I’M  HUNGRY! 

I’M  THIRSTY! 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Third Tuesday after Easter is, “I’m Hungry, I’m Thirsty.”

We’re in the 6^th chapter of John these days and the theme is: using bread Jesus takes away the deepest human hungers and thirsts.

DESIRE

At the core of every one of us is hunger and thirst - desire: the inner fire called “desire”.

I want! I need! I was hoping for ______.  I desire. I’m hungry. I’m thirsty.

The little baby - when it comes to all this - can be very obvious - naked - with his or her hungers and thirsts. I want what I want when I want it. I want you - and where are you when I need you - for food, for milk, for love, for attachment, for touch, for skin, for the scent of mom and dad - for their real presence.

The little baby - every little baby is “The Scream”. We’ve all seen Edvard Munch’s painting of  “The Scream”. Babies don’t care where they are. They just scream when they want - when they are hungry - when they are thirsty. I’ve also seen “The Scream” from people in their second childhood - in nursing homes as well.

The core motive for everyone - down deep - is satisfaction - otherwise when their Pampers or Depends are uncomfortable  - out comes “The Scream!”

Today’s gospel ends this way. Hear it again:

So they said to Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

There they are the two words: “hunger” and “thirst”.

WE KNOW THE FEELING

We know what it is to be hungry - to be starving - whether it’s for ice water on a warm day or warm tomato soup on a cold day.

We know when our relationships, our marriages, our families, our friendships are going right. We know satisfaction when our hopes and desires for connection - for good family stuff is going on.  We know when we hunger and thirst for solutions to family problems.

ONION

I remember reading about the onion as an image - about life.

I for one never liked onions. They are like mushrooms - I don’t like them either.

But I liked the saying, “Life is like an onion. You peel off one layer at a time and sometimes you cry.”

I also heard that an onion has no core - you peel and peel - and in the end all you have is nothing - and transparency - hold that last peeling - that last layer - up to the light  and we can see right through it to nothingness.

This is true - if we cut off the stem of an onion. However, we all have stems, we all have roots. It tells us where we comes from.

When we start peeling off our layers - when we start seeing our motives - we are getting closer and closer to our deeper and deeper hungers and thirsts - where we come from.

Life is peeling - and sometimes we cry. We are layered.  We might go one layer down into ourselves and discover that another is using us - or we are using another. We might spend our life bragging about our children or our accomplishments - so that others will love us and be impressed - but when  study this thought - hold it up to the light and realize our motive for bragging is because we feel small and unimpressive to ourselves.

CONCLUSION: JESUS GETS US TO PEEL

Jesus gets us to peel off lots of layers - and find out what’s underneath.

And when we go very underneath, we discover what we’re saying, what we’re screaming about down deep underneath. It’s all about our hungers and our thirsts.

And that’s where Jesus is - down there in our underneath hungers and thirsts.

However, he’s not an onion, he’s bread.