Matthew 5:6; John 6:35

Maybe you've seen this commercial. It aired frequently during the holidays. As I remember it, the commercial went something like this. A thirty-something-year-old woman with stylish short red hair is seated in an expensive restaurant. The woman is well dressed, well to do, well kept and attractive. The camera focuses on her face close up as she talks to an unseen friend sitting across the table. "Jack got another promotion. He's really doing well," she says flatly. There's a pause. She continues, "And the kids ... the kids are great." Another pause: "Did I tell you Jack got another promotion?" Then sheepishly, "I guess I did." During the pauses there are flashes of the same woman, home alone, a drink in her hand, crying. She concludes, almost with a sob, "Everything's great. It's just ... I'm not happy." The commercial offers an 800 number for a free copy of "A Power for Living," a devotional book, very possibly the Bible. It concludes with the reassuring message "No one will call." I saw that commercial several times over the holidays. Each time I saw it, I found it compelling. Part of it was the marvelous acting on the part of the actress. Part of it was the filming. It seemed as if she was sitting right across the table and talking directly to you. But part of it was the irony of this woman who seemed to have everything -- plenty of money, good health, good looks, a successful husband, "great kids" -- seated in an expensive restaurant, yet still hungering and thirsting for something. We all have hungers and thirsts that mere food cannot fill. We're fortunate in this congregation not to be physically hungry or thirsty. Many people -- far too many people -- are hungry around the world. Worldwide, 33,000 children starve to death a day; 1.3 billion people, one-fourth of humankind, live in abject poverty. An estimated 30,000 children in the state of Massachusetts alone are malnourished. But not us! For us physical hunger or thirst is fleeting: a quick reach for a Twinkie or a strawberry Twister and the hunger and thirst disappears -- temporarily. But whether or not we experience physical hunger, we can find ourselves spiritually starving. Like the woman in the television commercial, we can have hungers of the heart. How do people deal with that inner thirst or hunger? Sometimes we try to "fill up" on possessions. This reminds me of the bumper sticker: Whoever dies with the most toys wins! I recently met a rabbi who had modified that bumper sticker for his congregation: Whoever dies with the most Torahs wins! But mostly we seek not Torah but toys. In 1923 a famous meeting was held in the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Attending this famous meeting were: Charles Schwab, President of America's largest independent steel company; Samuel Insull, President of America's largest electric utility; Howard Hopson, President of the nation's largest gas company; Arthur Cutten, America's premier speculator in wheat; Richard Whitney, President of the New York Stoc_esermonsk Exchange; Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall; Jessie Livermore, Wall Street's most aggressive investor; Leon Fraser, President of the Bank of International Settlement; and Ivar Krueger, head of one of the world's largest monopolies. Obviously, each of these men had invested decades pursuing possessions. But were they happy? Let's see how, 25 years later, these same men turned out. Twenty-five years later the President of the largest independent steel company died bankrupt; the President of the largest electric utility died a fugitive from justice, penniless; the head of the largest gas company was insane; the biggest wheat speculator died abroad, insolvent; the President of the New York Stoc_esermonsk Exchange had just been released from Sing Sing; the Secretary of the Interior was pardoned from another prison so he could die at home; Wall Street's biggest investor had committed suicide; the President of the international bank also took his own life; the head of the monopoly committed suicide, too. We may try to fill our inner emptiness with possessions. But mere possessions will not fill hungers of the heart. So maybe we can fill that inner emptiness with performance -- like the Avis car company, "We try harder." Tom Landry, former football coach of the Dallas Cowboys, knows a lot about peak performance. He was a college football star, then played for the New York Giants. Later he was head coach for the Dallas Cowboys, an expansion team. Landry had twenty straight winning seasons at Dallas, and two Super Bowl victories. He was twice elected NFL Coach of the Year, and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Peak performance. But did it make him happy? One wonders. He said in an interview: "I wanted to be a good football coach, so my whole life was absorbed in that. As I went up the ladder all the way to becoming a professional football player and winning world championships ... I discovered that after the excitement of winning or being successful, there was always an emptiness and a restlessness that stayed with me afterwards." He continued, "I didn't understand that. I thought that somewhere along the way you ought to win a victory that would sustain you for the rest of your life. But I never discovered that kind of satisfaction ..." (Robert H. Schuller, The Be (Happy) Attitudes, Bantam Books, pp. 107-108). Tom Landry did not feel "winning isn't everything; it's the only thing" (attributed to Vince Lombardi). He found that even great success left him feeling empty. Peak performance will not fill our inner hunger and thirst. So we may pursue fame! Some say Leonardo DiCaprio is the most famous young actor in Hollywood. He is immensely popular. He was chosen as People magazine's "Reader's Choice Best Male Actor of the Year." Leonardo is a "hot property" right now: a star of Titanic proportions! He is, as his character said in that movie, "The King of the World." Leonardo DiCaprio is a fine young actor. But it's a good bet that Leonardo's career will go through a common pattern. I'm sure when he started acting, casting directors asked, "Who is Leonardo DiCaprio?!" He has progressed to: "Leonardo DiCaprio! GET ME HIM!" But soon it will be: "Get me someone like Leonardo DiCaprio." His fees will become so expensive that fewer studios will be able to hire him. In a few years it will be "Get me a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Finally I suspect casting directors will again be asking, "Who is Leonardo DiCaprio?" Sorry, Leonardo. Indications are Hollywood is just "that way." Reminds me of something Fred Allen, the comedian, said: "You could take all of the sincerity that's in Hollywood and stuff it into a gnat's navel and still have room enough for two producers' hearts and a caraway seed" (quoted by John Killinger in Leadership Journal's "Preaching Today" Tape Number 132). Fame is fleeting, probably even for Leonardo DiCaprio, King of the World! I suspect public recognition and popularity will not feed our need inside. We all get hungers of the heart. Pleasure and possessions and performance and popularity will not fill them. But those hungers and thirsts are good things: the woman's painful emptiness in the commercial is a good thing. Our dissatisfaction and restlessness are good things. The "dark night of the soul" (Saint John of the Cross) is a good thing. Tossing and turning sleepless, at night, wondering who we are and where we're going, is a good thing. Finding ourselves curled up, fetal position, in a corner, wracked by tears and fears is a good thing. If we come to realize that what we are really hungering and thirsting for is a "right relationship" with God. Augustine was right when he said, "Our hearts will be restless, O God, until they find their rest in Thee." It's true that, as it has been said, there is a "God-shaped blank in every person" -- an emptiness that only God can fill. Physical hunger and thirst are blessed if they drive us to take nourishment. Our spiritual hunger and thirst are blessed if they drive us back to God. Old-time preacher and Bible teacher Arthur W. Pink writes: When God creates a hunger and a thirst in the soul, it is so that (God) may satisfy them. When the poor sinner is made to feel his need for Christ, it is to the end that he may be drawn to Christ and led to embrace Him ... He (or she) is delighted to confess Christ as (her or) his newfound righteousness and to glory in (Christ) alone ... Such a one, whom God now calls a "saint"... is to experience such an ongoing filling not with wine ... but with the Spirit ... (She or) he is to be filled with the peace of God that passeth all understanding.... (Arthur W. Pink, The Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer, Baker Books, p. 35) How blessed you and I are, every month, to be able to come to the Lord's Table to be set right with God and each other! How blessed you and I are to confess our sins, to acknowledge our need for forgiveness, to lay down our burdens, to have the chance of renewal of life! How blessed you and I are to hear Jesus' words: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35, NRSV). How blessed we are to be able to feast on God's Word every day in the Scriptures. How blessed we are to be in communion with God at any instant through prayer! Francis of Assisi knew that kind of blessedness, that kind of "peace that passeth all understanding." It is said that Francis once sat at table with a group of nobles and knights. The knights and nobles dined on fine food and fine wine. Francis, on the other hand, reached into his leather pouch and brought out a beaten hunk of bread. It was his "secret bread," bread he had begged, bread the peasants had given him for preaching the gospel. He held it up and said to the nobles, "This is the bread of God. I hold this as toward God." Francis was happy even in poverty because he had received the Bread of Life and the Wine of Salvation. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness," after a "right relationship" with God, "blessed are those who want that relationship more than anything, for they shall be filled." What are you hungry for: possessions, performance, popularity, pleasure? The real "Soul Food" we need is a relationship with Jesus Christ! That's food for thought.