I spent this weekend quilting with a friend. Sometimes the only sign of hope is the people you can be with and do ordinary things.

I working on series on how to deal with immigration, and care for immigrants. If your church is working on this, I'd love to hear what you are doing. From the tiny to the dramatic, what's going on? Just reply to this email to let me know.

Come to the Waters with Hope

Hear, everyone who thirsts;
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1)

This is among my favorite scriptures. I use it often to describe how God's rule is not about extravagance or gold, but about enough food.

This week, I'm thinking about something else. The longing in Isaiah reminds me that people have been worried about their basic necessities for a long time. Thousands of years. Since the beginning. The cost of eggs is worrying, but affordable food is not a new worry.

I imagine that the early church, with its shared resources and community dinners, was amazing for people who did not regularly have enough to eat. A real miracle, evidence that the God's rule was upon them. To be honest, the church today is not so clearly the start of the Kin-dom of God. The best of our churches provide a solid sense of belonging that secular society cannot replicate, but few are making sure that their member's material needs are met.

For those of us with plenty, or at least enough, it doesn't seem weird that the church isn't prepared to meet our material needs. I guess at this point those who have little don't expect it either. But once, church was the place of abundance.

As we face coming months of insecurity, high costs, and chaos, we are reminded that those that society sees as less-than have felt much of this all along. To quote one of my homeless parishioners in 2017 "it's not like the government cared about us before." Indeed, in the time of Isaiah, in the first century, in the middle ages, in colonial US, in civil war, civil rights era, and two years ago, it would have been a miracle for oppression to end and for the poor to have wine and milk without money and without price.

I'm not saying it isn't worse now. It is worse now. But the work of the God's people in all those times is the same. More urgent, but the same.

Seek the Lord while They may be found;
call upon God while They are near;
let the wicked forsake their way
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, who may have mercy on them,
and to our God, who will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord (Isaiah 55:6-8).

Our work is to find God, to forsake the ways we failed to care for our neighbor and return to God's way. We'll be forgiven the past, but are called in Isaiah's time, and now, to find God's path of love of our neighbor.

We, the church, must name the oppression and evil around us, and point to the hope for a future of equality. Our vision must remain fixed on a world where there is food and drink for everyone, without cost. Imagine, and point together, toward moderate abundance--not a time of excess but a time of equal distribution of our resources.

The hope of the gospel is distant; the Kin-dom is at hand yet also not here. This hope does not overlook the reality that many people will be badly hurt in the time in-between. This hope does not free us from taking action to care for those our society is abusing. The work of the church is put words to this improbable hope.

What is your church doing, or thinking about doing these days? What are you doing to stay hopeful in this time? Just reply to this email to let me know what's happening. ​
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I'm a knitter. I love this blog about knitting in church. About being within our bodies, and having a faith that is about incarnation.

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Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

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