Daily Devotional for Small Group Discussion: Fair Housing

by Donna Schaper | published on Oct 21, 2024

Discussion Questions 

  1. Do you find yourself divided between labor that yields joy and labor that feels fruitless? 
  1. When you read Isaiah’s vision of dislocated people living in their own homes on their own land, how do you relate his prophecy to modern challenges of fair and equitable housing? 
  1. Read this devotional’s prayer several times. What stands out to you? 

And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. – Isaiah 65:21 (KJV) 

The same Isaiah who thinks a vineyard is worthless knows what it means to have one that bears fruit. His entire tone is astoundingly positive after his earlier depression. We will not build and have another inhabit. We will not plant, and another eat. We shall not labor in vain. Or bear children into calamity. What a concept! 

In Isaiah, we are dealing with a true prophet. One that knows the relationship between dancing in a ring and then falling: “Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies; Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” We are both joyous children and people who die. The ancient rhyme reminds one of the hokey pokey, where we put our whole selves in and take our whole selves out. We are both/and: in and not in, dancing and failing. We are filled with life, and we are sacrificed. 

There are people who build houses and don’t get to live in them. People who make food they can’t eat. People without children taking care of other people’s children. Construction workers building homes they can’t afford.  

Isaiah’s early writings are about vineyards that can no longer even blossom. The prophet is tuned in to the enslavement, the oppression, the lack of habitation, the groaning of the earth. It’s a field that is also a landmine. Not unlike affordable housing, ADUs, accessible housing, fair housing. 

Here is the promise of a fine prophet: We will inhabit our own land. We will not labor in vain. For this, we were made. 

Prayer
God, you are our home. We dwell with you, and we know you want us all well fed and well housed. Take us from spiritual homelessness to spiritual homes, and there and then let us also afford the rent. Amen.

Donna SchaperAbout the Author
Donna Schaper is Interim Minister at the United Congregational Church of Little Compton. Her latest book is Remove the Pews.