World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 1 We have a saying at our house that s fair warning to anybody standing nearby. If our bellies are moaning to be filled, but the meal is still a long time coming, we say, Watch out! I m getting hangry. I don t know if the girls picked up this saying or made it up all by themselves. But I know exactly what they re talking about, that feeling that starts in the deep darkness of an empty stomach and works itself up to a good mad. Hungry and angry. Hangry. At that point, we re not pleasant to be around. Segue to the congregation of Israel wandering in the wilderness. They are more than hangry. They re afraid they re going to die. This isn t the latest episode of, Fat Guys in the Woods, where contestants know that after four days of hunger they ll be back on their couches eating potato chips. These are exslaves in Exodus 16, and they don t have a home to return to. Where will they find something to eat? There s not a single grocery store in sight and not one corn field from which they might glean a meal. When we took our trip to the desert southwest, we were struck by two facts: the stark beauty of the place, and the ever present threat to survival. How does anything live out there with so little water and vegetation? We were so glad we didn t have car trouble. But the Hebrew children didn t have vehicles and interstates to take them to greener pastures. No place to go back to, no resources within eyeshot, and that feeling growing and
World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 2 growing from the emptiness inside them. Hunger and desperation have set in. These people are in trouble. So they complained. They turned to their leaders, Moses and Aaron, and let them have it. I m not sure what Moses and Aaron were getting paid, but it wasn t enough. For all their hard work up to this point, the people are charging them with murder. Hanger will do that to you. It makes people irrational. What have you done to us? the people moaned. At least we had ox tails and cow tongues to eat back in Egypt. You ve brought us out here to starve! In the book Life of Pi, Pi s father is a zookeeper. Most of the time, the animals in the zoo are lazy and content, getting their meals on time every day. But one day the father takes Pi and his older brother to see the tiger. The tiger hasn t eaten in four days. He is pacing and irritable. His eyes are on fire. Pity the poor goat that is finally released into the tiger s lair, but as the animal is devoured the father makes his point. Hunger will turn you into a wild animal. Moses and Aaron have thousands of wild animals looking back at them. The people are hungry and afraid. It s not too hard to have sympathy for both them and their leaders. Not that we really understand what they were going through. Heavens, no! We re so cozy and well-fed. Even the
World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 3 poorest among us have something to eat most days. We throw away more food in a year than some countries consume. We don t know what real hunger feels like. But we know some people besides the Israelites who do. They hunger and thirst and don t have what they need. They wander the desert with no supermarket in sight. And their lives are in such turmoil that they don t know what to do except cry out to God. Do you know the people of whom I m speaking? Again, it s not the ancient Hebrews. I m talking about your family. Your family members, at least some of them, are hungry and in trouble. Today we celebrate our unity with Christians everywhere. We affirm that we are brothers and sisters with all believers by virtue of our baptism into Christ. Well, friends, some of our siblings are suffering. I think their plight should matter to us. Christians are now the most persecuted religious group in the world, with Muslims coming in a close second. That fact doesn t get much air time in the Western World. Ross Douthat, New York Times columnist, explains why. Most of these Christians under fire live in the Middle East. When governments in that region collapse, Christian minorities, like the Coptic church in Egypt, become easy targets for scapegoating. Or, when Israel and Hamas go at it, Palestinian Christians get caught in the crossfire. But these Christian minorities aren t as large as the big
World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 4 players, Israel and the Arab nations. So with no one to consider their interests, they often suffer as bad as or worse than their counterparts in the region. Liberals and progressives in the West are slow to pick up on the plight of these Christians because they are used to identifying Christians with the power structure. It s inconvenient for them to imagine Christians in any other position than the dominant one. Conservatives, on the other hand, are so focused on supporting Israel that they overlook what s happening to these churches, some of which are vocal against Jewish state. Nor do protestant evangelicals sense meaningful connection to these believers from Orthodox, Catholic and Chaldean traditions. So who will hear these people when they cry out? Their monasteries have been overrun, ancient artifacts ruined and lost forever. They ve had to flee their towns, some of which like Mosul and Baghdad, were home to the world s oldest Christian communities. They ve lost their homes and livelihood. Their men are often killed and their women and children tortured. They live in poorly funded refugee camps, or wander from place to place on a sea of sand. We re appalled and rightly so when any civilians are killed. But that concern is heightened when we re talking about our own flesh and blood. Our family s in trouble. Who cares?
World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 5 Luckily for them, God does. At least we glean as much from the story of the Hebrew children. When the Israelites complained to their leaders, Moses and Aaron took the matter to God. And I hope you noticed, not once did God scold them for complaining. Idolatry, now there s something that upsets God. God gets very, very mad about playing both sides of the fence. But God doesn t get upset with desperate people who need to eat. God has sympathy for real human need. So God looked around, and gathered up what God could find. First, God provided quail, so tired from their air borne journey that the people could catch them on the ground. Then in the morning, manna, which is morning dew dried with sugary excretions from certain desert plants. To this day, Bedouin tribes collect manna in the wilderness, and exhausted quail are caught as they rest from cross desert travels. God found what God could laying around in his creation, and brought life to the people in the desert. We lost a good one this past week. She was on our prayer list, though many of you never met her. Donna Hefernan taught most recently at Chuckey-Doak High School. She knew the kids who struggled to have what they needed, and she couldn t stand to see them go without. She and her teacher friends scrounged up their change to make a pool for things like peanut butter,
World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 6 toothpaste and deodorant. When a church member explained to us the need, we pitched in some of the church s resources set aside for feeding the community. Donna dispersed those funds at the high school and never failed to have some of those who were helped to write thank you notes to us. One of those notes was from a girl still in school working a full time job because her mother had cancer, and two younger siblings were still at home. It s nice to know, she wrote, that somebody out there cares. That note should have gone to Donna. Donna cared like God does. God sees a real need, and gathers resources to meet it. I wish I could tell you where to write a check to bring relief to our brothers and sisters. But as usual, helping in this case is more complicated than we want it to be. We don t know the avenues for the safe passage of funds. There s too much chaos on the ground. So whatever practical help we might offer will have to wait. While we wait, are you willing to be hangry, hungry for justice, upset that others don t have what we need? You probably don t have this problem, but sometimes I write a check just to get the monkey off my back, just so I can appease my guilt and move on. Well, what if we come to the table today, and Jesus asks us not to be in such a hurry? What if he feeds us with his love, but also opens our eyes to others at the table. And while we take the bread,
World Communion Sunday, 10/05/2014, Greeneville, Tennessee 7 there s our sister from Egypt in handcuffs. And after we receive the cup we pass it to our brother from Syria with his undernourished children gathered around him. I know you re used to leaving this table well fed. But what if Jesus wants not only to fill us, but to create a longing in us for a more just world? What if he wants us to come away with sympathy in our guts for our fellow believers, neglected and unheard? Christians in the Middle East don t deserve better treatment than others. But they belong to us and we belong to them. This is no call for a holy war, Christian West against Muslim East. This is a call to care. Would you feel it in your gut if your children, cousins or siblings were scrambling for their lives? Listen for the outcry of your family. While they hunger for bread, let yourself hunger for their deliverance.