On Redeeming the Slaughter of the Innocents

By Carl Mazza

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." Matthew 2:16-18

Among the greatest infamies in the Bible is King Herod's slaughter of the innocents. His preoccupation with holding on to power caused him to order the murder of every boy under the age of two, in hope of eliminating one Jesus who had attracted the attention of the visiting magi and hence the dark preoccupation of Herod.

The story gives us an insight into the character of a politically powerful man intent on keeping what is his. That he is bloodthirsty does not appall us as much as that he could so carelessly snuff out the lives of so many children before cooly sitting down to dinner.

This biblical symbol of absolute moral depravity represents more than just the evil act of a single person. It indicts the soldiers who perform the act, the legislators who made no protest, the religious leaders and the whole society who, either through blindness or fear, accepted the atrocity and moved on.

Thus the prophetic challenge of this stunning incident is addressed to any people or nation which stands idly by at the waste of its most innocent and vulnerable members. On the other side, the highest measure of a nation's idealism and virtue is the way in which it nurtures, protects, and values its children.

The vilest moral epidemic of our culture is its neglect, exploitation, and abuse of its children. According to The State of America's Children 2005, published by the Children's Defense Fund, "Families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, now accounting for 40 percent of the nation's homeless." [p.122] Such a fact should prompt us to ask how a society as wealthy as ours, with its enormous capacity for creativity and innovation, allows this social crisis to exist and thrive. Aside from its immediate victims, the homelessness of children today endangers the future strength of the social order for all people.

Yet, the more important question, that which indicts our present culture as surely as the moral silence of ancient Judea, is the non-effect of our huge religious establishment. Why have churches and faith communities remained so patient, so quiet, and so accepting of the waste of our children?

This past spring my eyes were open much wider to this reality. I was walking on Main Street in Elkton when a young woman crossed over to say hello. She is 21 years old. She and her family have lived at Meeting Ground on and off over the years at times when they slipped into homelessness. The family struggled constantly to stay afloat and moments of stability and regularity were rare. The three children were always surrounded by chaos.

As we stood on the sidewalk she told me that she had just been released from prison and was living with "a friend" trying to find a job and a place to stay. Her older brother, age 23, was still incarcerated. Her younger brother continued to live with their mother hand-to-mouth in a motel. They are all school dropouts. The older two never even made it to high school. They have no base on which to build a life, no direction or incentive, and the concept of hope is a distant, irrelevant ideal. Homelessness spirals from one generation to the next.

Meeting Ground's commitment to the care and nurture of children who have experienced homelessness is based partly on our intimate awareness of this tragic circle. But it is also based on the knowledge our community has gained over the years that even small intervention in the lives of kids can make a huge difference in their potential to succeed and thrive as adults.

RoadWorks is Meeting Ground's new program of aftercare designed to follow-up the children and youth of families that have experienced homelessness. The objective of this project is to provide ongoing friendship, counsel, mentoring, and access to tangible material resources as means of empowerment for kids who have been homeless - to offer tools, possibilities, and vision to help them realize their hopes, dreams, and life potential.

Many of us are passionate about this cause because we have been there ourselves. We understand all too well the power homelessness holds over young hearts and minds, and it won't easily go away even with the passing of years.

As our board member Tracey McCaw has described in an article she wrote in Loaves & Fishes a year ago:

I was homeless most of my childhood; went to 13 different school systems from kindergarten to 8th grade. We did always have food; somehow that was never something I had to worry about. We didn't always have electric and heat; there were summers and winters without either. We rarely had a house of our own after I was age 7; if we had a place we didn't get to stay there long enough to fit in to the community. We stayed in other people's houses, imposing on their lives and cramping up their space with our bags and boxes of stuff. We never had enough clothes to wear something different 5 days in a row; for going to school; can you understand the implication?

The clothes we had usually didn't fit well because children grow fast and the little bits of money that we had were not used for us to have comfortable things. We lost so many things; pictures, keepsakes, pets; can you imagine it? We rarely got to have meals around a table, rarely had beds to sleep on and rarely had space of our own. We couldn't get to gatherings or children's parties to be included and have fun. You see when you have to ask people to take you places for necessities then you shouldn't ask them to take you places for fun; that is too much usage of a resource that is not your own.... The time I spent with my family at the homeless shelters was over a period of 4 years, from when I was ages 10 to 14. I hated being at the homeless shelters as much as I hated living in other people's homes.

Faith communities are uniquely able to address root causes of the disabling effects of homelessness among kids. To break the cycle which repeats this experience, attention must be given to young people whose lives have been disastrously affected. At the center of this help is personal care and support of a "neighborhood" of folks who know about resources and how to access them.

Most important is our trust, our unshakable faith in the inherent promise of each person, no matter the circumstances of life. Redemption is more than a doctrine, it is tangible work to which persons of faith feel they have been called. It is realized through creating new networks of
relationships in a needy world, releasing the power of "beloved community" among all. There is something dynamic unleashed when we gather to do mission.

This spring a six year old girl, homeless with her family at Clairvaux Farm refreshed this lesson for me in a simple, beautiful way. She shyly opened the office door one afternoon and came in to ask if I would mind digging through a box of recently donated office supplies to see if there were some "kid's glue" that she could use for a project. Sure enough, we found what she wanted and she walked out with happy purpose!

A few days later these colorful drawings began to appear all over the farm. They were bright, sunny landscapes with cut-outs of happy people glued on green fields. Farm community folk began proudly showing off their gifts from Haley. The smiles and approvals she got as she gave them away motivated her mission even more. It made her happy to know that she was helping relieve another person's loneliness and sadness. I knew how others were feeling the day I myself received one!

This example may help us keep our ambitious new project for kids firmly rooted in its simple promise. What we ultimately hope to do is relieve suffering we wish we could have prevented, rekindle confidence which should not be robbed from any child, and by God's grace extend the boundaries of redemption among many.