Wanted – Lodgings For Unemployed Single Man -- By Ronnie Bray

Landlords coming across the want ad, ‘Wanted – Lodgings for Unemployed Single Man’ might be forgiven if they don’t excitedly get in touch with the advertiser to offer their accommodation.  It is reasonable for those renting rooms to be sure that their prospective tenants have the means of paying their rent. 

If the homeless had described himself as a ‘gentleman with private means’ it would give encouragement to landlords, especially those that have had their share of rent-skipping fly-by-nights, because most landlords don’t let their accommodation spaces for love.  They are in the lodging business to make income. 

If the lodging seeker had been more forthcoming about his life-style and intentions for the future, someone with a room to let might have been prepared to take a risk on him.

It has been said that an optimist is someone looking for a room that takes his saxophone and piano accordion along on the hunt.  How much in need of a tenant does a landlord have to be to open his doors and arms wide to someone that carries with him the means of annoying his other tenants? 

Let’s play fly-on-the-wall to find out how this particular unemployed single man spends his time.  Why shouldn’t we?  Landlords are only human and the old adage ‘Once bitten twice shy’ is at the front of every landlord’s mind.  If it isn’t, then he is either new to the business, or else he has been lucky. 

There are always certain risks when you open your home to strangers.  It makes sense to learn as much as possible about a potential client and the more you know about him the better you are to make a sound decision about whether or not to take him in.  However, all that is known is that he is unmarried, out of work, and needs a place to stay.

We have a room to rent, times are hard, but we must be careful, we feel justified in being cautious and so we followed him discreetly to acquaint ourselves with his character.

A few days and we had our summary.  It was not encouraging.  It noted that he keeps company with dubious characters, drinks with working men but never buys a round, and he is known to take meals with contemptible people.  He seems comfortable when he is with outcasts that some believe are the dregs of society, the lumpenproletariat. 

He talks a lot, is generally soft spoken, and, strange to say, most people enjoy listening to him.  He dresses like an out-of-towner, talks with a northern accent, and wants the polished speech of genteel urbanites.  

More disturbing is the observation that he has attracted the attention of the police, who, it is said, are watching him closely.  He has a small gang of permanent followers that are as impoverished as he is, so we presume that they too live on the generosity of strangers. 

A red flag was raised by the particularly harsh way he spoke to a group of evangelists.  It looked as if they were trying to make him into saying something they could use against him, but he was too smart for them and called their bluff.  Loudly he denounced them as heretics - and worse.  The result was that they were quite humiliated and shuffled off muttering excitedly that they would make him pay for what they took to be his sarcasm.  Whatever they thought, it was clear that he felt justified in exposing their hypocritical cant and superficial religiosity. 

When speaking to others he was so gentle that he put them at ease.  Most people liked him and moved in closer to him as if they were old and comfortable friends.  This made us think he might have a split personality, such as a Mr Nice Guy and a Mr Nasty.  We were not the only ones that thought that.  Some even thought he was mad, or drunk, or in the grip of a malevolent humour, and said so.  Others nodded in agreement. 

The summary concluded that he was either a wonderful or a dangerous man, depending on which group your ear got caught in, and which you believed.  It was not helpful to us because it didn’t tell us whether would he murder us in our beds, pay his rent, bring outcasts home to disturb our peace, set fire to the house, or run off with our daughter?  We were just as indecisive as we were before.  He didn’t seem like a lot of trouble, but would he have our rent money? 

Then the matter was taken right out of our hands because he was arrested.  It looked as if his goose was well and truly cooked because some powerful people brought accusations against him.  We knew he was different, but the complaints showed a side of him that knocked us right off our buffets. 

He was accused of anarchy, plotting to overthrow government, and of making himself more important than local and national authorities.  It was told he had run amok in a market, assaulted people, and had upset their stalls.  Some said he was mentally ill, paranoid, a megalomaniac, and a danger to life and limb.  We had had a close shave!  It was even charged that he intended to destroy a national monument and then build a better one by his alleged magic power. 

Others said he was a political activist, a revolutionary leading an army of terrorist insurgents that would attack the city at night, overthrow the administration, and set up his junta.  His wandering habits and his parleying with all and sundry was really a secret campaign to recruit fellow radicals to his cause. 

They dragged him quickly to trial.  His trial was unusual because witnesses flatly contradicted each other.  Some opined that witnesses had been paid to lie and there would have been laughter in court as one witness after another contradicted each other, except the court dealt harshly with any that didn’t take its proceedings with absolute gravity. 

He was pronounced guilty of everything they charged him with.  It was obviously a pre-determined verdict.  However, what was even more unusual was the chief justice’s announcement that he was sending the case to the Supreme Court for sentencing. 

Some demurred at verdict, but did so quietly, on grounds that no defence was mounted.  The homeless man was not represented, and didn’t open his mouth in his defence.  By any legal standards, it was clearly a mistrial, but it was evident that the court officials were not willing to risk losing control of the situation and relinquish the opportunity to have the ultimate punishment of death imposed. 

When he was set before the senior judiciary the prosecution was reluctant to define the charge for which it sought the death sentence.  The transcript of this part of the trial reads:

Chief Justice:        What is the charge against the accused?

Prosecutor: Don’t you worry about the charge.  He is clearly guilty.  If he were not guilty, we would not have brought him here!  Just sentence him to death.

Chief Justice:        No charge, no trial!  If that’s how you feel, then take him back to your court and deal with his offence.

Prosecutor: We cannot do that because we are not authorised to pass a sentence of death.

After that things went badly for our almost lodger.  The high court avoided its duty to uphold the law by giving in to popular clamour that ensured he was put to death.  It was as just as a lynching in the lawless Wild West.

It was all over in a very short time.  He was sentenced to die, taken, and then executed.  No appeal, no plea for clemency, nothing offered in mitigation, no sense that justice had been served.  For most of the citizens it was just another hard day in their hard lives. 

Nevertheless, the executed man was not forgotten.  He was talked about all over town.  We learned much more about him than we had found out for ourselves.  Some of the accounts seemed far fetched, but those telling the stories were honest folks with nothing to gain by lying.  Some had seen him heal sick people of ills such as lameness, paralysis, and blindness.  Others said he had fed big crowds of people with a few scraps of food. 

One said he turned ordinary well water into delicious wine.  Another that he had changed the weather, and more than one said they had seen him raise the dead.  It was hard to know what to believe. 

We solved our lodger situation by renting the room to a weaver.  There was nothing unusual or outlandish about him.  He paid his rent, made his cloth, and sold it in the market place.  He was easy to feed, very quiet, the children liked him, and apart from his snoring we hardly knew we had him. 

Late at night, my wife and I talked about the homeless man and what it might have been like if he had come to live with us.  I was unsettled because there were too many unanswered questions.  However, my wife, simple soul that she is, said she liked him because he had a kind face and smiling eyes.  She said she thought he would have been a good lodger. 

And then, and I know it’s a funny thing, but I was in the city centre a few weeks later when one of his people was talking about him to a crowd, and he talked about him as though he was still alive – and still looking for lodgings! 

It is amazing how some people manage to look serious when saying daft things.  This fellow was saying that the homeless guy still needed a lodging.  That’s when I lost interest and skirted the crowd to make my way home.  The world is mad enough without making more madness.  I could still hear him going on about the dead man until I was almost home. 

When I got back home I told my wife what I had heard, and she quizzed me as if I was the one on trial.  I had no choice but to tell what I had heard, expecting her to laugh.  But she was not amused.  She looked at me in that way she has when she wants me to listen carefully 

“Is that exactly what you heard him asked?” she asked.  I had to admit that it was not exactly word for word.

“Then what was it?  What did he say?  Exactly!” she returned.

“Let me see,” I needed time to think. 

“Ah, yes,” I said when I had collected my thoughts.  “He said, ‘This man you delivered to be killed has been raised from the dead by the power of God and is alive today.’  He also said that the man’s name was Joshua, and that God has made him both King and Messiah.’”

“Messiah?  King?  And then what?” asked my bold - getting bolder - wife.

“Well, that’s when I started to leave.  I had heard enough to know it wasn’t something I wanted to get mixed up in.”

“What did the others do?” 

“They seemed thunderstruck.  Their mouths gaped open.  Some began to cry and pull out their hair, and they all wanted to know what they ought to do.”

“And then?”

“Then this big fellow told them to change their ways and be baptised in the name of homeless Joshua and that if they did God would wash off their sins and then they would be given a special Spirit.  When I heard that it seemed so reasonable that I almost wanted to go back and join them.

“What else?” demanded the curious one.

“He said that this applied to people in all parts of the world, and told them to save themselves by finding safety in Joshua.”

“I must go to them,” said she.  “I must become one of them.” 

“Hold on!” I said, seeking to prevent her making a fool of herself and me.  But she was determined and went out through the door to make her way downtown.  I couldn’t let her go alone so I went with her.  Anyway, I still had a couple of questions that needed answers, although, being the sensible one, I had my doubts that it was anything worth our while. 

I thought the whole thing absurd, but I detected a funny feeling in the air, much like the atmosphere when a big thunderstorm is coming, and I knew my lady had felt it.  And then there was this peculiar urge growing inside me and before I knew it, we were in the crowd hearing about Joshua. 

The longer I listened the more it made sense to me.  I mean about the lodger thing.  It transpired that the homeless man, Joshua, had told a man that asked to join his band he was welcome to join him but that if he did he would be homeless, because although foxes have dens, and birds have nests, the Son of man, that’s what this Joshua he called himself, didn’t have a place to lay his head at night. 

Hearing this I felt ashamed that I had ever hesitated to take him under our roof.  But what could I do about that now?  My wife and I talked with his chief follower and found that though he is no longer homeless, it was not him that needed lodging in the first place, but us that needed him as our lodger.  They told us he had gone into heaven to his Father and his God, but has promised to live with us as our Comforter. 

We went home with the funniest feeling I have ever experienced.  It was as if my heart was bursting with joy.  Well, we were both exhilarated by what we had learned and come to believe. 

We talked and talked for hours through the night about the homeless man, warming ever more to him as we did.  As we were talking excitedly at what the day had uncovered to us, we were silenced by a knocking on our door. 

We looked at each other in the feint glimmer of the oil lamp.  The question "who is it?" hung on our lips unasked.  I looked through the window to see the Homeless One. 

“It’s him, wife!”  I shouted.  “It is the Homeless One!”

“Well then, open the door!” husband she shouted, standing and taking off her apron. 

Hurriedly I unlatched the door and invited him into our home, and into our hearts.  Before he crossed our threshold, he said,

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” 

He came into our home with his aura of light.  But not only light, but joy.  And not only joy, but hope, and not only light, joy, and hope, but peace, a perfect peace so profound that we while cannot understand it we are nevertheless transformed by it. 

Our Lodger now has a permanent home with us.  Moreover, he has promised us a permanent home with him. 

© 2010 – Ronnie Bray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED