Our New Testament lesson this morning is drawn from 1John – a letter or essay written around the year 100.
Some scholars believe that 1John was written by the same author as the gospel of John, while others credit a later follower.
The writer is urging the reader to stay with what they were taught ‘from the beginning’ rather than succumbing to the false teachings of new leaders.
The fundamental messages of the John letters is belief in the divinity of the human Jesus and fulfillment of Jesus’ command to love one another. Hear now a reading from 1John 3: 16-24.
Here ends the reading of God’s holy word. May God add to our hearing and understanding, God’s blessings. Amen.
Please pray with me.
Great and awesome God, just and righteous beyond all our prejudices, valuing all people without partiality, allow us to sense your presence within and among us, that we may know we are your people.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
Sermon
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.
These words of Jesus inform our very being as Christians.
They are written on our hearts.
They give definition and direction to our Christian action.
Today, we are focusing on the first line…I was hungry and your gave me food.
The United States Department of Agriculture has been tracking hunger in our country for years.
Recently ‘hunger’ has been renamed ‘food insecurity’ which means: “At times during the year, these households were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”
In 2016 the USDA reports:
- 2 million people in our country lived in food-insecure households – 6.5 million of those people were children
- One percent of the Nation’s children, 703,000, lived in households with very low food security designated as such when normal eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake was reduced at times during the year because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.
Now hear this:
- In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This estimate is based on USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels. This translates into approximately 133 billionpounds and $161 billion worth of food wasted in one year.
Isn’t this daunting?
What would Jesus say?
It seems to me that of all the problems we face in the world hunger is one that we ought to be able to address.
Our Christian Action committee has chosen ‘hunger’ as the issue that our congregation will focus on this year.
The handout that you received with your bulletin tells the story of hungry families in our own community.
At the Corner Food Pantry alone over 34,000 meals were distributed to almost 900 households.
From our covenant partner church United Congregational in Bridgeport, I received this note earlier this week thanking us for our annual contribution:
We are running on fumes. We are doing mighty things but we do not have the funding this year. We just moved all of our outreach out of our old building on Park Avenue – and now have multi-sites for our outreach programs. And we need Salisbury more than ever – and your $3000 check came just in the nick of time.
We are feeding more and more people – and moving toward a more healthy and accessible and less toxic form of providing for the hungry.
We distributed 118,000 lbs of food and 98,000 meals out of our pantry last year…and this year it is becoming a “Community Market” where folks can choose good options for themselves and use their EBT/SNAP benefits. Very progressive and innovative.
The Christian Action Committee has created multiple opportunities for you to help alleviate hunger right here in our own community.
I hope that you will take the flyer home with you and look at it with your family.
Choose one of the activities or events that we are sponsoring and volunteer some time or money.
Have a discussion about food security in your life and make a commitment to decrease the food waste in your own household.
I know that many of you have heard me talk about the impact of handing a plate of food to a hungry person, whether it was in the Mexican jungle, the plains of South Dakota, Park Avenue in Bridgeport or right here in Lakeville.
I read an essay this week about the Christian mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin which addressed this.
For Teilhard, faith was never a matter of doctrines and principles.
It was first and foremost an action—an “operative” as he calls it.
Faith in this way becomes a wager: if the premise is true, you can only live into it through action.
Rather than trying to do faith from the “top down,” by first convincing yourself of the logic of the argument in question, begin from the “bottom up,” by acting in alignment with it, and see what happens next!
The author suggested “Perhaps this is what Teilhard means by “harnessing the energy of love.” In our own times, it is surely our best shot—perhaps our only shot—for acting in a way that does not merely compound the darkness. Teilhard’s conviction that faith is not something that we have but something that we do is perhaps the best antidote possible to the despair and distrust that paralyze so much of our postmodern moral resolve. It is a call to step out of the boat onto the ocean of love and discover—all our fear and skepticism to the contrary—that the water really does hold us up.”
I want you to have that experience this year.
As I thought about hunger this week, I couldn’t help but reflect on the many different types of hunger in our world.
Physical hunger seems to be something we can address.
It is concrete and we can cook a meal and provide sustenance to our neighbor.
But what about spiritual hunger?
What about our neighbors who are longing for a sense of community?
What about those among us who yearn to know God?
How do we feed them?
I think this is the core of our Christian work – reaching out and sharing our faith.
Some people call this evangelism.
I call it soul tending.
Deepak Chopra posits “the soul generates and organizes the energy of love, the energy of compassion, the awareness of truth, the awareness of creativity and intelligence, fulfilling needs that are just as basic as the need of the physical body for food and oxygen.”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
It is the soul that brings God into the human realm.
It is the sharing of our own souls that feeds the hunger of others.
When we limit our thinking to those who are without food we miss the opportunity to build the kingdom of God on earth.
One outreach worker put it this way: “I believe any outreach effort whose goal is simply inviting people to church or only providing ministry “for people” rather than “with people” without regard to building relationship is short-sighted. Missional engagement entails the building of authentic, organic, and consistent relationships.”
When these relationships are formed everyone benefits.
Handing the plate of food to someone is just the introductory step.
You look deep into their eyes with love and compassion.
You notice them. You call them by name.
You pull up a chair and share a meal and conversation.
You ask about their life and you share something about yourself.
A human bond is formed. A relationship is started.
These are the things that feed the soul.
Sarah Zarbock has initiated a new ministry program in our church.
She will be coordinating a program that will bring compassion and care to each and every member of the congregation.
Volunteers will be trained to go out to visit folks in the community.
If someone is sick, or lonely, or hungry, they will get a visit.
If someone has a baby or stops coming to church, a caring soul will stop by.
Friends, we are at a transitional moment in both our country and our church.
We have an opportunity to commit ourselves to what is good and what is ‘of God,’ but it takes work.
Your Christian Action committee and Deacons have worked hard to develop opportunities for you to meet God face-to-face but you have to show up.
During coffee hour this morning volunteers from the Corner Pantry will be available to speak with you about feeding our hungry neighbors.
Sarah Zarbock will be available to answer your questions about Caring Community outreach.
Take a chance. In saving someone else’s soul, you might just save your own.
Let us pray.
Loving God, you are steadfast, forever enfolding even when we cannot accept ourselves.
May your spirit empower us to imitate you:
by receiving those who feel judged and rejected;
by walking alongside those who despair,
by encouraging those who tend to the broken,
by affirming those who labor in love.
We lift into your tender care those whose bodies, minds, or spirits have been weakened or crushed.
We lift up to your compassionate grace those whose burdens, guilt, or fears seem too massive to bear.
We lift before your expansive mercy those whose hatred, rage, or vengeance cannot be contained.
Receive all these cares, loving God, and fill us with the light of Christ through the work of your Holy Spirit.
Hear now our silent prayers as we turn our hearts to you….Amen