What Are You Hungry For?

Photo of The Very Rev. Dean Terry White by The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

Recently I watched a TV special focusing on comfort foods. One dessert was listed that I have yet to try.  It is a kind of tiramisu, that decadent Italian treat, but this version is not made with the traditional ladyfingers, but with Hostess Twinkies. I guess you’d call that Twinkiemasu. Some among us will consider such a creation blasphemous!

On a second show featuring Our Top Five Favorite Things Fried, the number one choice was also a dessert: deep-fat-fried Oreos. The Oreo cookie is dipped in a special sticky batter, frozen, then deep-fried for 90 seconds. And of course, what would a plate of fried Oreos be without a generous dusting of powdered sugar.

Might this be a new parish fundraiser!

I guess that there is no limit to what a person might try if they are hungry enough. But to eat Oreos and Twinkies, and dare I say, chocolate bunnies every day, would not be a good thing. Our health is very much determined by what we take in.

We are here tonight because we are hungry.  All of us – the newly baptized, confirmed, received, those who have reaffirmed their commitment and all of us, lay and ordained, who renewed our baptismal covenant – we are hungry. Our world is hungry. For love, hope, meaning, and most of all, for true life in this world and in the age to come. 

Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.

Somewhere on my bookshelves is an author who made this observation:

"In the final, prosperous years of the twentieth century, no hunger seemed deeper within the American soul than an unsatisfied longing for spirituality.

The new century and the new millennium have brought no end to the spiritual yearning. Surveys consistently indicate that a large majority of American adults remain dissatisfied despite the material rewards they have accumulated, the physical pleasures they have experienced, and the leisure time they have taken.

Americans are reeling emotionally from daily life in a society traumatized by too much violence, by [deeply] divided families, and too little job security. The pain and isolation caused by the reliance on material things and on human resources alone has grown unbearable. People are searching for something more meaningful and more enduring."

The message of the Resurrection is that God brings forth life where life was impossible. There is nothing more meaningful, and no truth is more enduring. Jesus died and rose again not as a way to emphasize his moral teachings. He died for us in order to take away our sins. God raised Jesus in order to open the kingdom of heaven to us all.

This sure and certain hope is precisely what dissatisfied people who possess more than enough money, enough power, and enough stuff are hungry for. People like us. This hunger brought us to this cathedral. And only the One who suffered for us, and died for us, completely satisfies this hunger.

At his enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams said:

We hate admitting our lack, our poverty. It's the really hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile away. For those who know their need, God is immediate - not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body.

But what is this food, this life? It is Jesus, who is given the freedom to give God's own life and love to us; and . . . he holds nothing back from us. God’s life is poured into the willing heart of Jesus so that Jesus can give it to the world.

On the Day of Judgment, says Jesus, . . the people who are in trouble are those who have seen everything and grasped nothing; who know everything about this bread except that you're meant to eat it."

Faith can become exactly like that: we know about it, but fail to eat it.

My sisters and brothers, let us not be shy in claiming what our generous God has done. There is food to eat, work to do, a purpose to life, and the sure and certain hope that life will never end. In this Resurrection God has given life where no life was possible. The feast is for us. Dig in!

I wonder what deep fried marshmallow Peeps chicks might taste like?

Alleluia! Christ is risen!