​And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." —Matthew 26:39 (NRSV)
 
I received my call to ministry when I was 18 years old. I had been kneeling at the side of my bed and in prayer saying to God I did not want to become any of the things I had desired to become in the past – doctor, lawyer, forensic detective – only what God wanted me to become. I recall having a vision of people needing to hear the gospel, and I deduced that God was calling me into ministry. However, at that time, because I was still a Roman Catholic, I felt that this calling meant that I would have to enter the priesthood. That was something I did not want to do because I desired to have a family. I acknowledged to God that I did not want to become a priest; however, in submission of my will to God’s, I said, “even though this is not what I want, I will become a priest because I know you will provide the enablement and fullfilment I desire.” 
 
The time of my call was the first time I can remember God asking me to do/become something and despite not wanting to, I said yes. Since then, on numerous occasions, God’s call to me, from my perspective, was inconsistent with what I desired; nevertherless, at every turn, I responded, “if this is what you desire, even though it is not what I want, I will do it.”
 
Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane was confronted with the choice of pursuing his life’s purpose or self-presevation (see also Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46). However, He surrendered to God’s will rather than giving in to His desires. In His plea and response, we have an illustration of what it means to deny self: “Father if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done” (Matthew 26:39).
 
Jesus momentarily shrank from the thought of the “cup” of the Cross, but almost instictively, recoiled at the idea of not obeying the Father. No doubt, this momentary hesitation was due to the wiles of the Tempter who had tried to get him to forsake his ministry with the promise of prestige, power, and possessions (Matthew 4:1-11). He also attempted to derail Jesus’s date with the cross by having Peter insist that Jesus should not pursue the Via Dolorosa. In response, Jesus knowing full well who instigated Peter’s words said, "Get away from me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don't come from God, but from human nature" (Matthew 16:21-23).
 
Satan had successfully gotten Adam and Eve to sin by doubting whether God indeed had their best interest at heart and by insuating that God is not trust worthy. Every time God calls on us, we have to determine whether we believe God is trust worthy, loves us beyond measure, and will always have our best interest at heart (that is, as God, not we, knows our best interest to be). When we answer the call of God  on our lives we may not accumulate wealth, garner prestige, or exercise power, but we can always expect to be fulfilled. Whenever we live within God’s will, we shall always find life fulfilling.
 
When I was in seminary in North Carolina, I always had difficulty with the persons often held up as successes in ministry. It was always the pastor with several thousand members on their church roll. I have always contended that the successful minister is not necessarily the one who has a thriving ministry but rather the one who is faithful in his/her calling and works at it daily to the glory of God whether or not others acknowledge the value of his/her work.
 
On receiving God’s call, expressing our reservations, our doubts, and our fears to God is okay and even recommended. God knows our innermost thoughts and God also knows our heart. It has been my experience that although I was at first reticent to go God’s way, once I surrender to his will, my life has always been rich and fulfilling. Once I am living within God’s will, at every turn, God has provided the resources that I have needed. Since that first call of God on my life, I have learned to live in the light of the truth of Jesus’ words: “…be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things” (Matthew 6: 33, GNB). Whenever God Calls and we are able to discern God’s will, our only response should be one of trust and obedience in which we say, “Lord, not my will, but thine be done!”
​

Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”  —Luke 12:16-21 9NRSV)
 
In Canada, those earning more than $25 an hour before the pandemic have actually done better financially than they would have otherwise, as a result of the pandemic. Those making less are doing worse. They are the ones who are losing their jobs, who don’t have sick pay, who can’t afford good child care, who are more vulnerable to COVID-19. $25 per hour is a lot of money in many parts of the world, but one fact knows no borders:  those most vulnerable in the pandemic are those with lower incomes. In Canada that includes indigenous peoples.
 
So isn’t it ironic that during this monumental crisis of the pandemic, Canadians have amassed record savings – especially those who were doing well to start with. The chief economist for one of our national banks said that by year end 2020, Canadians would have saved close to 200 billion dollars! Normally Canadians save at the rate of about 1.7% of income. Last year that was closer to 25% for much of the year. That money has not gone to help the most vulnerable, it has gone to personal bank accounts and Tax Free Savings Accounts and Mutual funds. Financial advisors think it’s great - build a bigger barn and put it in there while you can.
 
I think Jesus is speaking to us through the parable of the rich fool. I know he’s speaking to me, and it’s not all that comfortable. What are we doing with our barns? Building bigger ones?
 
As the pandemic ends, one of the questions being asked is how the health and wellbeing, especially of the vulnerable, and those who have been most at financial risk, will be ensured. Churches and others in society describe this as A Just Recovery for All. 
 
These are the principles for A Just Recovery for All:
 

1. Put people’s health and wellbeing first, no exceptions.
2. Strengthen the social safety net and provide relief directly to people.
3. Prioritize the needs of workers and communities.
4. Build resilience to prevent future crises.
5. Build solidarity and equity across communities, generations, and borders.
6. Uphold Indigenous rights and work in partnership with Indigenous peoples.

 
Christians, especially in Canada are at a moment when their faith in action will be tested. We have an opportunity to mobilize our own resources for good and to advocate for A Just Recovery for All people in the months ahead. Now is the time to consider this. This is one parable where Jesus’ words are starkly clear to us when he says: So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.
 
Pray for A Just Recovery for All. Work for a Just Recovery for All.

—Rev. Stephen Kendall
Principal Clerk, The Presbyterian Church in Canada
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

“A verdict has been reached in the Derek Chauvin murder trial”—and with this announcement made late in the day on Tuesday, Apr. 20, many of us throughout the United States, Canada, and elsewhere held our collective breath as we waited to hear what that verdict would be.
 
For many people, the pending verdict raised questions. Would the reality of George Floyd, as a fellow human being made in God’s image, be affirmed– or would our ailing society once again fail to acknowledge the basic humanity of another Black life?
 
For the past few weeks, the media shifted their attention from the COVID-19 pandemic to this other sort of virus. Racism is very real in our broken world, and the Derek Chauvin trial has pushed it back into the limelight. 
 
For people who have not been following this story, Derek Chauvin is a former Minneapolis police officer who was charged with murdering George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest last May.
 
Some refuse to believe that race had anything to do with this tragic death. For many others, George Floyd was yet another name on a long list of Black men and women who were murdered at the hands of others, including police officers. As a result, the Chauvin trial came to be seen almost as a litmus test to determine whether justice would be served in this case. 
 
As we now know, Chauvin was found guilty on all counts: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
 
And with this announcement came a ray of hope that perhaps we, as a society, could collectively stand together on the same side of this issue. Perhaps we could agree with the findings of the jury that, in this case, Chauvin attempted to use the power of the system to try to deny life and liberty to a fellow human being—and perhaps we can collectively say no, there is a better way, the way of "shalom." 
 
Living in a fallen world, we must acknowledge that this was not an isolated incident. For many Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), events such as the death of George Floyd are a reminder of the many overt and subtle acts of discrimination they face daily. A trial such as Chauvin’s, in which the actions of the victim are scrutinized and judged, seems to unfairly shift the blame for all these other acts on the victims as well. It retraumatizes countless people who have previously been hurt.
 
While we as Christians should be pleased with the way in which this jury's conclusions honor and respect the lives of the BIPOC community, we also recognize that this verdict represents only a tiny shred of justice. True shalom would have resulted in George Floyd not losing his life at the hands of an officer of the law.
 
That’s why today, as we hear and react to the verdict, we would like to call on all of the members of the Christian Reformed Church in North America to join in a time of prayer: 
 

• Let us all—regardless of our skin color or ethnic background—lament the racism and inequality in our world. 
• Let us all pray for our brothers and sisters—especially those who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color—and reach out to them to see how they are doing in this difficult time. Let us offer to help share their burden as Christ modeled for us to do. 
• Let us all—no matter our race or our history with law enforcement—pray for the police across North America, asking that they will be safe as they go about their challenging duties, and that they will also be able to see that all whom they interact with are human beings created in the image of God. 
• And let us all pray for healing for our countries, for racial reconciliation, and for God’s peace to reign.

 
I leave you with these thoughts from our contemporary testimony, Our World Belongs to God:
 
"Together, male and female, single and married, young and old--
every hue and variety of humanity— we are called to represent God, for the Lord God made us all. Life is God’s gift to us, and we are called to foster the well-being of all the living" (art. 11)
 
"We are confident that the light that shines in the present darkness will fill the earth when Christ appears. Come Lord Jesus, our world belongs to you.” (art. 6)
​

​—Colin P. Watson, Sr.
Executive Director
Christian Reformed Church in North America

​—Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, M.Ed.
Educator and Elder 
Presbyterian Church (USA)

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” and with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit." –John 20:19&21 



How do we experience the joy that we believe comes with the Resurrection when our world is suffering in a pandemic? 
 
In Guyana, since our first COVID case, we battled with the global health pandemic, an ‘elections pandemic’, where we witnessed an election that lasted for approximately five months. We were plunged into another ‘pandemic,’ related to a crisis in our church which has caused pain and brokenness in our Church. As the COVID pandemic is still detrimental to the world, we struggle to bring about justice and restoration of order, unity, and healing in our Church.
 
During the times of facing persecution, social, economic, health struggles, and possible death could drive fear in us, and we could feel like the disciples who were locked away in fear behind closed doors. Fear can cause us to terminate our path of conversion and commitment. Covered beneath our spiritual apathy and lack of zeal are not so much our personal flaws or our lack of human virtue as blindness to the dynamic power of the Crucified and Risen Lord. 
 
We can leave our self-made prisons only by opening our hearts to a faith in Christ that is COMPLETE: complete trust, in spite of the confusion of the present and uncertainty of the future. A complete hope, by breaking away from having to see the ideal in ourselves before we will act, and complete divine confidence in casting aside the sins of others and our personal failures that keep us fixed in a narrow-minded vision of life. Christ comes through sealed doors in this Easter season to ask us to unlock them with a real experience of the Risen Lord in the power of the Spirit.
 
After being really excited about the fulfilment of a great expectation of having the Messiah on Palm Sunday, everything seemed to be falling apart. All of the people’s hopes, dreams, and expectations that were embodied in Jesus seemed to come crashing down. There was nothing but grief, sadness, lostness, pain, suffering, and fear. 
 
People certainly feel deeply vulnerable in a time when their hopes and certainties are crushed, but in resurrection Jesus overcomes death, and in so doing offers us new life: A new norm. This new norm is not a return to the victorious hopes of Palm Sunday. The crucifixion had shown us the reality of pain and suffering and the lengths that God will go to help us to find God’s love. 
 
The new norm that was reflected in the resurrection was different. Christ breathes afresh on us to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and send us to proclaim the gospel amid pain, suffering, and loss, to experience and live out the Resurrection joy even amid the ‘pandemics of over lives.’
 
It was a revelation that the might of God is revealed in vulnerability and suffering love. The new norm was that people recognized their inter-connectivity and wider call to live under the wing of God, who is love: to care for the sick; to live life with and for others; to seek after wisdom, gentleness, peace, love, and joy; to overcome the old gods of greed, individualism, and false idols; to live together as one Body. The new norm of course includes pain and suffering, but not without hope. 
 
The COVID crisis is not a good thing. It is horrible, painful, fearful. We have to name it as such. Nevertheless, if perfect love does drive out fear and if Jesus truly is risen, then perhaps the new norm that will emerge when the virus is defeated will help lead us to a place where we can see life more clearly, live with complete HOPE in our Risen Lord and love God and one another more fully. ​

​Against the background of the recent spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths in Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in a press conference held February 28, announced to a beleaguered nation a raft of restrictions, including the limiting of the size of gatherings to a maximum of ten persons in places of worship, while other members of the congregation were to be confined only to online participation in these gatherings. These measures were to become effective March 1. 
 
Two days afterwards, the country was shocked by news of the arrest of a pastor for violating these very regulations. Instead of engaging in online services, as stipulated, there were approximately fifty persons gathered in the sanctuary, none of whom, it is said, were wearing masks, or observing social distancing. This pastor, in the presence of the congregation that had only just been warned by both the police and health authorities on the need to observe the regulations, is on record as having chided her congregation, telling them that God told her no man can touch her because she is the apple of God’s eye and that most of them should stay home because they were not ready to serve God. She also told her congregation that she has no intention of facilitating online services. Evidently, this pastor sees herself, not just as being above the law, but also as being above the reach of COVID-19.
 
Unfortunately, instances like this are not uncommon. Such defiance of the rule of law among members of the Christian Church seems to have its roots in the misguided belief that those who profess faith in God are somehow immune to sickness and disease! Many well-meaning Christians, for instance, take passages such as Psalm 91 as offering an iron-clad guarantee that they will always be protected from harm, no matter what! Yet we continue to see the mounting statistics of people who are dying daily from COVID-19. Interestingly, many of them are committed Christians!
 
Revd. Daniel Hans, in his book, God on the Witness Stand, speaks of having once surveyed members of his congregation regarding their disappointments with God; times when God didn’t deliver on the things they were hoping he would. Members shared their experiences of times they had prayed for a newborn baby struggling for life, only to see that child eventually die. They spoke of times they had hoped God would step in and safeguard his people against physical harm, only to receive news of an old woman who was stabbed as she made her way to church; of times when they had interceded for drought-stricken African countries, only to see famine conditions continue to unrelentingly batter the already parched lands. Alongside these situations of disappointment Hans now places his own – he had hoped God would allow his three-year-old daughter to survive her battle with cancer, but instead he and his wife had to face the excruciating ordeal no parent ever wants to face – that of watching their innocent toddler suffer and die.
 
Revd. Hans points out that life is made up of unavoidable disappointments, and that if we take the time to read the Scriptures carefully, we’ll notice that together with amazing stories of people’s miraculous encounters with God, are many stories about people who cried out to God in utter desperation, while God seemed to remain silent and inactive. Hans suggests that when we remember only the spectacular feats done by God, we run the risk of becoming disillusioned, expecting that God will do something which he may have no intention of doing. While we can, and should, take all necessary steps to avoid harmful situations, our ability to safeguard ourselves from the dangers listed in Psalm 91, for example, is nonetheless extremely limited. The fundamental affirmation of Psalm 91 is that we don’t have to be fearful, not because we have been granted immunity from the perils of life, but because of God’s assurance that, no matter what, we will never be forsaken by God! 

​How can we have a Pandemic Passion? The word “passion” often conjures romantic allusions or designates ardent desire so it may be surprising to learn that the root of the word “passion” is suffering. Passion Sunday is the first day of Holy Week when we mark the bloodstained footsteps of Jesus towards the Cross. 
 
Passion Sunday is also called Palm Sunday to remind us of the palm-waving crowd welcoming Jesus as he entered the city. Palms symbolized happiness and victory, so the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is often called “The Triumphal Entry.” 
 
Some scholars believe that the welcoming crowd may have been villagers who accompanied Jesus all the way along his journey and therefore was a different crowd from the rabble of local urban haters who were incited to yell “Crucify him” later in the week.
 
Before COVID restrictions limited people’s movements and gatherings, there were re-enactments of that triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago, our Christian Education board would have a Palm Saturday rally where thousands of children would gather for a day of celebrations, praise, prayer and reflection on what the life of Jesus means for us. It was an exuberant day of inspiration! 
 
Shall such days ever return? We wonder. Shall we ever again exhaust ourselves by walking along a route with a large group in chanting and chattering camaraderie? Shall we feel the crush of a crowd again? Perhaps these are good questions to ask ourselves as we think about how Jesus entered the city with a crowd but sought solace in solitude with God.
 
The enemies of Jesus were incensed by the acclamation he received so they embarked on a plot to isolate Jesus so that could wrest him away for a sham trial and torture. Jesus Christ is unfazed and unchanged by the cheering, but those who disliked him fed their fury with the fuel of what they saw as the popularity of this interloper from Nazareth. 
 
Do we crave the adulation of an audience? We live in a society whose trends are spread by influencers. We live on a planet where nations vie not only for military supremacy but also for the soft power of dominating hearts and minds.
 
Jesus Christ gently offers us a strange contradiction to our way of understanding life. 
 
Whether he is riding a donkey or derided and scourged, he is the same. Whether he is applauded as he enters the city or beaten as he carries his cross outside the city, he is the same. 
 
Passion Sunday offers us the timeless lesson that in the vicissitudes of wildly unpredictable circumstances, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, and is with us always.

​—Adrian Sieunarine
Principal
St. Andrew’s Theological College
Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago

Adrian attended universities in Trinidad, Canada, the USA, Israel, and England, and embarked on vocations in the Church as well as in law, government, commerce, and education. 

Among awards he has received are several scholarships and Enterprise Teacher awards in England as well as the Gold Medal for first place at Knox College in the University of Toronto. He has taught at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.

He is a Barrister of England and Wales and an attorney of Trinidad and Tobago. 
​

​For a short season our littlest one decided almost everything in her life be punctuated with “ta-dah!” Proclaiming “ta-dah” after putting the last puzzle piece in, picking out a book to read, putting on socks, entering into a room, seeing a dog walk by, getting into the bath, hugging stuffed animals, taking a sip of water.  You name it, she “ta-dah’ed” it. It was endearing. I didn’t want to squash her enthusiasm of “finding joy in the small things,” and I applaud her for celebrating the ordinary. But I can be a literalist and at times had to restrain myself from letting her know that taking a bite of cracker really doesn’t necessitate a “ta-dah.” 
 
Lately I have realized that I have been longing for a “ta-dah!” moment when it comes to COVID. A moment when I sense, “ta-dah! It’s over.” 
 
This past year we have been collectively holding our breath. Wondering will we get sick and if so, how sick? Will one of our loved ones die from this? Will we miss being with them for their final breath? Will the scaffolding of my carefully plotted childcare fall apart (again) and I’ll be forced to work while handing out snacks? Is my child’s withdrawn attitude going to succumb after they go back to school? Is my furlough really furlough or will it extend to unemployment? 
 
We are longing for a big exhale, a sense that it is finally over. 
 
We wonder: will it come when I am fully vaccinated? When social distancing guidelines are no longer posted everywhere? When we have herd immunity? Will there be a sudden moment when I will be able to watch my favorite drama on TV without panicking as characters shake hands or go in for a hug? Will a sign that it is over be that I lose my reflex to grab a mask as I leave the house? 
 
The past few weeks we have been journeying through Lent and now we are heading toward Holy Week. Lent is a sad story—a culmination of the story of an enfleshed God, Jesus Christ, who receives horrible justice and is murdered. “It is finished,” Jesus states, as he dies. Ta-dah. 
 
But, you say: Lent has a happy ending! Easter is the “ta-dah!” of Lent, not the cross. Yes, in some respects it is. However, more than an ending, Easter marks a beginning—living into a world where death has been conquered, a world of new unknowns. Living into a future not yet imagined is hard work. I take heart that as we look at scriptures, we see that as Jesus’ earlier followers live into this new world, they do not mark it with a sense of victory, deep exhales, and cries of, “it is finally over!” But rather with fear, questions, confusion, and doubt. 
 
I am slowly living into the reality that the “ta-dah” moment is not coming with the pandemic. There is not going to be one moment where I feel like I can exhale and think, “it is finished.” I am a different person than I was a year ago—we are a different community than we were a year ago—and It is going to take time to understand all the implications this has. Perhaps an entire lifetime. Yet, while we might not get one “ta-dah” moment maybe like my daughter we can learn to celebrate little moments along the way. All the while, taking comfort that we are in good company of those who have gone before us.

—Rev. Dr. Kate Guthrie
Ordained in the Reformed Church in America
Serving a PC(USA) church in North Carolina 

​The season of Lent is one of discipline and discipleship as we focus our attention more intensely on following Jesus into eternal life. It’s a season of letting go so that we might take hold of the life that really is life. For this 4th Sunday of Lent we’re focusing on one of Jesus’ more difficult parables. It is the story of Lazarus, a poor man, who suffered on the doorstep of a nameless rich man who feasted sumptuously and dressed himself in fine linens. Abruptly, both men die.
 
What strikes me is that we don’t know much about either man. We don’t know why Lazarus is poor. Has he made poor choices? Is he the victim of unfortunate circumstances? And, we don’t know what he has tried to do, if anything, to alleviate his own suffering. Likewise, we don’t know how the rich man became rich. Did he inherit this wealth or work hard? Was it the result of cruelty and oppression or ingenuity and invention? All we know is that the poor man was carried away to the comfort of Abraham’s side and the rich man sent to be tormented in Hades.
 
The only clues we have into the rich man’s character come from his callousness toward Lazarus; even the dogs show the poor man more concern. The rich man also expects Lazarus to come tend to him in his suffering; still expecting the hierarchy of rich over poor to serve his comfort. Even in death the poor man was still viewed as a subordinate. Abraham is having none of it, not bowing to the rich man’s wishes, as he stands with Lazarus.
 
The Western world enjoys immense wealth at the expense of much of the rest of humanity. It’s tempting to imagine that those who are rich are not to blame for their wealth, that it’s God’s blessing. It is equally tempting to justify generational poverty with accusations of poor choices or poor character, the poor are to blame. Jesus’s parable is having none of it. There seems to be an inherent obligation on the rich to address the suffering of the poor regardless of fault or reason.
 
Part of decolonizing Christian theology and practice is moving on from this same callous disregard to solidarity. This is not an easy move to make because solidarity doesn’t fall into the usual categories of the colonized mind. For example, solidarity is not generosity. As Paolo Freire writes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “an unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity’…true solidarity with the oppressed means fighting at their side to transform” the present situation.
 
Neither is solidarity friendship. As Chanequa Walker-Barnes writes in I Bring the Voices of My People, “In friendship, people run toward one another. In solidarity, people run together toward a greater objective…Practical solidarity means that we do not simply feel compassion and empathy for others, but commit ourselves to be in the struggle for justice with them. We do not simply suffer with people; we also struggle alongside of them.”
 
For some “solidarity” is too political a word. For others “accompaniment” might be a better fit. For others still “communion” might feel most at home. Regardless of what you call it, the season of Lent calls us down a road that challenges comfort and callousness and calls us to discipline and struggle alongside others who are suffering for the sake of our mutual flourishing. For some of us, there is no reason to answer that call except one: someone has risen from the dead.
 
The one Abraham was speaking of is Jesus. One who was willing to lower himself and take on the form of a servant, becoming obedient to the point of death, bringing salvation to all the world without question or reservation. It was the greatest act of solidarity the world has ever known. As a result, God raised him up and gave him the name that is above every name. To bend the knee before the Lord is to stand with Lazarus as he sits at our gates, to fight at his side, and to commit ourselves in the struggle for justice with him wherever he exists today.

​—Peter TeWinkle
Pastor
St. Croix Reformed Church
US Virgin Islands

​Biblical text: Matthew 14:13-21
 
Feeding and hydration are basic needs of all living things. The difference between other living things and human beings is that, as beings created to live in community, these biological needs have a social character. In many cultures, sharing food and drink are signs of familiarity, love, respect, and the joy of being together. In my country we say: where two eat, ten eat. In fact, the early church, according to the texts of the New Testament, very often, if not always, gathered to celebrate the bond that united them in Christ, and they did so around the table, eating and drinking in communion. 
 
One of the fundamental aspects regarding the mission of our church in Cuba today has to do with the need to serve those in need, even in the midst of our limitations, especially economic ones. We are always grateful that many of our sister churches and project agencies come in solidarity to supply these material needs. The challenge for us is to set limits to this diakonia so as not to turn it into a form of assistance that can easily become a charity devoid of meaning. To understand that satisfying the basic needs of every human being is not enough to build the foundations of the Kingdom of God is not an easy thing. If only we Cubans knew it!
 
A text like the one that corresponds to this ninth Sunday after Pentecost does not help to reflect on the subject and also empowers our capacity to understand where the true meaning of our diakonia lies. The narrative that Matthew's Gospel offers us about the so-called miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes confirms to us that the ministry of Jesus, as a prelude to the Kingdom of God, was full of signs that affirmed the values that give meaning to God's proposal for the human being in Christ Jesus. For it is not only to satisfy those basic needs but to create a community spirit that communes with God's intention that every human being has the right to have those needs satisfied. The Kingdom project is to build a community, a human family in harmony with all Creation. Solidarity and justice are essential for the full life proposed by the Kingdom and announced by Jesus.
 
The easy solution, which is the one we as humans always look for, was the one the disciples brought to Jesus: "The place is deserted and the hour is late; send the crowds away so that they may go to the villages and buy food for themselves" (Matthew 14:15). Jesus' response is firm: "...give them something to eat" (14:16). The call as followers of Jesus is to be agents of solidarity and promoters of alternatives in which the solution is not to "buy" but to "give." Offering what little we are or what little we have can be like that mustard seed in the parable, which is the smallest of all, but when it grows and multiplies it can be a nesting place for the birds of the air. Five loaves and two fish become then that seed, that incentive so that even in the midst of needs and limitations, God's people can feel their needs, all of them, satisfied. The great problem of the world today, this story reminds us, is not the lack of resources to feed human beings, but the lack of solidarity, the lack of alternatives to the commercialization of the basic needs of human beings, the foolishness of not understanding that the table of the Kingdom is for everyone, not just for a few. 
 
May God help us to be a community of men and women, a church with open doors and a table served in the name of Jesus. As a song we sing a lot here says: "Bless our bread, Lord, and give bread to those who are hungry and hunger for justice to those who have bread."

—Pastor Dora Arce Valentin
Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba