Do We Know We Are Hungry?

Do we even know we are hungry? And along with that, how do we feed people, who don’t even know that they’re hungry? Kids are always a good example of this. When my daughter doesn’t want to eat the meal that we have prepared, the response is “I’m full.” “Okay then,” we say “you may be excused.” Then she heads right for the cupboard for dessert. So then it’s time to put the breaks on and say wait I thought you are full. Well this is dessert, She says. No if you are too full to finish your meal then your too full for dessert.
Of course we know it’s not about being full, but it’s about what we want vs. what we need.

Even Peter was not immune to this, as we read in the Gospel. He rebukes or “chastises” (as some translations put it) Jesus for saying what he must endure. Jesus listens for only so long before he finally bursts out and says “get behind me Satan!” Your mind is set on human things not divine things. In order to save your life you need to lose it, for the first will be last, and the last will be first. In our context today he might say: You think you are full, but everyone is so filled with air you don’t even know how hungry you are.


Before we can feed others we have to also make sure we are getting fed, and to do that, we have to know that we are hungry. Many people today may be guilty of filling up on church when we should be feeding on the life giving power of the Holy Spirit! I think many people could be identified like Peter. He is loyal and Jesus most trusted follower, yet even he doesn’t quite get what is going on and what he is supposed to be taking away from being in the very presence of Jesus. Jesus has to remind him, very sternly I might add, that he is feeding on that spiritual junk food we talked about last week. What will truly transform ones life, and thereby transform the world, is feeding on the spirit itself. But just like those non-church goers we talked about earlier, even those in the church may not know they are hungry. Hence the question again: Are we filling up on church, when we should be feeding on the nourishment the Holy Spirit gives us? Who do we invite to worship, or Bible study or to a small group? Why haven’t we? Are we ashamed to talk about our faith, or even where we attend worship let alone even live it? I suspect one of the reasons why, not the only reason, but one of the reasons why, is that we are afraid what people will find when we do come. We need to be nourished first so our minds can be set on divine things and then we can nourish others.

Many times our approach to bring people to church comes across in this manner. Those in the church say something to the effect of : you just need to get your priorities straight and get to church on Sunday morning. Yet they see no need to be a part of something else like a church, especially when we can say, that I pray anytime I want to or even hop on the Internet and listen to a sermon, or download a religious song. We must learn that we cannot force feed them. They are finding scraps of religion to stay alive but we must build upon those scraps, in order to truly allow them to experience the nourishment and feed the hunger that they have buried deep inside of them just to be able to survive in this world. A saying by Catherine Doherty encapsulates this “Lord give bread to the hungry and a hunger for you to those who have bread.”