John 6: 35,41-51 Proper 14B
8/9/15
The Reverend Roger Hungerford
Lord we ask you to inspire us to be imitators of you, as beloved children of God, and live in love, as
you loved us and gave yourself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Jesus said to the people, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.
Hunger was pervasive in the ancient world. From an anthropological perspective, hunger was one of
the primary reasons for the spread of humanity. People followed migrating herds and when herds
were decimated due to human population growth or some natural cause, people moved to, explored
and settled new areas.
In other passages in scripture we hear about how famine fueled hunger caused people to migrate.
Think about the story of Joseph. After he had been thrown in a pit, enslaved, and had risen to become the chief steward for the pharaoh, his starving brothers travel from the promised land to
Egypt to beg for food and eventually immigrate to Goshen. That is how the family reconnected and
how the family, and ultimately Israel, was saved.
I know first hand the power of hunger and some of you may know this too. As a police officer, I
often saw how hunger created desperation ultimately led to crime. But my true experience came
when I was in my teens as a Boy Scout and we went on a survival camp out. We could take shelter
and blankets and cooking items but no food. The story was we were to be like the explorers who
had gone before us. They couldn't carry all the food they needed so they had to provide for themselves from the natural world that surrounded them.
The members of our troop thought this was so cool. Before going on this adventure we learned
about local animals we could capture for food. We learned how to make snares and other items to
capture these critters. We even learned how to prepare and cook them. We also learned about the
vegetation and fruits in our area, what we could eat and how to prepare them too. Ideally every meal
needs some meat and vegetable and a dessert, right?
So off we went. We hiked about five miles to our camp site on the edge of a small pond. We set up
camp and tried fishing with no luck. We set traps for squirrels we saw climbing in the trees. No luck.
We set a snare for a rabbit. Still no luck. Hours had passed and as teenagers we were all getting real
hungry. We talked to the scout master about abandoning our efforts. He told us no. That despite
how we were feeling, we would survive one day with no food. And he told us to keep trying.
We thought about our training and harvested grass and dandelion greens. We were hungry, so we
harvested a lot of grass and dandelion greens. We boiled them and discovered how bad boiled grass
and dandelion tasted, but we ate them anyway.
We pleaded with our troop master to go home, but to no avail. He said we would learn a powerful
lesson from our experience. We started to dream about what and how much we would eat when we
got home. Me, all I could think about was glazed raised donuts. I planned on gorging on donuts
when I got home.
Then one of our fellow scouts had some kind of minor medical need...I don't recall just what, but
the net result was the troop master had to walk the boy about a mile or so to a gas station to get
some assistance.
John 6: 35,41-51 Proper 14B
8/9/15
The Reverend Roger Hungerford
While the troop master was gone, people at the gas station, who had heard of our survival camp and
our pleading for food, had sympathy so they out drove our location and gave us candy bars. That
evening, I had the most flavorful Snickers I have ever eaten.
When our troop master returned and found out we had failed our survival camp out, he gave us a
spirited lecture about discipline and honor. I confess I felt so bad I wanted to puke up my candy bar.
I had betrayed the scout master and myself.
While my Boy Scout experience pales in comparison to the hunger felt by many in our nation and in
a lot of third world countries, one of the valuable lessons I learned that night is that hunger is a huge
motivator. From that night and other life experiences, I know this. If any of us in this room went
hungry for a day with no possible way to remedy our situation, no place to buy food or all the
shelves bare at local markets for whatever reason, we would get scared. By the end of two days without having the knowledge of a food source, no bulk food distribution, no soup kitchens, no food
pantries, we would become desperate and start thinking about how we could break in and steal food
from a place where we think it is stored. By the third day, we would resort to robbery. We would intimidate or physically harm others to get something to eat.
Hunger touches our very basic survival need, and people will do just about anything to survive including abandoning all sense of decency, morals and ethics. People will willingly travel thousands of
perilous miles in order to get food and provide for their family.
The people hearing Jesus speak had keenly felt hunger and its associated desperation. Most would
have been excited to hear that there was a way to never hunger again. They were the ones who God
drew near to hear more of what Jesus was saying.
The hunger Jesus was talking about was more than physical hunger. He was also talking about a
more important hunger, he was talking our spiritual hunger. That hunger is our innate longing and
quest to be connected to God. That hunger is pervasive and powerful. That hunger is where we get
our deep seated motivation, and through Christ's satisfying that hunger within us, we are led to do
the right things - among them is to care for the poor, the immigrant and the refugee. And that is
how we manifest Christ in our world. Amen.