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I
wonder if any of you have the same problem that I have. Every
so often I come home from work to make supper, and I find
myself opening the refrigerator door and peeking into the
refrigerator and taking a look at what’s in there, and then
walking away and shutting the door. Then I wander over to the
cupboards, pull open a couple of doors, and look in there to
see what we might have for dinner. And I can’t seem to find
anything. It’s not that the cupboards are bare, or that
there’s nothing in the refrigerator. Most of the time there
are more than enough things that I could fix, but I just
can’t seem to find that one thing that’s going to satisfy
my hunger or my particular craving that night.
Does
anybody ever have that problem? Most of the time I can’t
even tell you what I’m looking for, but I’m sure that if I
see it, I’ll know what it is. And so I look in the cupboard
and I say, “Ah, I’m not really hungry for that.” Then I
open the refrigerator and move the stuff around and say,
“Ah, that doesn’t really look that good tonight.” And I
just can’t seem to figure out what it is we’re going to
eat. So, nine times out of ten, we end up going to the
restaurant.
Hunger.
It’s an interesting phenomenon, isn’t it? It’s a basic
human need that needs to be satisfied. As an infant, we awaken
and announce our need to eat with crying. The only other thing
an infant cries about is when they need their diaper changed.
As soon as an infant begins to cry, what does a mom or dad do?
They reach for a bottle or they get ready to begin to
breastfeed. We jump to the infant’s bidding and we try to
quiet and settle their urge and their need right away. I never
could figure out, though, how it is that by the time we are an
adult, we’re supposed to be able to limit that craving to
just three times a day.
But
physical hunger and the need for food is not the only way we
experience hunger. And probably more often than not, it’s
when we’re reaching for food to satisfy that which we think
is a physical hunger for food, that we discover that our
hunger is so much deeper. Because hunger refers to the urge to
fill various kinds of emptiness in ourselves, the emptiness
that comes from the need for love, acceptance, a life that’s
meaningful, physical affection, and the list goes on. And
don’t we try to fill it with a myriad of things?
Yet
I wonder how often we try to satisfy the hunger with all sorts
of inappropriate food? I refer to it with my teenage children
as “junk food.” Why do we eat junk food? It’s fast,
it’s convenient, it seems to taste good, and it seems to be
the answer to provide a quick fix of comfort and relief to
that pain inside. Yet those of you who are those junk food
junkies out there…how often after you’ve eaten it, do you
sit back and ask yourself, “Why did I eat that?”, or wake
up about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning and find that terrible
gnawing inside as if you had eaten something that shouldn’t
have ever gone down?
How
often do we find ourselves feeling worse than when we’d even
started, and yet still hungry and craving for something?
Perhaps because, more often than not, when we think we’re
hungry, we’re not hungry for food as in the physical food
that we put in our mouth, but we’re hungry for soul food.
Stop to consider for a moment how much time and attention we
give to putting food in our stomachs. The health craze of the
nineties made us particularly conscious of it, I think, when
there was so much emphasis put on being “heart smart,” low
fat, low sodium, no artificial preservatives or color, and
shopping began to take twice as long as it used to. Today,
when you go past fast food restaurants, you find everybody
advertising what? Low carbs.
Yet
how much attention do we give in considering the food that we
feed our souls? This was a real concern of Jesus throughout
his ministry. There are numerous accounts of feeding and
eating in the Gospels. And each account in its own way uses
the act of eating and/or food to ask or to address the deeper
question of feeding our soul. Yet, despite Jesus’ many
attempts to help his disciples see beyond the physical
realities of food and to feed on a greater gift he had to
offer, people did not get it. They didn’t get it in the
story about turning water into wine. They didn’t get it in
the various accounts of feeding of the 5,000 (or the 4,000,
depending on which story you read). They didn’t get it when
he talked about the great banquet to which everyone was
invited. They didn’t get it at the Last Supper when he tried
to tell them about being the bread of life. They didn’t even
get it when he appeared to them in the resurrection scene and
broke bread with them.
As
we look at today’s scripture passage in Romans, we find that
the same kind of concern and challenge is in place in the
church fifty years after Jesus’ death. I’d like to invite
you to listen as I read that scripture passage to you, taken
from Romans 12:1-2.
I appeal
to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to
present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your
minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what
is good and acceptable and perfect.
Now
you need to know that up to this point in Paul’s letter to
the Romans, Paul has written eleven chapters of theological
discourse laying out his understanding of what Jesus’ dying
on the cross and the resurrection stood for, and what it means
for the church of Paul’s day and for us today. Now, if you
want to get caught up in the theological jargon of all time,
you ought to try to dissect the first eleven chapters of
Romans. But when he finally gets to chapter twelve, Paul gets
into being really practical. “Therefore,” he says to you,
“I appeal to you to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice.” How? How are we to present our bodies as a
living sacrifice? By not being conformed to this world. By not
seeking that which is empty and/or that which will make us
continue to be hungry. No, we are to present our bodies as a
living sacrifice by being transformed by the renewal of your
mind. Why do we want to do it? Because then we will be
satisfied.
In
other words, Paul says to the Church of Rome and to us, there
are times when you will find yourself hungry. It doesn’t
matter what you eat. There are times when you will feel alone
in the desert, when you will be hurting, when tragedy will
strike your life, when you will find yourself under stress or
financial burden, when days seem endless and long with routine
inactivity that leaves you wondering what’s the point or is
there anything more, times when it seems that all of your
friends have deserted you or you feel pulled in so many
directions with the inability to say no. We will all face
those times in our life. And if you are seeking that which
will keep you from experiencing those things, if you are
seeking a Mr. Fix-it or a Mr. Gadget God, or you’re seeking
physical food when you’re really hungry for soul food, then
you’ll continue to be hungry and crave in your life.
And
so Paul invites the Romans and us, instead, to feed on the
Bread of Life, to feed on the Spirit of God. To be
transformed, live life in the Spirit. It’s an interesting
phrase, “be transformed.” Transformed comes from the Greek
word metamorphis. It’s a word that suggests a
changing from the inside out. There isn’t any other English
word for it. It is also a passive verb. To be transformed
suggests that it’s not so much about our doing as our being
receptive to God’s doing within us. Being transformed by the
renewal of our minds is to feed on the Spirit of God.
And
then he goes on to outline how we can do this. And it begins
by being open to the activity of God within us through the
renewal of our minds. As Jeff mentioned, over the next several
weeks, he and I will be using this theme of living in the
Spirit, feeding on the Spirit of God’s love to explore how
we, as Christians, are called to live life in the Spirit. And
as I said, it begins by opening ourselves to the invitation to
feed on it.
The
focus is one of renewal that comes from recognizing and
accepting that the food that will satisfy our hunger is not
something we grab for in the refrigerator or grab for in the
stores or grab for from anyone else. It’s not something that
we deserve or that we earn or that we can make happen or seek
to control. It’s something we’re simply offered and
gratefully enjoy.
Let’s
take a look at one of my favorite childhood movies, the story
of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Willy is the
owner of a chocolate factory. It’s been closed for a number
of years because when it was open, he discovered that spies
were coming into the factory, trying to figure out what his
secrets were in order that they might manufacture his
chocolate in other factories. In the movie, after he has been
closed for a number of years, Willy Wonka decides he is going
to open the factory once more to the holders of five golden
tickets, those tickets having been found inside of the
chocolate bars that come from his factory. Along with being
allowed to tour the factory, the holders of these tickets are
promised a lifetime supply of chocolate.
And
so the movie unfolds by beginning to show five different
children who get the tickets. The first of those is Aggostas.
He is the big, German boy. He likes to eat. He eats junk food.
Then there’s Beruka. She’s the one who always wants to be
first, and to have more than everyone else. And then there’s
Violet who chomps on her gum that she chews for days and days
and years on end, and is full of bad manners. And then
there’s Mike TV who feeds on TV and eats every meal in front
of it. And then finally, there’s Charlie, the one that
everybody’s heart goes out to. He’s a poor boy who hungers
for more than cabbage juice to eat.
As
each child receives a golden ticket and its promises, they are
instantly confronted by a man by the name of Mr. Slugworth.
Who is Mr. Slugworth? Let’s take a look. (video clip
shown)
Mr.
Slugworth is the one that appears independently to each of the
five winners prior to their entering the factory. In his
appearance, he presents each with the opportunity to become
very rich if they will steal an Everlasting Gobstopper and
bring it to him so that he can discover the secret formula.
Mr. Slugworth promises money. Mr. Slugworth is our shadow. Mr.
Slugworth might be referred to as temptation.
The
day arrives and the children are all gathered at the factory
and are ready to go in. Upon entering the factory, the
children and parents are required to sign a contract, one that
starts out with really big letters and print, and by the time
it gets to the very bottom of the contract, you can’t read
what it says at all. Yet we’re given some clue to what it
says when, as Willy prepares to take the children into his
invention room, he gives each one of them a most prized and
valued invention, the Everlasting Gobstopper. The contract
forbids the children to touch anything in the invention room,
and especially not to steal anything or give away any of the
secrets they see.
The
only thing that’s required of the children to receive the
gift of the factory, the chocolate, the Gobstopper, the thing
that will satisfy their cravings, is to enjoy it. Not to try
to take control of the gift or take secrets with them, not to
try to change the gift to suit them thereby destroying it. All
they need to do is enjoy it and receive it. But the children,
being human, follow, more interested in what Willy is going to
do for them and give them than listening to his words, than
believing and feeding on what he has already given them. And
so they can’t resist breaking the rules. They continue to
fill their hunger with junk food.
Augustus
wants to eat everything. And even when he’s told to stop, he
draws from the river a chocolate and ends up stuck up a tube.
Beruka wants a golden egg, gets on the scales to determine
which one is a good egg and a bad egg, and is dumped in the
garbage. Violet takes chewing gum that isn’t yet finished,
allowing her to taste a nine-course meal, and ends up like a
blueberry. And Mike TV, who craves being on TV so much,
shrinks himself until he fits in the palm of his mom’s hand.
Even Charlie, the only one who’s actually left standing at
the end of the show, too has failed to trust and follow and
feed on the gift that Willy gives him. He decides instead to
try to drink of the bubble water. Willy tells him he will not
receive the lifetime supply of chocolate because he has broken
the contract. And it is at this point of the movie when
Charlie’s grandfather gets very angry and takes on a works
righteous attitude, as if Mr. Wonka should owe Charlie
something. “Why, if anyone deserves it, it’s my grandson,
Charlie.” And in his anger he tells Charlie to “Come on,
we’ll go sell Mr. Slugworth what he wants,” meaning the
Everlasting Gobstopper.
But
it is Charlie who finally gets it, and is the hero in the
story. Let’s take a look. (video clip shown) Charlie,
recognizing the real value and identity of the gobstopper,
returns to Mr. Wonka and hands him the Everlasting Gobstopper
he has been given. And in doing so, Charlie reveals the one
most important thing necessary to fill his hunger. For the
gobstopper symbolizes the faith, hope and love that Willy
offers to the children.
In
his welcoming and bringing the children into the heart of his
life, sharing with them his most precious and deepest secrets,
Willy was offering the gift of love, trust and hope. He longed
for them to appreciate, accept and hold onto the gift, feeding
on it always. But, in giving the gobstopper to each child,
Willy was also offering each child the choice of receiving and
feeding on the gift, or trading it away for something else
less satisfying…the fortune promised by Mr. Slugworth.
In
Charlie’s returning the Everlasting Gobstopper, not only
does Charlie accept and say thank you for that gift, but in
his turning it, Charlie is filled.
Jesus
says, “For I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will
never be hungry. And whoever believes in me will never be
thirsty.” Let us imagine for a moment Jesus (God’s gift of
faith, love, hope and grace) as the everlasting gobstopper.
Unlike the gift offered to only five children, this gobstopper
is offered to all who would become like children in openly and
humbly receiving it without consideration given to being
deserving of it or needing to control or completely define or
understand it. It is that which is forever as new as when we
first received it. It is that which feeds us, sustains us, and
strengthens us. It is a gift we can choose to accept and feed
on, and thus be filled. Or, we can choose to trade for
something less satisfying which will leave not only our
stomachs but our hearts craving for more. It is the bread of
life!
This
evening, as we prepare to receive Holy Communion together, I
invite us to consider our own lives. Have we been craving that
which does not seem to satisfy? What is the junk food we have
been feeding upon? Are we hungry? Are we thirsty? If so, may
this be a time of renewal for us. May it be a time in which we
open our hearts to having our cups filled and our souls fed
with the Bread of Life…God’s grace, love and
hope…God’s Everlasting Gobstopper!
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