The next weeks in August in the revised common lectionary all deal with a single continuous story in which Jesus calls himself the “Bread of Life” and distinguishes himself from the temporary “fix” of “feel-good food.”

In this week’s portion of the story, Jesus introduces us to that insatiable hunger inside of us that we too often attempt to pacify through numbing out strategies, such as alcohol, exercise, food, or other means. Rather than facing things head on, we often attempt to anesthetize our grief, our pain, our guilt, shame, or emptiness by filling our hearts and bellies with unhealthy things.[1]

Asian cultures like to call these unsated cravings our “hungry ghost.”They envision the archetype of the “hungry ghost” as an unhealthy scrawny figure with a bloated belly from ingesting all …