Jesus makes that steadfast love scandalously practical. When you give a banquet, invite those who cannot repay: the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. He exposes the way hospitality can be used to manage status, and he teaches a welcome that mirrors God’s own.

Homelessness presses this teaching into our prayers. It is not an aesthetic failure in the city; it is a human wound. It includes rough sleeping, but not only that. It can mean hidden homelessness, families in one room, sofa-surfing, temporary placement after violence or eviction, and the long uncertainty of never knowing whether you may stay. Christ is near to such lives, and Christians should be too.

Welcomed by grace, we are taught to practise welcome. If the person sleeping rough, or the family moving from room to room, were beside us at the Lord’s Table, what would repentance look like, and what would love dare to do? Lord, keep us from looking away. Give shelter, wise provision, and patient companions; and make your Church a house where the abandoned are not treated as interruptions.