(~) Unless we have community

When people are free from worrying about their daily bread, what is there that they cannot achieve! It does not take much, only freedom from anxiety. People must be so deeply bound together that they know, "When I need help, others will come to my aid." But if they say, "I will gather so much for myself that I will never need the others, and so that I am rich and the other is poor," this is the ruin of any society of Christ. I do not think much of such spiritual communities; they do not last. Unless we have community in the body, in material things, we will never have it in spiritual matters. We are not spirits. We are men of flesh and blood. Every day we must eat; we must have clothing for every season.

This is how Jesus wants to put an end to worries. Yet nowadays people disregard his will. People in all kinds of impossible situations are expected to have faith. They live in wretched huts, they almost perish of misery and need, and we come along and say to them, "You must just have faith."

The kingdom of God cannot be simply a future state. Each one of us should seek to become united in the living Church of Jesus Christ and to get free in such a way that at least among those who think and feel alike, anxieties will cease.

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, from You Belong to God, Joy in the Lord.