Greater Than Our Hearts: Prayers And Reflections