Hungry for Bread

First Sermon of Four on Holy Communion

First Sunday in Lent / March 13, 2011

Exodus 16:1-12, Matthew 4:1-11

Holy Communion.  The Lord’s Supper. The Eucharist.  These are all different names for the sacrament in which Jesus gives himself to us.  We believe that our Lord is really present in the bread – the body of Christ broken for you.  We believe that the Son of God is really present in the cup of salvation – the blood of Christ shed for you.  We believe it, but we don’t always understand it.  There is no way we can fully understand it; we know it is a mystery.  And many of us know this mystery has the power to change us, because we have experienced Christ’s presence through the bread and the wine. 

But we are still left with questions:  Why do we celebrate this feast?  How often should we come to the table? Who is welcome at the Lord’s Supper?  Why do we use Hawaiian bread?  And why do we use Welch’s grape juice instead of wine?  Why is there a push in the broader church to share this meal more often?  Why do we pray the Great Thanksgiving each time we share this feast?  How does gathering at the table shape my discipleship?  And how does sharing this meal shape our mission and ministries?  These are Biblical questions, practical questions, and deeply theological questions.  Today we will begin exploring these questions and others.  Today we will begin a dialogue about the deep hunger of our souls.  I hope we will engage one another in this dialogue, as we seek to know Christ and make Christ known through the breaking of the bread.  I pray God will give us each a deep hunger for the bread of life.

I’ve chosen the theme of hunger for this sermon series for several reasons.  First, it is Lent and many of us have chosen some sort of a fast.  Yesterday was the day I was first tempted to break my fast – only 4 days in!  If you’ve given up chocolate or alcohol or coffee or television for Lent, you are probably becoming aware of your hunger – your desire – to have that item back.  It’s tough to give up something we love for forty days!  Second, and more importantly, most of us share a deep hunger in our souls – one we are not quite sure how to satisfy.  I think of those late nights when I stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open, hoping something will jump out at me saying “I’ll satisfy your hunger!”  I move on to the pantry and stare at its contents.  Of course, many of you have Girl Scout Cookies jumping out at you right now saying, “Eat me!”  But many times I realize as I stare at my shelves full of food that the deep craving is not for food – I’m not hungry, just empty.  

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus is being tempted by the devil.  He has spent forty days in the wilderness without food and is famished.  He really is physically hungry and the devil tempts him with bread.  But Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  We fast during Lent to be reminded of that truth.  And, even if we don’t fast, this is a season to get in touch with the deep hunger of our souls. 

What are you hungry for?  At our last food ministry meeting, Jim Cheek from Concord spoke about the children at B Everett Jordan elementary school who are receiving backpacks of food to take home for the weekend.  They no longer have to save part of their lunch from Thursday and Friday so they’ll have something to eat over the weekend.  They look forward to Fridays and receiving that backpack full of goodies that will sustain them until Monday.  These children are quite literally hungry for food, and through this backpack ministry Concord is providing for them.  We do not live by bread alone, but we do need bread to live.

At this same meeting, John Varden, the pastor at Center, shared a story about ZOE ministries.  His wife just got back from Africa where she encountered children who could barely lift their heads.  Beyond being hungry for food, they were starved for any type of attention and had practically given up on life.  John described how the workers rubbed the children’s necks and spoke gently to them.  And, in an amazing transformation, these children slowly came back to life.  A touch, a kind word, a smile – these simple actions can revive the soul in a way that bread cannot.  Yes, these children need bread to live, but they also need the bread of life – Jesus Christ.

In a month we’ll know who our ZOE work group will be.  We’ll have pictures and names of the orphans in Zimbabwe who we are supporting as they learn to grow their own food and learn about the love of Jesus Christ.  Over the summer we’ll be working on expanding Concord’s backpack ministry to all of our local elementary schools.  During the next year we hope to work toward opening a food pantry in Southern Alamance.  These are exciting ministries! 

As we work toward feeding others, it is also important that we make sure we are feeding ourselves.  We can offer bread to others because we have bread to eat.  But in order to serve others faithfully we also need to be aware of our own deep spiritual hunger.  How are we being spiritually fed?  We need every word that comes from the mouth of God – the abundance of God’s grace and mercy – to give us the strength to follow Jesus.  We need to know we are deeply loved by God so that we can love and sustain others.  If we rely on ourselves in our service to others, we will surely fail.

How are we being spiritually fed?  We feed upon God’s word through our devotional life – reading scripture and praying, alone or with our families.  We are fed God’s word in worship – we hear God’s word read and proclaimed as we gather each week.  Many of us also find we are spiritually fed through music – hymns and spirituals and praise songs lift us up.  Many are also spiritually fed through nature – blooming flowers and singing birds; beautiful sunsets and clear night skies.  Notice that these are all examples of the way we are spiritually fed through our senses of hearing and sight.  But the truth is, we also need to be spiritually fed through our other senses – touch and smell and taste.  Our humanity demands a full-body experience. 

The Son of God became flesh and lived among us so that he could experience the fullness of our humanity.  Jesus knows we need more than stories about the Son of God to sustain us; we need more than the presence of the Holy Spirit to give us life.  We need an encounter with the living God – in flesh and blood – to feed the deep hunger of our souls.  The sacrament of Holy Communion is such an encounter – through the bread and wine we are given this profound gift of God with us.  We get to hold and smell and taste and see the goodness of our Lord.  Our physical hunger and our spiritual hunger are brought together as we break the bread and drink the cup, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And in this multi-sensory moment we experience both the fullness of our humanity and the abundance of God’s grace. 

As we prepare to experience this moment, we pray the Great Thanksgiving. This responsive prayer is truly a prayer of thanksgiving and consecration.  We begin, “The Lord be with you,” as both an invitation and an affirmation.  Thanks be to God that the Lord is with us!  We continue, “Lift up your hearts”; we lift them up to the Lord who knows our hearts and understands our deep hunger.  In gratitude for God’s amazing grace, we continue, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God!”  It is right to give our thanks and praise for this astonishing gift of God with us which we are about to receive.

The first part of the Great Thanksgiving then tells of what God has done for us in the Old Testament.  We are reminded that God – the God who created us in God’s image – never gives up on us, even as we turn away over and over again.  God delivered the Israelites from captivity in Egypt, fed them manna in the wilderness, and brought them to a land flowing with milk and honey.  God spoke to the people through the prophets, calling them repeatedly to turn from their evil ways and return to the Lord.  God called the people back from Babylon and restored a covenant relationship with them.  In the same way, God continues to deliver us; God continues to call us to return to Him with all our hearts; God continues to feed us.  And through his Son Jesus Christ we continue to be invited back into a covenant relationship.  And so we sing “Holy, holy, holy Lord” affirming just how astonishing this gift of grace is.

And in this meal, we get a foretaste of God’s heavenly banquet when we will feast with all the saints.  Our foretaste – a small piece of bread and a sip of unfermented wine – point to a feast of plenty.  Our unfermented wine – in other words, grape juice – is a practice we began during Prohibition in the 1920’s, when the 18^th amendment to the constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol.  We have kept this practice because this way alcoholics and children as well as those who chose to abstain from alcohol can fully participate in communion.  We can use either leavened or unleavened bread.  The unleavened bread reminds us of a people in a hurry to flee Egypt; the leavened bread points to the feast in God’s kingdom.  There are times, such as during Lent, when it is appropriate to use unleavened bread as we focus on where we’ve come from.  But most of the time we live in the already and not-yet of the Kingdom of God that was brought through Jesus Christ, and we look forward to the coming of the Kingdom in all its glory.  It is a good and joyful thing to use a rich, leavened bread such as Hawaiian bread.

At this feast we are reminded of where we have come from and where we are going.  But more importantly we are fed the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  Our deep spiritual hunger is satisfied in the only way it can be – by the very Word of God.  We are given bread for the journey, so that we can go out into the world to feed others bread.  And then, as we give of ourselves to others during the week, we find that we get hungry again.  We get discouraged and tired.  Our resources are depleted and we become empty.  Then with joy we return to worship God and be filled again. Thanks be to God for this holy mystery in which He has given himself for us – the body of Christ that feeds us so that we can be the body of Christ in the world, feeding the world.