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When We Are Hungry by Rev. Carol M. Simpson, Associate Pastor 30 July 2000--Ordinary 17 TEXT: 2 Samuel 11:1-15; John 6:1-21 © 2000 C. M. Simpson |
As was often his habit, Jesus headed for a mountain, surely with the intention of getting away from the crowds and having some quiet time with his disciples. But inevitably the crowds followed. "When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we going to buy bread for these people to eat?" Weary as he may have been, Jesus' first concern was for the needs of others. He was a very spiritual man, but also a very down-to-earth and practical one. He knew that these crowds had come great distances and that at the end of the day, they must be hungry. So he turned to Philip, who was from that region, and asked what must have seemed like an absurd question. Staring out at the multitude, he asked, "Where are we going to buy bread for these people to eat?" Now there was no Auchon or Casino nearby, not even a "boulangerie" that could have fed 5,000. Philip immediately declared the situation hopeless by raising another practical problem, "Six months' wages could not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." Money is not always the solution to a problem, but we can appreciate the disciple's attitude. The situation looked impossible on the surface. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up hopefully, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish." then he added with an air of resignation, "But how far will they go among so many?"
"Have the people sit down," Jesus ordered. And all of them sat down on the grassy slopes. There were approximately 5,000 men in attendance plus women and children. John tells us that Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks to God and passed them out to the people. Afterwards he did the same with the fish. And everyone ate until they were full! When all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces left over by those who had eaten. The story is incredible, and so it its message.
Jesus is concerned about our physical needs. That's the first insight we can derive from this story. He taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," and he assures us that when we pray for the necessities of life, our prayers will always be answered. God's will for life has always been that our basic needs would be met. That is why God placed us in such a bountiful world where there is enough for everyone's need, though perhaps not enough for everyone's greed.
A common table blessing in Jesus' time, and the one He probably used before feeding the people, was, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, who causes to come forth bread from the earth." The five loaves of bread which the boy brought were made of barley. This was the cheapest, most common kind of bread in the region. It was the bread of the poor. This miracle parallels Jesus' first recorded miracle, of turning water into wine. Jesus took a very common element, water, and turned it into the very finest wine. Here, Jesus took the five simple barley loaves and fed thousands. Jesus doesn't simply supply our needs, the Gospel of John implies; He supplies them abundantly.
But so often we confuse our "needs" and our desires. We get caught up in the rat race of bigger and better, more and more. When we sense an emptiness in our life, we often seek to fill the void with a new car, or a bigger TV, a state-of-the-art computer, or some other symbol of status. Often when we have everything, or at least all the outward trappings of wealth and success, we are still hungry for more, but we fail to correctly identify our hunger.
Take the example or David in our Old Testament Lesson this morning. David was King. He had risen from a humble shepherd boy to a man of great power and wealth. His armies were strong and had just successfully defeated the Ammonites and Arameans. David no longer went to the front with his troops so we find him in Jerusalem, content with his victories, but a bit bored. He rises from his couch and strolls out onto the roof of his palace, and in the distance he sees a beautiful woman bathing. No doubt David felt his heart quicken and a surge of excitement ripple through him. He sent a servant to inquire about the woman and discovered that she was the wife of one of his valued soldiers. So he sent for her and she came to him, as any loyal subject would, and then he lay with her, and she became pregnant.
David was hungry, hungry for new adventure, hungry for sex, hungry for something new and exciting to fill his days. Often when we are hungry, we are faced with choices about how to satisfy our hunger. When our stomach begins to growl, we can reach for an apple or some carrot sticks, or we can grab a bag of peanuts or a liter of ice-cream. Sometimes we make healthy and appropriate choices and sometimes we don't! When we are hungry for a sense of belonging or longing for love, we can throw ourselves rashly into new relationships ready to pay any price for acceptance, or we can seek the fellowship and community of family and friends or of other Christians and experience God's love for us. When we are longing for a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, we can plunge more deeply into our work, hoping for a promotion or accolades from our boss, or we can find a volunteer activity, like the Habitat for Humanity project or Bloom Where You're Planted where what we do will make a real difference in the lives of people, and the sense of satisfaction will come from within as we use our gifts and talents for the glory of God to touch the lives of our neighbors.
When the bloom is off the rose, and a marriage has lost its luster, when the partner who once sparked passion and joy within now sits silently across the table day after day, and we find ourselves drawn to another, to one who listens, to one who laughs, to one who touches, we can respond to that nascent hunger by having an affair, or we can let that hunger be a wake-up call, and we can examine our stagnant relationship and choose to work to re-kindle its fire.
What is stressing most of us out is not our needs but our out-of-control wants. The old is not good enough; we need something new, something exciting. We keep raising our expectations. Our parents were satisfied with a 1000 square foot home, or maybe a 50 square meter apartment, but we seem to need double that amount of space, even though--on average--our families are smaller. Sometimes it's not enough to have a family car. Now each member of the family needs his or her own transportation, and everyone needs a mobile phone and television and a computer! The level of our expectations keeps rising and so does the level of our stress. We are hungry but we don't recognize the hunger and don't have a clue how to satisfy it. So much of our hunger comes from a dissatisfaction with things, from a failure to appreciate all that we do have.. So much of it is tied to ego and our quest for success. If we could only shift our focus to maintaining a rich and right relationship with God, our hunger for acceptance and love would vanish, for God accepts, forgives and loves us abundantly.
Often the key to controlling or satisfying our hunger is a question of shifting our priorities, of asking ourselves what is really important in our lives. There is a book entitled The Overspent American - Upscaling, Downshifting and The New Consumer, by Juliet B. Schor which details a change of priorities that many Americans are making. Just as corporations are "downsizing," many of our fellow citizens have begun "downshifting," says Schor. Not counting those people taking a regularly scheduled retirement, in the years from 1990 through 1996, nearly one-fifth (19 percent) of all adult Americans made a voluntary lifestyle change, that entailed earning less money. Just over half of these people, or 55 percent, consider their lifestyle change to be permanent. And nearly all of them (85 percent) are happy about the change they made.
Another 12 percent of Americans were involuntarily downshifted, that is, through no choice of their own their incomes were reduced. They lost a job, had their hours reduced, or suffered a pay cut. But even among this group, one-quarter (24 percent) consider the change "a blessing in disguise." So just about one-fifth of the adult American population is happily living on less. We were brought up on the adage that "money can't buy happiness," but most of us have been afraid to find out by direct experience. So we keep our nose to the grindstone during the day and we grind our teeth in the night. We may end up financially secure, but noseless and toothless.
The main point of this story of the feeding of the 5,000 is that Christ can fill the emptiness that we try in vain to fill with toys, or with extra-marital affairs, or by becoming a workaholic. Jesus tells us to pray and assures us that our prayers will be answered, but, when we pray, do we really ask for what we want? We pray for money, when what we really want is security. We pray for success because it gives us status in other's eyes, but what we really want is enough self-esteem so that we won't need to keep up with the Jones' anymore. The 5000-plus people in our story for today were blown away by Jesus because he could provide for their physical needs, but Jesus knows that human needs go much deeper than the physical. All of us have spiritual needs that leave us constantly yearning for something more. We try to satisfy this yearning with physical food, with money, with work, with status symbols, with sensuality, with materialism, but still we are left feeling empty. In this passage, Jesus is claiming that He can fill that emptiness, that He can satisfy that hunger forever. And he can. We just need to make room for him in our hearts and in our lives.
Listen to this illustration which I came across recently:
A tax assessor came one day to a very devout man to determine the amount of taxes the man would have to pay. The following conversation took place:
"What property do you possess?" asked the assessor.
"I am a very wealthy man," replied the believer.
"List your possessions, please," the assessor instructed.
"First, I have everlasting life, (John 3:16)," said the man.
"Second, I have a mansion in heaven, (John 14:2).
"Third, I have peace that passes all understanding, (Philippians 4:7).
"Fourth, I have joy unspeakable, (1 Peter 1:8).
"Fifth, I have divine love which never fails, (1 Corinthians 13:8).
"Sixth, I have a faithful, precious wife, (Proverbs 31:10).
"Seventh, I have healthy, happy obedient children, (Exodus 20:12).
"Eighth, I have true, loyal friends, (Proverbs 18:24).
"Ninth, I have songs in the night, (Psalms 42:8).
"Tenth, I have a crown of life, (James 1:12)."
The tax assessor closed his book, and said, "Truly you are a very rich man, but your property is not subject to taxation." (Author Unknown)
The Bible tells us we have all those things. You can find the passages yourself in Psalms, in Proverbs, in the gospels and in the epistles. When we know and love God, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have everything we could possibly need. I think of the story about the Sunday School teacher who was attempting to teach her class of 5 or 6 year olds the 23rd Psalm. After a few weeks one child claimed she could recite it all by herself. The teacher, though somewhat dubious, invited the her to the front of the class where she proudly stood up and spoke only one sentence. She said, "The Lord is my shepherd; that's all I need." How right she was!
When we are hungry, the best solution is to let God fill our heart and our life. A pastor in a sermon once said to his congregation, " The cost of food in the kingdom is hunger for the bread of heaven, instead of the white bread of the world. Do you want it? Are you hungry? Or are you satisfied with yourself and your television and your computer and your job and your family?" (-- John Piper in a sermon). When we are hungry, we need to ask ourselves what we are really hungry for. Let us feast on the Bread of Life. Let us allow God to fill the empty spaces in our hearts and in our lives, and let us eagerly share the Bread of Life with our friends who are also hungry. Amen
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