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 6th 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.
