January 15, 2021

Sharing from the Congregation – David Petty

Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. — Isaiah 55:1

One of the recurring nightmares of this pandemic has been that we will run out of available ventilators. This was a particular concern last spring in New York, and has been raised again during the surge of the disease over the past few weeks. Healthcare workers are agonizing over the possibility that they will have to ration ventilators, deciding to provide them to some patients and denying them to others.

A similar issue is occurring due to the currently limited vaccine supply. The vaccine is being rationed to certain groups, and there is frustration and apparently even cheating. According to the internet some individuals are even withholding vaccine from those who are supposed to receive it, so that they can administer it to themselves and their families.

Rationing due to limited resources is not new. Even churches have to make hard decisions about how to spend their resources, giving up one program to support another. So it is vital for us to remember that there is something that does not have to be rationed: God’s love. God’s love is inexhaustible, limitless, unbounded. To use Old Testament language, it is a well that never runs dry.

There are at least two ways, and more I’m sure, to think about this limitlessness. One is on a personal level. No matter how many times we stumble, no matter how much of God’s love that we feel we have used up, there remains plenty, available without price. (We might limit it ourselves, of course, in the sense that we refuse to accept it.)

Another is on a social level. We can give love (God’s love flowing through us) to anyone, without any fear that it will run out and there won’t be enough to give to someone else. No rationing needed, and we might occasionally need to remind ourselves that there should be no price.

Gracefully submitted,
David Petty