HUNGER

If you would rather listen/view this homily, CLICK HERE for the video link.

In today’s Gospel Luke 20:27-38 we hear the Sadducees use a widow—one of the most vulnerable people in their society—as a prop in their theological game. They construct an absurd scenario around her suffering (being widowed seven times) to try and trip Jesus up and make the whole idea of resurrection look foolish. They didn’t actually care about the life of this widow – in the present or in the afterlife; she was just ammunition for their argument.

I think perhaps we are doing something very similar in our country right now. Political leaders on both sides of the aisle are using hungry families as props in budget standoffs and ideological battles. We hear “We can’t afford SNAP” versus “You don’t care about starving children”—back and forth while real people go without food. In Gaza, children are starving – literally wasting away – while the world argues over security concerns and the logistics of delivering aid. Whether here or halfway across the world, those who suffer from hunger have become abstractions, debate points, and the butt of gotcha questions.

But Jesus refuses to play this game. He cuts through the Sadducees nonsense by quoting their own Scripture back to them:

Jesus says, “At the burning bush, didn’t God say to Moses “I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Not *WAS*—but *AM*. Present tense. These patriarchs, long dead by earthly measure, are *still alive to God*. Jesus tells them “ALL are still alive to God.”

The Sadducees thought they were so clever with their seven-husbands puzzle, but they’d completely missed the meaning of their own sacred texts and the very heart and pulse of God’s much bigger design and dream for our world – both for now and for when we join the communion of saints in heaven.

When Jesus proclaims “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” he entirely transcends their artificial legalism and redirects them—AND US—to what really matters: Not “What will heaven be like?” – which will always remain a mystery to us this side of the grave – but rather “Who is God for us, now?”

Our God is the God of life…. the one who holds Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in being even now, the one who claims us as his own beloved children…the God who is the stuff between us, the center that holds, keeping us connected and alive in relationship, sustained by love. In this scripture, Jesus redirects our attention from speculation about a heaven somewhere up there and out there, to our inner room where the God of Life resides, and our question becomes: How do I cooperate with you, my loving God, to bring heaven to earth?

Every week we pray it: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We say these words, but are we getting insnared in our own forms of legalism? Quibbling about who deserves to be in power? Delivering carefully worded critiques about who in congress is doing their job and who is not? Are we constructing our own elaborate riddles about budgets and benefits, while real people—God’s living children—go hungry? Which we ALL are solidly aware is NOT of God.

I’ll be honest—in my own work and life, I sometimes get so wrapped up in managing programs, coordinating schedules, and handling the never-ending logistics of life that I can lose sight of the person right in front of me who needs care. Like me, maybe some of you get so distracted sometimes that we don’t even listen well to our own children around the dinner table. It’s easy to let people become tasks to check off, problems to solve, rather than attending to their real needs.

Attention truly is the most potent form of love, right? And if we struggle to be present and support the people who we LOVE and LIVE with, how much easier is it for us to reduce hungry families we’ve never met into stats and policy debates?”

We may not have clarity about all the complexities that lead to people suffering from hunger, but we also don’t have to have every question resolved before we act. Rather we get to work – by volunteering at Crossroads soup kitchen (literally today! Many of our young people are there right now!) and all year round our children’s collection each Sunday supports our summer starters program.  We join as a community to cooperate with the God of life by tending our own little patch of the garden and doing what we already know, without a doubt, is right and just:

When people are hungry, we feed them.

When people are lonely, we welcome them.

When people are vulnerable, we protect them.

Next Sunday after Eucharist at the Rector’s forum, our youth have created something really meaningful for us. There will be faith formation upstairs for the littles (atrium one and two will be open and running) and the nursery will be open, so that our teens can lead us – all of us, our whole community 6th grade and up –  in an experience that will hopefully broaden our view of global and local hunger issues and untangle us from some of the dark distractions of our day that cloud our vision so we can truly see each other as God sees us: as belonging to one another…as living, beloved children who matter infinitely.

We hope you can join us next week on the 16th for our World Hunger Awareness Meal, so, we can ponder together what our young people will present to us and deepen our practice and understanding of what it means to cooperate with the God of life in bringing heaven to earth, one act of compassion at a time.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​