living bread and the end of hunger

John 6 is the bread discourse. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. He who eats of me will never hunger." As a eucharistic community we can over-spiritualize this expression to mean that Jesus is pointing to the gift of the sacrament as the sign of God's never-failing love and grace which forgives our sins and promises us eternal life. But from a divine justice perspective, spoken to a world where physical hunger takes human life everyday, this self-proclamation points beyond the eucharist as an act of corporate and personal forgiveness. Jesus is establishing, not only a community to feed the hungry, but the hopeful vision of a world where there is no hunger anymore. And in so doing, he is creating the capacity within the human heart and within the human community to embody this very hope. Systemic injustice is eradicated by a believing community devoted to agape love. Belief, Brian McLaren says, is the first step in defecting from the dominant narratives in which we live and in which injustice thrives. We tell ourselves that the world is thus when the truth is "thus have we made the world." When we own the problem, we can become the solution with the help of GOD, who promises us life with meaning, purpose, and hope.
I suspect that, like the world, we in church have lost hope in the promise that God will end all hunger and death. We take for granted that people starve. And we give a little to manage global crises. But we need to have a bigger dream. We need to dream of a world where there is enough for all and all have equal access to what they need to live. We need to dream of a world where over-consumption does not cost children their lives. We need to dream of a world where GOD is good,loving, kind, and generous. A generous GOD gives us all what we need, no matter who we are or what we believe. I believe in that generosity because I have been a recipient of it. I also know that many millions of people suffer without bread. So Jesus feeds people and Jesus shows us how to live in community so that no one is hungry, compasionate justice embodied through neighbor love. Economic justice lived out in communities creates the conditions by which all benefit from God's abundance. This is the role of governments and churches: To create the conditions by which abundance is shared justly so that all have "bread". We see the problems with foreign aid often have to do with weak political systems and corrupt governments, who od not have the interests of the people, especially the poor, as a guiding principle. Even the U.S. government needs spiritual guidance in order to abide by an ethical economy that benefits the last and the least. ELCA World hunger recognizes the importance of advocacy, speaking the truth to power in order to create the conditions for justice.

May the ones who hunger receive bread. And may those with bread hunger for divine justice! Amen.