Day 51: An Unparalleled Crisis of Hunger

DAY 51

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: MONDAY 4 MAY 2020

An Unparalleled Crisis of Hunger

“In the largest slum in Kenya’s capital, people desperate to eat set off a stampede during a recent giveaway of flour and cooking oil, leaving scores injured and two dead. In India thousands of workers are lining up twice a day for bread and fried vegetables to keep hunger at bay. And across Colombia people are hanging red clothing and flags from their windows and balconies as a sign that they are hungry.”  Pandemic Moves Globe Toward Unparalleled Crisis of Hunger - Newspaper article 23 April 2020

There is no shortage of food on the planet, but inequities in distribution and availability mean hundreds of millions are facing a slow death from starvation during the pandemic, and here at home we see long lines of cars waiting for food to feed families where household income has ceased due to job loss. From the famine that sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt in search of food to the Mediterranean famine for which Paul collected funds from the early churches, to the famines predicted in the Book of Revelation, famines have marked human history.

Christians – who are increasingly concentrated in third world famine-prone countries, have a sober promise into which they can lean: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.” Romans 8:35,37. But they would also like to eat.

And for us not experiencing famine? A call to fasting, but not from food. In Isaiah 58:6,10, God asks: “Is not this the kind of fast I have chosen:… to spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry?” When it comes to giving, I have asked you to follow me in tithing to the church. Now I ask you to do what I encouraged you to do two weeks ago today in this column: if you are income secure, donate your stimulus check to an entity that feeds the hungry, here or abroad. Mine has already gone to a ministry I have served with in Honduras, where I have seen firsthand the severe poverty that is their norm. Will you follow me in a similar act of true fasting?   

Reflective question: Income secure? What is God asking you to do with your stimulus check?

Reflective Scripture: Matthew 25:35 – “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.” Jesus

Reflective hymn:

“Let Your Heart Be Broken” – Bryan Leech (1931-2015)

Let your heart be broken, for a world in need,

feed the mouths that hunger, soothe the wounds that bleed.

Give the cup of water, and the loaf of bread.

Be the hands of Jesus, serving in his stead.