'Homeless Jesus' May Find a Place to Rest in Metro Detroit

“Homeless Jesus” has provoked sentiments from charity to criticism in the cities where it’s been installed. (Photo via Sculpture by Timothy Schmalz Facebook page)

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An anonymous donor who grew up in Grosse Pointe has stepped forward with $32,000 to pay for the installation of “Homeless Jesus,” a life-sized bronze sculpture, somewhere in the Detroit metro.

The 7-foot statue of a life-sized man huddled under a blanket on a park bench could any homeless man, but for the marks on his bare feet that show the wounds of his crucifixion. Pope Francis, who blessed a small model of the sculpture at Vatican City in 2013, called it a “beautiful and excellent” representation of Jesus.

Not everyone in the cities in the United States, Europe and Canada where the sculpture has already been installed had such things to say about “Homeless Jesus,” though.

In North Carolina, startled residents of the wealthy community of Davidson called the cops on Jesus after mistaking the sleeping bronze figure for a vagrant. Someone else complained that “Homeless Jesus” literally looks like a bum, and that’s demeaning. In a letter to DavidsonNews.net editor David Brooks, a guy who lives near the installation said the depiction of Jesus “creeps him out.”

Confronting Homelessness

The creator of “Homeless Jesus,” Toronto-area sculptor Timothy Schmalz, 45, said the sculpture is intended as a call to action among Christians.

“It’s putting it really within the grasp of everyone. Most representations of Jesus are unattainable,” Schmalz, who is Catholic, told the Free Press. “But it’s a sculpture you can merge with, something you can experience.”

In some places, “Homeless Jesus” is inspiring people as Schmalz intended.

After one of the sculptures was unveiled earlier this month at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, NY, people began leaving money, food and other items for city’s homeless population.

But across the ocean, “Homeless Jesus” has been turned away for some reasons that might come as a surprise.

Consider the benefactor in London who offered to pay for an installation at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square. The church’s own rules prohibiting people from sleeping in the church or its grounds stood in the way.

“It would open us to ridicule,” St. Martin’s vicar, Canon Sam Wells told the Anglican newspaper the Church Times. “People would say: ‘Jesus does it; Why can’t I do this?’ It sounds trivial, but it is significant that we have a whole-site policy that doesn’t allow people to lie down on our site.”

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Sculptor Schmalz told Christian Today that he’s surprised at some of the reaction to his work.

“If they reject the ‘Homeless Jesus’ sculpture, they are rejecting one of the most sacred aspects of Christianity – that when we see the least of these our brothers and sisters, we should see Jesus and act accordingly,” he said.

After St. Martin’s turned down the sculpture, Methodist Central Hall Westminster showed interest in becoming the first Methodist church worldwide to receive a “Homeless Jesus” statue.

“It is very appropriate that Jesus is outside the church and not inside; it will remind us of the heart of Jesus for the poor and marginalized,” the Rev Martin Turner of Westminster said.

Center that Serves Homeless Possible Detroit Site

In Detroit, the Rev. Kenneth James Flowers of Greater New Mt. Moriah Baptist Church welcomes a “Homeless Jesus,” the Free Press said. Quoting Matthew, Chapter 25, he said it’s not an offense to Jesus to display him as homeless.

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“Because in Matthew 25, we see Jesus on the side of the oppressed,” Flowers said. “Jesus talks about what you do to the least of others, you do to me. He talks about feeding the hungry, caring for the needy.”

The Rev. Gary Wright of SS. Peter and Paul Jesuit Church said he’d like to see it installed near a warming center his church operates for the homeless.

“As a piece of art, it scrambles your brain. It makes you stop and think,” Wright told the Free Press. “The typical person is going to look at it and say, ‘Oh, that’s what I don’t want to be like.’ And then we notice it’s Christ and it makes us stop and think. The main message is that in the heart of each person is the presence of God.”

The church is part of what is now University of Mercy Law Center, the alma mater of the anonymous donor, who now lives in Colorado.

He told the Free Press the sculpture would be a symbol of hope in financially troubled Detroit.

“It’s needed there,” he said. “And then I got a hold of Tim and said I’d like to do this.”