You Who Are Hungry, Come and Eat
Speaker: Rev. Christina Fridel
Location: Whitney United Methodist Church
Date: August 9, 2009
If you think about your short life, have you ever had a moment when you were really hungry? Maybe it was a time when, literally, there was not food in the cupboard or a time when you had been working all day and you never quite made lunch. And those moments when indeed that deep hunger pain reminds you …it’s time to eat. And I know that as I watch people come and get food from Peter’s Pantry, there are many. For them today, they will be hungry. And I know that as we look at food and that sense of hunger there is that reminder that we have to eat again, and again, and again. And then yesterday I ate lunch but somewhere at <time hour="17" minute="0">5 o’clock</time> we were still hungry. It’s just that reminder that, physically, we need food and water to be physically healthy. So what about spiritually hungry? Has there ever been a moment in your life when you just felt there had to be something more than what was right now, a moment when indeed you were thirsty, not necessarily for water but for a sense that God was present, a sense that God’s spirit would be with you on a sense of direction.
In our scripture this morning Jesus talks about that. He says when you have those moments when indeed you are not physically hungry but spiritually hungry, when you are thirsty, come and eat the bread of life. He says come to me all who are hungry. Come to me all who are thirsty, and I will give you what it is you need to be satisfied. In those moments when indeed we are hungry and know that there has to be something more, there has to be a sense of God’s presence, but it’s more than what we’re feeling now. Jesus says, “Come all who are thirsty. Come to the well and drink. Come all who are hungry, to eat of this bread that I provide for you.” It seems to beg a question to me this morning. What happens when you do that and you’re still hungry, those moments when you are hungry and you pray and you ask God and you come to those needs that God gives you and you’re still thirsty? You’re still hungry for what it is God is calling you to do.
In my own life I had an experience like that but I’m going to share this morning just a part of where I have been these last few years. In February about 2006 it was nearing the end of ministry in Hood River, and I knew that. There really was an event that God said, “You are done here. You did what I needed you to do and it’s time to move on.” Well, I figured it out. There was going to be a spot here in Idaho since Miriam was a small baby and we were going to move here. I had it figured out. And I knew which church it was, literally, and I talked with my DS and he was like…you know, we will do what we can to move you here. So he called me on the 5th of April at what? 5:12, and he says, “We have an appointment for you, but it is not Jim (who was the District Superintendent at the time) who’s going to call you, it is Kate.” I knew where they were going to send me. I had been paying enough attention that I knew the only open appointment was Seaside and I remember sitting there Kate offered it to me going ….how is that closer to my parents. Yeah, it’s like….okay, Cabinet; let me get you a map! Seaside is not closer to Idaho. It’s not in Idaho.
And so we went and we visited and the whole time I went, God, why are you sending me here? I’m a desert rat. I love heat; I love dry; and God sent me to the beach where we got 86 inches of rain a year and, literally, there were days on the Weather Channel on the Internet where it would just say “rain, rain, rain, rain, rain,” for 10 days straight and then the next day “rain.” And the whole time I was there I said to God, “Why am I here?” I was very rarely a dry experience for me, but I was hungry and I thought, “God, why am I here?” From the day I wrote in my journal to the day Kate called me and said that God had an appointment for me here, I questioned that. Every day it was “Why am I here?” “Why did you send me to a place where I am mildewing, where I am molding, and there really was that sense of, “God, I am coming to you. Why are you not filling this deep hunger I have?” In the midst of that there were tremendous blessings. There really a gift of living four blocks from the beach. There is a gift of a congregation who loved us and really I was able to walk with them as they figured out who they were, but the whole time is was, my God, this isn’t filling me.
Then Kate called me and this appointment just literally opened. And God said to me, “I needed you to be there so that you could learn to trust in me completely. It was clear as mud. God said, “This is why you were here. Why I needed to send the “desert rat” to the beach to have a desert experience.” And it was like God said, “You did that” and it is true. In those three years I have learned to trust in God in ways I’ve never done before. In those moments when it rained for 12 and 13 days straight I said, “Okay, God, I have to trust you. I have no other options.” But there were gifts, and I will tell you, although they probably don’t want me to, the sun comes out in Seaside almost every day. In the midst of the rain God’s blessing came out every day. You couldn’t always see the hand of God but God was there.
And now I’m here where I’m being fed in ways I can’t even begin to tell you. For it is true, there are moments in our lives when we have those desert experiences, when you’re like, “God, I’ve come, I’ve done it and I’m still hungry” and I think God says a few thing to us about them. He says sometimes you just have to accept it, that that that part of the human experience, to sometimes wonder where it is God is. But it doesn’t mean that you have failed at being a follower of God. Hear that. For when you come to those moments where you’re hungry and you like, “God, I’ve come!” does not mean you failed at being a follower of Jesus. And it’s okay to say, “God, where are you? I’ve been praying. Why have you not shown up?” because God is in that, and in those moments when you’re hungry, find someone to pray with, someone to talk to, whether that is me as Pastor or a trusted friend or someone in the church. “Hey, pray with me. Help me through this moment” and I know that was part of what got me through those three years, for people who prayed with me and said, “God is in there.” And actually they often saw things that I couldn’t
And in the song we’re going to sing at the closing it will talk about “humbly speak.” Just humbly speak in God’s presence, to pray, to read scripture, and to listen. Now we sang that song at the beginning about “Woke up this morning with my mind and it was stayed on Jesus.” I think in those moments that is most important and to keep eating. Just like in normal life you’ve got to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Spiritually that’s the way, too, to keep thinking each moment and know that we can’t go to the well once and expect to be filled up forever, and to avail ourselves of the means of grace. Being here in worship is a way of finding God in those moments, to indeed be with the community, to partake in communion, and even to be part of weddings and funerals and baptisms are means of grace, and to find blessing each day, find where the sun will shine, even when you can’t always understand where God is. And I think, most of all, to trust the promise that even when we cannot see God, God is present. Jesus says, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give to the life of the world is my flesh. Those who are thirsty, those who are hungry, come and I will fill them.”
We’re going to sing this hymn in a minute which, indeed, is the song of my heart, certainly was for three years, and may it be a reminder that God is indeed present. And when we are thirsty we can come and drink and God will fill us, just sometimes it’s not quite in the time frame we understand. But hear these words. You who are thirsty, come to the well and drink from waters flowing. You who are hungry, come to the bread and eat of its holiness. You who are tired, find rest. You who are weak, find strength. You who are thirsty, come to the well and drink, for He will freely feed all of them who are weak and he will quench the righteous thirst of all who humbly seek
Amen