Jesus Wants Us To Be Hungry

Great Scott!  Can this be true, Jesus wants us to be hungry! Don't believe it, read it for yourself.  This is from John 6:53-58,

"Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day.  This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always."

No kidding - Jesus calls us into community, the gathered people of God to feast together as the Children of God and He wants us starving for REAL FOOD!  I am thinking this has very little to do with whether we had wheaties or bagles for breakfast.  For me, this means being totally aware of my sinfulness, and my total dependance on God and you know what I bet we each have a sliding scale for how hungry we are when we come into church and walk towards the table when the Pastor beckons to receive the bread and wine.

Just think of how hungry we are when we look at our checkbook and say ouch, no tithe check this week, bank account is overdrawn - no money - literally.  But it got that way somehow, either over spending or poor, careless budgeting.  Maybe even some extravagent spending.  No matter, those are the things that Jesus is talking about, if we are doing those things we are hungry, we are emptied out by the world of all that we have, we have given it away, squandered it in some cases.  I know many of our expenses - time, talent, treasure go to worthy causes like our family.  But just focus for a moment on the "being hungry" part.

So, I have emptied my checking account, gave up all of my time for things that have nothing to do with being a disciple.  So does that mean I am hungry, am I going to starve to death.  Well, if I keep spending the way I am, I could certainly become bankrupt and I could find myself in quite a quandry.

So what do I do - where do we go from here.  Jesus says it very simply, "come to me with hearty appetite to this eating and drinking and receive eternal life and be fit and ready for the Final Day."  The Final Day, so we do not know when that is, and why do we want to take any chances on just when that might be, tonight, tommorrow, the day after...Does not matter, He is calling us to the table NOW, to feed us with an eternal feast!  This is a life journey, we don't get it right all at once, it takes time, time to become aware, time to understand, time to grow, time to be, and time to become, and time to share.  Life long process of coming to the table and feast on the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ among God's Wet, Wonderful, Working Pilgrims! We have each other, let us draw closer together and make every day we are together at Pilgrim Lutheran Church our growing family reunion with the greatest feast of all time served in plentiful amounts for all who come and who come with a hearty appetite.

Amen!