Satisfying Hunger
By Julie Yarborough
August 3, 2003
John 6: 24-35 and Exodus 16: 2-4, 9-18
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our gospel lesson for today, a
crowd of five thousand men, plus women and children, follow Jesus to the other
side of the Sea of Galilee. He has just fed them with five loaves and two
fish provided by a young boy, and after they had eaten their fill there were
twelve baskets of food left over. Miracles, or signs, are important in the Gospel of John, and they point
to the Messiahship of Jesus. John tells us that this miracle, or sign, is
interpreted by the crowd as an indication that Jesus is, “the prophet who is to
come into the world.” Jesus' acts remind
the crowd of Moses, who fed their ancestors in the wilderness. They interpret Jesus' actions as a sign of
the messianic age, but they are expecting a prophet like Moses. Realizing that they want to set him up as a
king, Jesus flees to the other side of the Sea, only to be followed by the
crowd.
When the crowd catches up to Jesus
he tells them that they have not come after him because of the signs they have
witnessed, but because they are once again hungry for bread. He tells them that they should work for
eternal food, not the food that perishes. They are hungry to do the right thing and so they ask, “What must we do
to perform the works of God?” Perhaps they are asking, “How can we perform the
type of miracle that we witnessed you performing?” Jesus' response to the crowd is that they are
to believe. “This is the work of God,
that you believe in him whom God has sent.” They ask Jesus for another sign so that they might believe, and tell
Jesus about Moses feeding their ancestors in the wilderness. Jesus gently chides them, saying, it was not
Moses, but God who provided manna to eat in the wilderness. And God is now providing bread from heaven
once again – that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the
world. When the crowd says, “Sir, give
us this bread always,” Jesus replies, “I am the Bread of Life.” [This is one of many I AM statements in the
Gospel of John, designed to remind the reader of Jesus' connection to the Great
I AM, the divine name given to Moses at the burning bush (Ex.3:14), and mentioned again in Isaiah (Is.43:25;
45:18; 51:12; 52:6). ]
Do you hear echoes of the scripture
passage I preached on two weeks ago – the story of The Woman at the Well? Also
in the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman meets Jesus, who asks her for a
drink of water. When she questions who
he is, he tells her, if you knew who you were talking to, and what I had to
offer you, you would ask me for a drink of living water – and those who drink
of the water that I have to offer will never be thirsty again. “Sir, give me this living water,” she
replies, just as the crowds say to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
In John 4, Jesus refers to himself
as the source of living water. In John
6, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me
will never be thirsty.”
Jesus cares about our hunger – both
our physical hunger and our spiritual hunger. He knows that our physical needs have to be met first before our
spiritual needs can be addressed. Do you
remember the chart of Abraham Mazlow's “Hierarchy of
Needs” from your college Introduction to Psychology course? The chart is essentially a triangle, with
five bands across it. Beginning at the
bottom, is the widest band made up of physiological needs, (sometimes referred
to as “basic,” or “belly needs,”) such as air, water, food, sleep and
shelter. The second band, or layer,
consists of safety needs: the security of home, the lack of fear for
survival. The third band is for love –
the desire to be accepted, the need to belong. The fourth band is self-esteem, and the fifth and smallest band is for
self-actualization. The premise of this
chart is that the lower needs must be met before the higher needs can be
sought. In other words, if someone is
worried about what they will have to eat the next day, or where they will get
clean water, they are not as concerned about being accepted by others. They may not even think about risking
personal safety in order to get the necessary nutrients for survival.
During World War II, thousands of
children were orphaned and left in the streets to fend for themselves. Many were found to be malnourished when they
were gathered up and placed in refugee camps where they received food and
shelter, but these children were unable to sleep at night, fearing for their
lives and worried that they would not have anything to eat the next day. Some wise adult finally came up with the idea
to give the children a piece of bread to hold at night while they slept. Holding the bread, the children were able to
sleep peacefully. The bread reminded
them that they had eaten that day and that they would have food to eat the next
day.[1]
Many children in our world today
are not so fortunate. According to
statistics from the Christian relief agency, Bread for the World, more than 840
million people in the world are malnourished. More than 153 million are children under the age of 5. Each year approximately 6 million children
under the age of 5, die of hunger in our world. 12 million die each year because of lack of access to clean drinking
water.[2] If you log onto the website www.hungersite.com, you will learn that
24,000 people die daily of hunger. That
means that every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of hunger in this world.
“What must we do to perform the
works of God?” the crowd asks Jesus, and we ask it as well when we are faced
with statistics such as these. What can
we do in the face of such horrible realities? Jesus' answer to the crowd is the same answer to us. We must believe in
the Son of God. Individually, we may not
have very much in the way of resources, but five loaves and two fish are enough
to feed thousands when combined with faith. When we believe in Jesus, we begin to see signs where others see only
hopelessness. With a little faith, a
little ingenuity, and the hunger to fight for justice, we too can perform
miracles.
Here are some very simple ways to
make a difference: The hungersite, supported by
corporate sponsorships, allows you to make a contribution of food by simply
clicking on an icon as often as once a day. In the bulletin today, you will see an insert from Bread for the World,
inviting you to join a letter writing campaign to end world hunger. You can also sign up to receive a free
12-page booklet on What You Can Do to End
World Hunger. (Also available on the
Bread for the World website at www.bread.org)
The hunger to make a difference in
our world is a righteous hunger. The
desire to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick and the
prisoners, to witness the day when no one shall hunger or thirst any more is a
satisfying hunger in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus Christ and want
to follow in his ways. As Henri Nouwen has written:
Jesus, the Blessed
Child of God, hungers and thirsts for uprightness.
He abhors
injustice. He resists those who try to
gather wealth and influence
by oppression and
exploitation. His whole being yearns for
people to treat
one another as
brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the same God.
With
fervor he proclaims that the way to the Kingdom is not found in
saying prayers or
offering many sacrifices but in feeding the hungry,
clothing the
naked, and visiting the sick and the prisoners (see
Matthew
25:31-46). He longs for a just
world. He wants us to live
with the same
hunger and thirst.[3]
Amen.
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Call to the Table of the Lord:
Come!
Let us celebrate the supper of Our Lord,
Let us all together
Bake a giant loaf
And together prepare the jars of wine
As at the wedding feast in Cana.
Let the women not forget the salt
Nor the men the leaven.
And let us invite many guests:
The lame, the blind, the deaf;
The poor.
Quickly now!
Let us follow the recipe of our Lord,
Let us together knead the dough with our hands
And watch with joy
The rising Bread.
Because today we are celebrating
Our commitment to Christ Jesus.
Today we are renewing our commitment
To the kingdom,
And no one shall go hungry away.[4]
|
[1]
Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn and Matthew Linn, Sleeping With Bread:
Holding What Gives You Life, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist
Press, 1995) p.1.
[2]
LectionAid, Volume 11, Number 3, Year B, June 2003 – August 2003, p.34.
[3]
Henri J. M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A
Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
1997,) May 27.
[4]
Elsa Tamez, “A Call to Commitment,” from the
International Review of Mission, October 1982 (p.509), World Council of
Churches, Geneva, Switzerland, as found in Come Unto Me: Rethinking the
Sacraments for Children, by Elizabeth Francis Caldwell, (Cleveland: United
Church Press, 1996) pp.103-104.
© 2003
Julie Yarborough.
All rights reserved
