"Starving in Abundance"
First Congregational Church -- Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost ­ July 26, 2009
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: 2 Sam. 11:1-15/Ephesians 3:14-21/John 6:1-21]

Being a person of ample girth I have often retorted that I am on the “see food diet” – I see food and I eat it. Well, in a recent issue of The New Yorker [July 20, 2009] the book review essay provided ample evidence that I am not alone. It seems being overweight is the new epidemic and 33 per cent of our population is obese. Why? Because we have an abundance of food and of choices and if it’s there we’ll eat it.

Studies have shown that we’ll eat large amounts of stale popcorn – if it’s free – and comes in a large tub. If we’re given larger bottles of pasta sauce and bigger boxes of pasta we’ll prepare it and eat it. Knowing that and wanting to find a way to get people to buy more is what led McDonald’s to develop the whole “super-size” craze. Ray Kroc, the founder, was opposed to the idea at first, saying that if people wanted more French fries they could always order two servings. However, board member David Wallerstein (the man who came up with jumbo popcorn boxes at movies) reputedly said, “But Ray, they don’t want to eat two bags – they don’t want to look like a glutton.”

All those choices, all those portions and yet there are literally millions of people in this country and around the world going to bed hungry every night. There are people starving in abundance. Not only that, even those of us who are well-fed – fat and happy, if you will – are also starving in abundance, because we’re starving spiritually and morally. What we do with food we do otherwise unfortunately as well and too many of us are filling-up on spiritual and cultural junk food – and it doesn’t work.

Want to see a Biblical example of starving in abundance? David, king of Israel, man after God's own heart, goes on the “see food diet” when he spies Bathsheba and heads down the slippery slope of moral decline. Talk about the “man who has everything,” the man who in the midst of abundance, yet, it’s not enough. He’s got a hunger, he’s starving in the midst of abundance and he makes bad choices to satisfy his appetite. What we see is that the child of the covenant, the one who should have been righteous crossed the line into unrighteousness. The foreigner, the one who had no claim on the promise of the covenant, upheld it to the point of death.

God is teaching us a lesson here. First, not to presume that because we wear a label we are what we claim to be. The label implies a call to living out the claim, as Uriah the Hittite did, not as David the Israelite failed to do. Authenticity is found in our actions. Second, we learn the source of our authenticity is not in ourselves, but in our dependence upon God.

David went over the line between righteousness and unrighteousness. We could say, oh he lived a long time ago, what difference does it make? But it doesn't work that way. The story parallels far too closely our own national experience of the last several years where wealth abounded and people hungered for more, where sensuality abounds and people are starving for intimacy.

Thus, we have to ask ourselves how closely do we walk the line? Even in the small things, have we returned extra change when we've received it? Have we been truthful in our dealings with each other? I know, the list could go on forever and I'm certainly not excusing myself from the review, either. As the Psalmist said, "They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one." So, are we helpless? Do we simply end up bingeing again, starting with the dish of ice cream, but finishing the carton, all the while saying “tomorrow the diet starts.” No.

The one who makes the label good, the guarantor of our authenticity is God. Paul, in this lovely prayer offered for the church at Ephesus, offers us a way to avoid living too close to the edge. When we ask God to grant us strength through the power of the Spirit, we are tapping into the primary gift God offers us. Opening ourselves to have God truly dwell in our hearts, to inform our lives at all times is another gift from God. When we realize the "breadth, length, height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge," knowing God's powerful love encompasses everything, we can step back from the line and we can live rightly.

That, I believe, is the point of these opening verses of John's sixth chapter. John wants us to see how the line is drawn through the power of God's love. He invokes all sorts of Old Testament imagery so that we come realize who Jesus is: God present among us. Even the time of the year, near Passover, is significant because we're to see God's power at work here as Israel saw it in the Exodus event.

As David was confronted with the problem of his own lapse, the disciples are confronted with a problem. Both are beyond human ability to reconcile. Jesus looks at the five thousand plus people gathered on the lakeside and asks, "How are we going to feed these people?" The disciples, in their normal pattern, are flummoxed. They rack their brains for an answer and all they can do is come up short. Six month’s wages wouldn't buy enough food to feed these people. Yet Jesus tells them, "You give them something to eat." Here another line is drawn, one between our own ability and that of God. Finally, Andrew blurts out that there is a little boy who has five loaves of barley bread, the food of the poorest of the poor, and a couple of fish, but what good is it? Jesus' response says it all, "It is enough. Sit the people down, let them eat"

In that moment, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe, the line is crossed. Those five common loaves and two fish become the source of more than enough to feed that multitude of people. There are even twelve baskets of fragments left over. Those twelve baskets signify completeness, and that nothing is to be lost. Manna comes in the wilderness, again, but this time it can be stored, can be shared, and it's the apostles' job, and ours, to do that.

The bread of life is broken and shared. The bread of the poor, barley loaves, becomes emblematic of God's own presence, and God's sufficiency in the midst of our want, and our powerlessness. What we have here is what happens whenever God is present: there is transformation. It is what happens whenever Christians gather to break the bread of the Word and of the Sacrament alike, because at that moment we are feasting on the twelve basketfuls. It is what happens when we open ourselves to be different because God loves us, because God is enough for us and satisfies our longings and our neediness.

The power is shown as Jesus comes to the apostles walking on the sea. Again, themes of the chaos prior to creation itself and the challenge of the Red Sea are evoked by John. Jesus comes to them with the power of the Name: I AM. He speaks words of comfort to them, "Be not afraid." Here we see the power of God's presence to transform by driving out anxiety and fear. The power of God's love can cast out our fears and allow us to walk as children of the light in confidence, satisfied.

The power of God's love entered into David's life and brought him self-realization, forgiveness, and a transformed life. The power of God's love took a fellow named Saul from being a persecutor and transformed him into Paul, the Lord's eloquent witness. This same love can enter into us in the midst of our daily experiences of walking that line, of frustration at our inability to change or grow, of feelings of anxiety, fear, or loneliness and can make a difference. This powerful love can make us a community of loving, trusting, caring people lifting us above the competitiveness of our world; above the spiritual junk food of popular culture that only leaves one craving more and more. The Bread of Life, God’s love can make us anew, if we open ourselves to its transforming power.

To know the Bread of Life, the power of God's is to know satisfaction. The power of God's love comes to us when we simply cease trying to cover up our inability to do the right. The power of God's love comes to us when we stop trying so hard to have all of the answers to all of the problems that beset us each day. The power of God's love comes to us when we look to the Maker of All with the five loaves and two fish of our lives and say, "This is all I have, but what good is it in the face of so much?" If we're attentive, we'll hear the Lord say to us, "It is enough," and we won’t need to supersize and we won’t need to binge. To be in God is satisfaction, knowing what is enough and what fills every hunger.

What we’ll do at the sacramental table in a moment is what our Puritan ancestors called “the visible Gospel.” What we’ve heard we’ll participate in physically and symbolically. A little piece of bread and a little cup of juice are quite enough to satisfy us because it is the Bread of Life, the one who brings abundant life, who is ‘supersized.’ So my advice to us this day – and I say us is: go on this “see food diet” – eat this food every day and stay on it.