One of my saddest days as a parish priest was when I met with my Roman Catholic neighbour to reflect on why, in less than a year, we had between us taken a whole series of funerals for young suicides in our town.
The police had become concerned as to whether there was any common underlying factor impacting on the lives of the victims. I'm not sure what connection the police might have had in mind, but one stood out to the two of us.
In a time of high unemployment, poor career prospects and general poverty, there was simply a lack of hope among the many who did not have a strong personal faith in God to support and sustain them. Without this hope they sank into despair, where life itself was too great a burden to continue.
Hope stands at the heart of the Easter message. In the face of rejection, betrayal, torture and execution, Jesus is not defeated. His victory is our victory. Life has a purpose both here and hereafter. This is our hope.
Crucially, my hope in God helps me to sustain a hope in those whose lives are intertwined with my own. Moreover, I suspect hope would have been just an empty word if I had not, by the time my faith came to life, been given hope through people who were hopeful for me, and who repaid the hope I placed in them.
We, as Christians, are called to be hope givers. We, who live in hope, can help bring it into the lives of the hopeless. And here is where the work of our foodbanks has become a vital part of our mission. The practical support we give, through the food parcels we make up, is an immediate and direct offering of hope to those who are despairing. We counter the sense of hopelessness so often engendered by an unexpected and large bill, a delayed payment or a benefit sanction.
Yet we do much more than that.
By treating people with respect (sitting them at a cafe style table, making them a hot drink, having time to listen to their story) we express our own hopes for the person before us. Because we ourselves are people of hope, often something of that too is imbibed. We are not only feeding stomachs, we are feeding souls.
Rt Rev David Walker is the Bishop of Manchester. For more information about foodbanks visit the Trussell Trust.
