Matters having to do with homes and homelessness lie at the very center of our faith tradition. These are not peripheral issues for any of us who claim the religious heritage of the ancient Near East.
The reason for that is simple, and reference to that reason is made in the Book of Deuteronomy. We all descend in faith from a group of wanderers who pitched tents at water holes in the desert. To deny anyone access to a tent or a water hole in that time and place would mean to put their life in danger. As a result, the manners of the desert, from which all of our faith traditions spring, included an ironclad rule of hospitality. That hospitality is enshrined in our liturgy as we speak the ancient words of God to God's people: "You shall not oppress the stranger or the sojourner, for you know the heart of the stranger, and you yourselves were once strangers and sojourners in Egypt."
These are some of the most ancient words of the Bible. When the people of Egypt gathered for worship, they were instructed to remember their wandering heritage by reciting these words every time they made gifts to the temple: "My ancestor was a wandering Aramean, who wandered down into Egypt."
Sometimes we think that escalating housing prices and strangulating rents are a new thing. But I'm here to tell you that these are matters with which the prophets of the Hebrew Bible concerned themselves all the time. In 700 B.C., the prophet Isaiah's time was not unlike our own, at least as far as housing is concerned. Developers (yes, there were developers 2,700 years ago) were buying all the real estate. They were selling it at prices far exceeding the ability of the local people to pay. The only people who could afford these houses were essentially royalty, which meant that the people of the land had no place to stand.
