Looking Outwards As Well As Inwards

In times like these its natural to want to look out for ourselves, to become inward looking. Afterall, we’ve been staring at the inside of our homes for the past month. We’re full of concerns: will my job still be secure? Can I cope schooling my kids from home, will there even be enough food in the shops? Can I protect my health? Our first reaction is to want to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

Will we also be brave enough to lift our eyes and look to the needs of our city and our wider world?

This week I saw shocking scenes on the BBC news of huge queues of people snaking around the block, as average folk waited desperately for small food parcels to be handed out. It is the kind of scene we’ve sadly grown to expect perhaps in a refugee camp, or in the developing world. This was in New York City.

The most wealthy have abandoned the city to live elsewhere for the duration of the crisis, but for the majority that kind of escape is impossible. Temporary workers have lost their livelihoods overnight, and food poverty has become real in the city that is not only the world’s epicentre of the COVID-19 virus, but of the world’s wealth and opportunity.

My first reaction is to be incredibly grateful for our NHS and welfare system that protects our most vulnerable in times of crisis. But my heart was stirred by what I saw. I can’t solve New York’s problems, I can’t reach out to those people. But you and I can do something practical in our city of Sheffield – starting by donating food and finance to our local foodbanks, where demand is up, but volunteers are down.

Jesus commends those who feed the hungry, house the stranger, care for the sick, showing love in practical ways, saying

“when you did it to one of the least of these…you were doing it to me!’ (Matthew 25).

Let’s be generous and lift our eyes to the needs of others this week.

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