(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on August 5, 2018, Proper 13)
Tacos and Guacamole
It was late in the week when Dave
asked Kate about her weekend.
Neither had plans, so they decided they would make dinner at Kate’s
home. The word spread to the
others: Kate’s apartment on Friday.
Bring a dish.
It came together wonderfully. One friend made tacos. Another friend made bean dip. Someone brought chips. And someone else whipped up guacamole
at the last minute. And Sean, the
fifth friend, didn’t bring anything but himself.
Sean was deep in the ruts of
depression. It was all he could do
to get himself off his couch, into the car, and over to Kate’s. But he did. And slowly over dinner he came to life. The call and response of bad jokes and
groans brought the flicker of a smile to his face.
The others reflected his
glow. Dave, who had been fighting
cancer now for three months, relaxed as he dipped his chips into the common
bowl of guacamole. Kate, who was
still recovering from a bitter divorce, loosened up as she joined in the
others’ commiserations over a difficult workweek. Even Jason and Sarah, the couple who had it all together, seemed
more at ease than usual. The truth
is, behind their success lay unseen scars and struggle—both had had unfulfilled
family upbringings and were now engaged in a never-ending struggle to prove
their worth through work and achievement.
But on this evening, in this gathering, they had nothing to prove,
nothing to achieve.
The five friends feasted that
night over their simple Southwest fare. Each person felt not only full, but fulfilled.
A couple of weeks later, Jason
and Sarah were talking about how great a time they had. They wanted to recreate it. So they called the others and made
arrangements for a precise repetition of the evening. There would be tacos. There would be bean dip. There would be chips. And there would be guacamole. Because those were the ingredients of
that first miraculous gathering.
But this time, the gathering
wasn’t miraculous. This time they
left the gathering feeling only full, not fulfilled. All the same food items were there. But what the friends did not realize is
that their first gathering had been about much more than the food on the table.
It had been about a loving trust
in each other, a liberation from the pressures of the world, peace somehow amid
the uncertainty of their lives.
What they did not realize is that
their deepest hunger was not for food.
Their deepest hunger was for love.
Loaves and Fishes
When Jesus fed the five thousand,
the crowd was so overwhelmed with the miracle that they were going to take
Jesus by force and make him king.
But Jesus realized this and quickly withdrew.
The next day, however, the crowd
goes looking for Jesus. When they
find him, Jesus tries to change their hearts. Or rather, he tries to tell them what is already in their
hearts but is deeper than they know.
He tries to tell them the real reason that they are looking for
him. “You are looking for me,” he
says in today’s scripture, “not because you saw signs, but because you ate your
fill”—not of “food that perishes” but of a different kind of food, a “food that
endures,” a food that gives life to the world (John 6:26-27, 32-33).
When the crowd goes searching for
Jesus, they think they are looking for another miracle. What they do not realize, Jesus points
out, is that they are looking for the wrong miracle. The real miracle was not the five loaves and two
fishes. It was something that
happened in the food, in the
gathering, in the selfless sharing of Christ. What the crowd does not realize is that their deepest hunger
is not for food. Their deepest
hunger is for love.
“The Wife of Uriah”
It seems that our hunger is often
deeper than we know. We think it’s
one thing when actually it’s something inside
that.
When David saw a beautiful woman
and learned that her name was Bathsheba, he thought he knew what he
wanted. But he was confused. He knew only the outside, her name and
her appearance. When Nathan the
prophet broaches the matter of Bathsheba, he does not refer to the outside. He does not refer to the beauty of her
appearance or the name by which she is called. He calls her the “wife of Uriah.” The narrator, too, calls her not Bathsheba but “the wife of
Uriah.” In his genealogy of Jesus,
Matthew will also refer to her as “the wife of the Uriah.” Nathan and the narrator and
Matthew all know the inside of this tragic situation. David has not just taken a woman. He has taken the wife of another man. He has destroyed a family. He has violated the law, the Torah.
I don’t know what David really
wanted. I don’t know what he was
really hungry for. But I imagine
it was not far from the real hunger of the five friends who gathered for dinner
on Friday or the five thousand who gathered around five loaves and two
fishes. What the five friends
really hungered for was not tacos and chips and guacamole. What the crowd of five thousand really
hungered for was not a miracle of loaves and fishes. What they really hungered for is what was happening inside
those things. What they really
hungered for was love.
The Love Inside
I remember how when I was
younger, if someone asked me before Christmas or my birthday what I wanted, I
might have rattled off a list of things.
My answers today have surely evolved, but I sometimes find myself approaching
life the same way. (Perhaps you do
too.) “If only I had this or that,
if only things were this way or that way.”
But of course, it was never the
presents that I really wanted when I was younger. It was the love inside them.
Prayer
Compassionate Christ,
Who knows our hunger
Better than we do ourselves—
We have had our fill
Of the things of this world,
Which leave us feeling full
But far from fulfilled.
Draw us more deeply
Into our true hunger
And its true fulfillment:
Your love,
Which gives life to the world. Amen.
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