Hungry

Scriptures:     I Kings 19:4-8  Ephesians 4:1-16, 25-32, 5:1-2         John 6:22-51

Today’s Gospel reading follows immediately after John’s account of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand.  Remember that Jesus had been looking for a way to get his disciples away from the crowds, and for a place where they all could rest.  Jesus and the disciples had set out in a boat across the Sea of Galilee to a deserted place, and the crowd followed them there – and Jesus taught and fed them.  At night, Jesus again sent the disciples out across the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus, having gone on a mountain to pray, came walking to them on the water. 

And, once again, the day after the feeding of the five thousand, the crowds came to find Jesus. They’re actually curious how he got there, because they’d seen Jesus stay behind after the disciples had left in the boat, and so they ask Jesus, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”  Jesus shuts down that question by getting to the heart of the matter of why they were looking for him: “Very truly, I tell you, you’re looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.  Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  They ask how they are supposed to work for this food that endures: “What must we do to perform the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  The crowd asks, “What sign are you going to give us” – totally ignoring the sign they had just seen the day before, when Jesus had fed all of them with five loaves and two fish – and basically tell Jesus they expect him to give them manna from heaven every day, as Moses did.  Jesus goes on to compare himself to the manna, saying, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

As we listen in on this exchange between Jesus and the crowds, it seems like they’re talking past each other.  The crowd is desperately poor, and they’ll follow anyone who will feed them.  Jesus had fed them the day before, and they wanted Jesus to feed them again; indeed, they want Jesus to feed them every day.  Jesus wants to offer them something more, invite them to something deeper – not just a meal, but a relationship, not just a full stomach for today, but a life under God’s care that satisfies always.  And the crowds push back.

Folks who have been around the church a while may be able to relate.  People call Emanuel  church for the first time, out of the blue, for any number of reasons.  Some are looking for a place to worship, and of course they’re given a hearty welcome and the address and the time of worship.  Others call for other reasons – for food – usually around Thanksgiving and Christmas, though we get calls occasionally throughout the year, call to use the social hall, and, because of our cemetery, we get lots of folks calling over the course of the year to find out where their great aunt Methuseleh or whoever was buried back in 1897.  Or it may be something as simple as a ride someplace, or as complicated as help getting into a rehab, or a place to come in off the streets.  And we try to respond to those inquiries as well, as best we can.  And of course we invite them to church, tell them we’d love to see them on Sunday morning or Wednesday night, whenever they can make it.  “Oh, no, that’s ok, I’m good” they say.  Or the say they’ll come next week, and never show up. 

It’s disappointing.  Folks approach the church, and the church offers a longterm relationship, with Jesus and with the gathered community of faith, and the folks just want to grab something for the moment.  We may feel that people are just using the church.  As pastor, I often find myself asking myself, “Was it something I said? Something I didn’t say?”

It may be comforting to realize that Jesus experienced the same thing.  In our reading today, it seems like the more Jesus invited people to a closer relationship with him, the more they backed away.  Indeed, by the end of the story – which we’ll read in a couple weeks – the crowds are all gone, and all that’s left is Jesus and the twelve.  Why is that?

There’s a clue, and perhaps some comfort, in Jesus’ words, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.”  God is at work, taking the initiative before people respond.  All we can do is be faithful, in season and out of season.  Whether people come to us or stay with us is, in the end, not all about us.  Certainly, we want the church to be as welcoming and inviting and to offer as much as we can – but we also need to leave some room for God to act.

So when folks come to us with a specific request, and walk away after they get what they want, perhaps it’s just not God’s time for them.  In a sense, they’re cheating themselves, taking much less than the church is offering, than God is offering

The crowds who came to Jesus were hungry for bread, but there are many ways to be hungry – for food, for safety, for physical healing, for healing of our relationships, or for the opportunity to be in relationship, for employment, for deliverance from addiction, for deliverance from threats and oppression.  And even in the church, we may ask too little of God.  We may put God into a little box called Sunday morning, and try to handle life on our own the rest of the week.  But the God of Sunday morning is the God of Monday through Saturday as well, to whom we can take not only our hopes for heaven when we die, but our hunger and our needs in this life.  God wants us to be fed in this life, to be healed in this life, to be housed in this life, to experience a caring community in this life.  These are all things we can take to God in prayer.

There’s another kind of hunger we may experience that goes beyond our own needs, to the needs of the world.  We look out at the world, and while there’s beauty, there’s so much brokenness – poverty among so many while the few enjoy fantastic wealth, so much violence, so much oppression.  And we cry out to God – why? 

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”  Jesus also said, “Seek first the Reign of God, and all these things will be added.”  Jesus invites us to step away from the world’s way of doing things, and to live with God’s will at the center of our lives.  And this is some of what Jesus was talking about when he told the crowds that they had to eat his flesh – it’s about taking Christ into our lives, not only to come along for the ride, but to be in the driver’s seat, revealing God’s will for us, showing not only how God can help us and answer our prayers, but how God can use us to answer the prayers of others.  And Jesus has promised that if we first seek God’s kingdom – God’s reign, God’s direction, seek to live in alignment with God’s will not only for ourselves, but for the world, all these other things will be added to us.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  May we feast on the living bread Christ offers, and through us may the hunger of others be satisfied.  Amen.