Local wealthy women have been calling the police to report the "homeless person" so that he can be dragged away and shoved out of sight, maybe jailed. “I was concerned for the safety of the neighborhood,” she said.
Right-wing blogs are complaining that the statue shoves a liberal agenda, and that the cost of the statue would best be used feeding the poor (an argument not accepted by Jesus (Matthew 26: 6-10).
Its not too difficult to see why they are upset. Showing the reality that Jesus was a homeless person and bringing up the uncomfortable notion that how we treat the poor reflects badly on us, is very disquieting to people who like to think of themselves as good christians, but who would rather call the police than help a homeless person. Jesus himself made this point in Matthew 25 -"Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"
But then the passage from Matthew 25 is really the one passage in the bible that American Evangelicals hate the most. Not only does it equate the homeless, outcast and marginalized as identical to Jesus, it destroys the very core of American Christianity - the Gospel of Greed.
Americans have spent generations pretending that it is faith alone that gets you into heaven. Simply "believe" and you get your free ticket into heaven. However, Jesus himself made many, many statements to the contrary. You can not only remember the one where he described how the cut will be made (Matthew 25), but also his clear message to the Rich man who had done so much to follow Jesus, but because he could not give up his riches, he was doomed never to enter heaven. The "eye of a needle" verse. Then there is the stuff on how you had it on earth, so you're not getting it in heaven.
Simply put, Jesus' message was to share what you have with the less fortunate, and this message is incompatible with modern American life.
Having a statue remind people that how they treat the homeless is a reflection on just how little they understand Christ's message is of course deeply disquieting. Thankfully the artist is selling these to anyone who wants them, so the message will spread. He has another statue with a beggar with hand outstretched with a nail hole in the hand and a third reaching out from the jail cell that the wealthy woman wanted to send him to.
