Homelessness of Jesus

Canadian sculptor Tim Schmalz's sculpture Jesus the Homeless

The homelessness of Jesus lasted for the entirety of his public ministry. He left the economic security he had as an artisan and the reciprocity he had with his family and wandered Palestine depending on charity. Most of the people on whom he depended for charity were women. Because his ministry took place in the vicinity of his disciples' hometowns, it is likely that the group often slept at the homes of the disciples' family members. Of the Four Evangelists, Luke emphasizes Jesus' homelessness the most. Matthew 8:20 and Luke 9:59 both record a statement by Jesus in which he indicates his homelessness by saying that foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Sophiologists interpreted Jesus' homelessness as the homelessness of Sophia. New Monastic writer Shane Claiborne refers to Jesus as "the homeless rabbi". Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether discusses Jesus' homelessness in relation to the concept of kenosis, the voluntary renunciation of power in order to submit to the will of God. In a book length study on the Gospel of Matthew, Robert J. Myles has argued that the homelessness of Jesus is often romanticized in biblical interpretation in a way that obscures the destitution and lack of agency that would have likely accompanied the situation.

Canadian sculptor Tim Schmalz created Jesus the Homeless, a bronze sculpture of Jesus lying on a park bench covered in a blanket with his wounded feet protruding.