What Do You Hunger For?

 

John 6:1-21

Pentecost 10 Lectionary 17 July 28, 2024

Epiphany Lutheran Church Richmond, Virginia

What do you hunger for? That’s the question for me this morning, bad grammar and all. It comes to me out of the first part of the story we read this morning, from the gospel of John.

What do you hunger for? To be human is to hunger.

Have you ever worried about where your next meal was coming from? Or, at least, have you done ministry in places where the hunger was physical? When I was in seminary in Chicago, I spent two years working in an African American Lutheran congregation on the southside, in a neighborhood where the crime rate was the highest in the city of Chicago and the unemployment rate was second highest. (Or maybe it was the other way around; I could never remember.) What poverty there was, and physical hunger.

My first call was to a congregation in the affluent near-Baltimore town of Towson, Maryland. The public schools were like private schools. The youth grew up in a bubble of material wealth. So I decided to take them into one of Baltimore’s worst neighborhoods one time, to work in a soup kitchen serving those who lined up on the sidewalk outside, waiting for a meal. This was the early 1980s, and some of these kids actually used The Preppy Handbook as a guide when they chose their clothing each morning. The day we went down there it was hot! Those kids’ green and blue clothing was wet with sweat. I pray that the experience resulted in greater compassion for those who are physically hungry.

A better ministry was the Emmanuel Dining Room, in the city of Wilmington, Delaware. I didn’t help there nearly as often as a number of our members in that congregation. But when I did, I appreciated the opportunity to sit at table with some of the folks who came in off the street. Their hunger wasn’t only physical. Conversation fed their hunger to be treated as human beings, with dignity, when there was someone asking about their lives, and being truly interested.

That taught me to encourage folks in my Williamsburg congregation to do the same with guests at the winter shelter program we helped to staff. And I thought of that when I set up the program for people who need transportation but cannot afford a bicycle, at the Bicycle Co-Op of Williamsburg. When people come through the door, sent by a social service agency, we don’t just tell them which bicycle they can have. We engage in conversation. We ask them to try out several, to select one that fits their needs, so they are able to take agency and to exercise choice. We want them to know that they’re not simply cases to be managed.

To be human is to hunger. For some, the hunger is for physical food. For many, the hunger is for human dignity.

What do you hunger for? Is it meaningful work, work you feel called to do? It may be that you actually earn your living with the work that God calls you to do! For many, though, that’s not the case. You may need to give your time to volunteer work that feeds your hunger for meaningful work, work that God calls you to do.

What do you hunger for?

Do you hunger for a balance between work and rest and play?

Do you hunger for a sense of security, receiving love from others who care for you?

Is your hunger for greater physical or mental health? Or to be fed, because you’re feeling spiritually empty?

What do you hunger for?

To be human is to hunger.

In the story from the gospel of John, there are 5,000 people who are physically hungry and, on the surface, the miracle is that Jesus provides physical food for them. But when we enter into the story, we find that there’s lots more that’s going on. And I think the story invites us into the imagination of how God provides for any and all of our hungers.

This story of the miraculous feeding is the only one included in all four gospels.¹ I love this version of the story in the gospel of John, because there’s such a high Christology! In the gospel of John, Jesus has everything worked out before it happens. (That’s very different from Matthew, Mark and Luke.) So, in this version: When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.

The test, I think, is to see if Philip can imagine beyond conventional limitations (because that is the only way you and I can discern what God is up to in our lives)! Unfortunately, Philip displays little imagination. He replies, “Six months wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”

Another of Jesus’ disciples is thinking a little more creatively. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” he asks, mired in his limited imagination.

Jesus simply says, “Make the people sit down.” They were in a place with lots of grass, which is common in the fertile region of Galilee. So, when all 5,000 were seated, here’s what we read: Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. There was as much food as they desired! As much as they were hungering for! The gospel writer describes how Jesus feeds those who were hungry in a way that busts through any conventional limitations, and so I think the story encourages you and me to imagine that there is more than physical feeding going on here. The story encourages us to consider how God feeds every hunger we have. Because to be human is to hunger.

And I declare this to you: every hunger is hunger for God.

How often do you recognize that?

Think of all that we try, that is not God, to satisfy our hunger. Isn’t that why people spend lots of money buying lots of things? Underneath much marketing is the message: If you buy this, then you’ll be happy. And you are happy with your purchase – for a while! But doesn’t the hunger soon return? Every hunger is a hunger for God. But buying stuff is not God.

How often do we human beings try to satisfy the hunger we feel in ways that result in profound consequences: leaving home, because satisfaction must be somewhere else; or pursuing another job; or even leaving a relationship and entering into another one – in every case turning to something or someone who is not God to feed our hunger for God.

What do you hunger for?

To be human is to hunger.

And all hunger is, actually, hunger for God.

Which means that what we need is here, in this place, in what we’re doing.

I’m struck by a sentence from that incredibly obscure passage which is our first reading this morning – from the story of the prophet Elisha, in the book of Second Kings in the Hebrew Bible. Do you remember that there’s food presented to Elisha? Do you remember what he says? He says, “Give it to the people and let them eat.”

I asked that to be put on the front cover of the bulletin because hat’s what worship is all about! We gather for worship each week to receive from God the nourishment that feeds our hunger. It comes to us in Word and Sacrament.

Did you know that there’s a Biblical commentary series that’s actually called Feasting on the Word?² We gather here, with all of our hunger, to receive the Word, to be fed by the Word that comes to us in the words that we listen to and speak: in the liturgy, in the readings, in the sermon; in the words of consolation and support that we speak to each other in the Commons area before and after worship; in the visible words of the sacraments: of water and bread and wine.³

Do you remember how the gospel writer describes what Jesus does in this morning’s story, when he is given the meager portions of food – the five barley loaves and the two fish, when it doesn’t look like there wil be enough? We read this: Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks,... Does that remind you of a formula of words we use every week in our liturgy? During the Holy Communion Prayer of Thanksgiving: “In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread and gave thanks; broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take and eat; this is my body, given for you.” What many Biblical commentators write about this morning’s story makes sense to me: that this event is about much more than a feeding of the physical hunger that 5,000 people were suffering, at a particular time and place. This is an invitation for all who follow Jesus to look for how God feeds our hunger. And in our Holy Communion every time we gather together – the taste of bread that we eat and the taste of wine that we drink – here is a foretaste of the feast to come!

What do you hunger for?

To be human is to hunger.

All hunger is hunger for God.

I can’t think of better concluding words than to proclaim again the words that I was privileged to say during the Order for Confession and Forgiveness:

“Beloved people of God: in Jesus, the manna from heaven, you are fed and nourished. By Jesus, the worker of miracles, there is always more than enough. Through Jesus, the bread of life, God’s mercy is given to you: you are forgiven and you are loved into abundant life.”

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine

1The story of the miraculous feeding is the only story that’s included in all four gospels! In fact, in Matthew and Mark, we find two versions of this miraculous feeding. See Matthew 14:13-21 and 15:32-39; Mark 6:30-44 and 8:1-10

2Published by Westminster John Knox Press.

3Robert W. Jenson, Visible Words: The Interpretation and Practice of Christian Sacraments (Fortress Press, 1978).