When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?"

"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."

(John 21: 15-17)

Aside from this being the starting gun for the Discipleship Olympics, the message is pretty clear. If you are a follower of Jesus you will look after folks.

Whilst some commentators prefer to confine Jesus's call to action to mean spiritual food alone, it's clear that the message is also, literally ensuring the physical wellbeing of people.

After all, the Jesus revealed in the Bible is not some cartoon guru, but one embedded in the physical world of money and debt, power and poverty and hope and hopelessness.

The Church – the body (physical and spiritual, mark you) of Christ – has a bit of a chequered history in this regard. During my earthly days, a few gentry and wool barons aside, most Hadleigh residents lived precarious and uncertain lives.

I rather wish I'd spoken out more forcibly at the time. 

The same is becoming increasingly true today. Runaway inflation and especially spiralling energy and fuel bills – with far worse to come – are like cirrus clouds heralding deeper, future storms of unemployment, family breakdowns and societal stress (PC Passmore, Suffolk's police & crime commissioner, has already expressed his concerns about rising crime due to economic pressures).

Many of our town's families are already up against it. 

Thankfully, there is some help at hand: from St Mary's Church, which is running free pop-up picnics to Hadleigh Library which is distributing free bags of sanitary products.

And of course, Angela Gregg and her top-notch Fresh Start charity is at the forefront of improving the lives of families struggling to make ends meet – through no fault of theirs.

But, I'm aware that sometimes, people desperate for food and other essentials either can't wait or their own mental health is so scrambled by worries that they act before they think through the implications of those actions.

The younger Taylors recently drew my attention to the words of Jack Monroe, a food campaigner.

I must admit until this point I'd been muddling up Jack Monroe with the actor Jack Whitehall, only to be informed that they are not one and the same and, in fact, the former is a woman! Who'd have thunk it?

That aside, Ms Monroe's admonition "if you see someone stealing baby formula, nappies, bread, milk, pasta, ready meals, you didn't see a (expletive deleted) thing" is bang on the button.

Ms Monroe supports her argument by observing that you must be really in need if you risk a criminal record for trousering a tin of tuna.

Jack Monroe food campaigner

Now, to save Father Derek's back in carrying over to chez Taylor all the resulting angry correspondence, please allow me to make it clear. I'm not suggesting from my ghostly pulpit that the whole of this fine town goes out pocket purchasing, I think the rather twee term is, and certainly not in the many small shops run by hardworking families.

But the major supermarkets? Well, that might be another story. These behemoths utterly dominate, and some would say distort, the country's retail market.

Regardless, they ain't poor. Taking one example – Moronson's, sorry Morrison's – between 2009/10 and 2020/21 made nearly £10,000,000,000 in gross profits.

So, brothers and sisters, if you see someone filching a few essential items in Morrison's, may I humbly suggest: no you (expletive deleted) didn't?

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