9 Pentecost

August 2, 2009

Exodus 16.2-4, 9-15; Psalm 78.23-29; John 6.24-35

Hunger.

Few of us, I hope, have experienced real hunger. Few of us have experienced deep, gnawing hunger. Hunger is one of those things that, when it happens, affects us deeply. It comes up from within us and dominates us. When we’re hungry, all we can think about is food. In many ways, hunger and thirst go hand-in-hand. Both drive us at our very basest need—to eat and to drink. It all has to do with survival. To survive—to live—we must eat, we must drink. And we’re hungry, we realize how human we are. We realize that without food, without drink, we are mortal. When we’re hungry, when we’re thirsty, we feel an echoing emptiness within us. And that emptiness becomes for us, very quickly, a kind of desolation. It is a physical desolation. Hunger is a terrible thing. It turns us inside out. It affects us not just physically. It affects us mentally and spiritually as well.

Our Liturgy of the Word today begins with hunger, but it doesn’t end with hunger. In our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures—from Exodus—we find the Israelites, in their hunger, complaining and grumbling. In some translations, we find the word “murmuring.” Over and over again in the Exodus story they seem to complain and grumble and murmur. To be fair, complaining and grumbling would be expected from people who are hungry. We, in their place, would be doing the same thing no doubt. But in their hunger, God provides for them. God provides them this mysterious manna—this strange bread from heaven.

In our psalm, we find the story of the Israelites in the wilderness echoed in song and poetry. We find the psalmist proclaiming that

“God gave them what they craved.”

A lovely, poetic image. It also adds another word to our “lexicon of the day”—craving. Craving is a great word to use. Craving seems to truly convey the gnawing aspect of hunger.

Finally, in our Gospel, we find the story of the Israelites and their hunger has been turned around entirely. As our Liturgy of the Word for today begins with hunger and all the complaining and murmuring and grumbling and craving that goes along with it, it ends with fulfillment. We find that the hungers now are not the hungers of our body, but of our spirits. Spiritual hunger is just as real and just as all-encompassing as physical hunger. It, like physical hunger, can gnaw at us. We too crave after spiritual fulfillment. We mumble and complain and murmur when we are spiritually unfulfilled. We too feel that gaping emptiness within us when we hunger from a place that no physical food or drink can quench.

In a sense, we too are, like the Israelites, wandering about in our own wilderness—our own spiritual wilderness. Most of us know what is like to be out there—in that spiritual wasteland—grumbling and complaining, shaking our fists at the skies and at God. We, like them, cry and lament. We feel sorry for ourselves and for the predicaments we’re in.
And we, like them, say to ourselves and to God, “If only I hadn’t followed God out here—if only I had stayed put or followed the easier route, I wouldn’t be here.”

We’ve all been in that place. We’ve all been in that desert, to that place we thought God had led us. We went so self-assuredly. We went certain this was what God wanted for us. We had read all the signs. We had listened to that subtle voice of the Spirit within us. We had gauged our calling from God through the discernment of others. And them, suddenly, there we were. What began as a concentrated stepping forward, had become an aimless wandering. And, in that moment, we found ourselves questioning everything—we questioned ourselves, we questioned the others who discerned our journey, we questioned the Spirit who spoke within us. And, in our emptiness, in our frustration, we questioned God.

I remember I came to a point like that in my own life. Eight years ago, I was laid off from a job and was very uncertain of what my future was going to be. Around that same time, as you all know, I was diagnosed with cancer. I remember very clearly, in the midst of my depression and my physical illness, lamenting. Lamenting is a word that seems kind of outdated for most of us. We think of lamenting being some overly dramatic complaining. Which is exactly what it is. And that is why I did. I complained and lamented in dramatic style at that time in my life. I remember raging at God, saying, “What have you done? Why have you led me to this place and then, seemingly, have left me here alone.” In that place, I felt alone. I felt scared. I felt as though there was no way back and no way forward. I felt, quite simply, desolate.

Like hunger, few of us, again I hope, have felt utter desolation. But that was very much the place I was in at that time in my life. I felt like the journey I had followed to that place seemed so long and the journey out of that place seemed even longer All I could do with any real honesty was cry out to God for strength.

Now, I hope I don’t sound too pious or saintly—trust me, I don’t have to tell anyone here that I am not either of those things—I am not pious and I am certainly not saintly— but my prayer was answered at that time. I did find my strength and consolation in the midst of that spiritual wilderness. In a very real sense, manna came to me in that desert. I found it in the one thing I clung to in my own personal desert—the Eucharist. The Eucharist very clearly sustained me and held me up during that time. When I couldn’t pray anymore, when I grew tired of complaining and grumbling, when I became exhausted by lamenting, I found a strange peace in Holy Communion. When I couldn’t find the words to pray, when I didn’t even know what to pray for anymore, I found I didn’t need to have any words at all to partake in the Eucharist. All I had to do was partake of it. And in it, all I had to do was let Jesus be present for me.

As much we might debate the theologies of whether or not Jesus is truly presence in the Eucharist, I can say without a doubt that in those moments, in my own desert, I found that, yes, Jesus is present in the Eucharist. Jesus is very present in the Bread we share and the wine we drink. And that Presence was what upheld me and sustained and fulfilled me in those moments I needed to be upheld and sustained and fulfilled. Like the manna that rained down upon those Israelites, the Eucharist came into my life and all I had to do was take it and eat it and let it do what it had to do in my life.

I truly found I had my fill, and, in it, knew that God is God. This is what Eucharist is all about. This is why the Eucharist is so important to us. Here, we truly do eat the Bread of angels. Here, we do partake of the grain of heaven. In this Eucharist, at this altar, we find Jesus, present to us in just the way we need him to present to us. In our hunger, he feeds us with himself. In our grumbling and complaining, he quiets us, for when we are eating and drinking, we can’t complain and grumble. And unlike the food we eat day be day, the food we eat at this altar will not perish. In this Eucharist, in the Presence of Jesus we find in this bread and this wine, we find that our grumbling and murmuring and complaining have been silenced with that quiet but sure statement that comes to us from that Presence we encounter here:

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

In the echo of that statement, we are silenced. In the wake of those powerful words, we find our emptiness fulfilled. We find our complaining silenced. We find the strength to make our way our of the wilderness to the promised land Jesus proclaims to us.

“I am the bread of life,” he says to us.

This is the bread of life, here at this altar.

“Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Let us come to the bread of life and let us him take from us our gnawing hunger and our craving thirst.