Hunger

Hunger is important for faith.  There is physical hunger and there is spiritual hunger.  Emptiness.  Hunger places us in a state of human vulnerability in which we become more open to God, to powers outside of ourselves that can provide, fill the void.  We prefer to be full, satisfied.  But is that really possible?  Can we fill ourselves up enough? Our efforts are temporary and often riddled with unfairness.  If we are full, its because someone else is not.  There is sacrifice in the system that keeps some people in a state of vulnerability and others in a state of satisfaction.  Is the world a place of hunger and vulnerability or a place of fullness, abundance, and satisfaction? I suspect that those who are not hungry cannot know the full power of God’s love and grace.  Jesus seems to be for the sick and the hungry.  I suppose its when we are sick and hungry that Jesus matters.  Closeness to Jesus has something to do with how sick and hungry we are.  It’s good to be a little hungry.       

A hungry church is driven by a hunger to know the heart of God through the world’s hunger.  At community meals and food pantries.  At the Sunday gathering around the altar.  We enact feeding miracles.  We experience hunger and see the God who provides.  Jesus fed large crowds, turning scarce supplies into abundance.  So do we.  Jesus turned the Passover meal into the Lord’s Supper---in which the bread and cup are His body and blood, given and shed on the cross for the salvation of the world.  And here we are, about to receive Him again.  About a thousand years before Jesus did it, Elisha did it.  Before that, God sent manna to those barely freed slaves on the road to the promised land.  Before that, God put an imprisoned Hebrew in charge of the abundant food supply for all of the Middle East at a time of famine.  Before that, God created humankind and placed them in a garden with the covenant calling to till and keep the earth, to be fruitful and multiply.  Food is a sign of God’s presence, power, and provision.  Food, eating, feeding hungry people are visible expressions of God’s Word to the world.  God’s goodness and mercy, God’s grace and love are offered up to us in the bread and cup we share.  But this is not new news for you.  I have said this all before.  You get it.

This week I took the leftover bread from Peter’s Porch to Lancaster Council of Churches new food hub in the city.  It is an amazing place with large cold storage and ample space to organize food donations for distribution to hungry Lancaster residents.  The vision for that place is to serve the county’s food needs by becoming a central collecting point for locally grown, fresh food that is donated or bought to feed the hungry.  They are part of a broader movement called Hunger Free Lancaster County.  I sit on the board of this grassroots organization.  Our goal, under the leadership of former Senator Mike Brubaker is to end hunger in the county by 2018 by assuring that every Lancaster county resident has access to three healthy meals a day.  21.6 million meals will be needed to fill the gap.  My work on the board extends to the service committee.  I am working on food recovery and gleaning efforts.  I am meeting local farmers and growers to talk about acquiring more fresh locally grown food for anti-hunger food relief programs.  I spent some time on Friday at Lancaster Central market talking to vendors about the work of HFLC.  I’m hoping to organize two large field or orchard gleans for 2015. I have a lead on a tomato farm.  But not an orchard yet.  On Tuesday I will go to Root’s market to talk with vendors.  On Thursday, I’m going to Leola Produce auction to learn how to buy large quantities of produce there.  I feel like Joseph. We have to get a handle on the abundance, in order to address the scarcity.  There are hungry people here.  They are living on a very low income.  Many of them are seniors and children.  They are working families and people with disabilities.  Hunger is not racially discriminatory.  White, black, and brown people are hungry.  Any one of us are only a day away from hunger.  Do not eat for one day and you will taste its power.  Hunger drives behavior. Hunger, emptiness, scarcity causes fear, anxiety, mistrust, hoarding, even violence.

Today we are invited to pay attention to the hunger, the emptiness, the illness inside us and in the world God made.  Jesus came to reveal abundance, to satisfy our needs, to feed our souls with the bread of heaven.  But if we're not hungry, we won't eat.  Even Jesus knows that.  So, what are you hungry for?