Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis March 30, 2008

Psalm 42

Doorways to the Realm of God: 4. “Hunger Pains”

In his book Return to the Garden, Paul Ferrini talks about the lowest point in his life. He had recently broken up with his long-time girlfriend, leaving him feeling empty and numb. He had moved to the Boston area hoping to find a teaching position, but he couldn’t find anything remotely in his field. He found a job driving truck. Every morning he got up at 4:00, rode his bike through the cold, dark streets, weaved around the barrel-fulls of garbage the street gangs had thrown into the street the night before, loaded up his truck, and watched the pale, muted rays of dawn try to penetrate the grimy clouds.

Everywhere he looked he saw despair, exploitation and suffering. When he looked inside himself, all he felt was loneliness, sadness and pain. What was the point of his life? He concluded there was none.

Paul had grown up an atheist, but he was so desperate, he decided to talk to try to talk to God. It was more of a demand than a prayer: “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t abandon this meaningless world.” He wasn’t really expecting an answer.

But he heard a firm clear voice in his mind say, “Go into the living room, close your eyes and take the first book you come to in the bookcase.”

Paul shrugged, “What do I have to loose?” So he went in, closed his eyes, and pulled out a book. It was I and Thou by the Jewish theologian Martin Buber. As he began to read the first page, it became clear that he was getting his answer. He sank into the chair and began drinking in the truth of the words with a thirst he hadn’t known he had.

“There are two worlds,” Buber told him, “the world of I-It and the world of I-Thou.” Paul immediately recognized the world of I-It as the world he lived in. Everybody treated each other as “its”—as objects to be competed against, manipulated, managed, and used. That “I-It” world was the world of loneliness, suffering and emptiness that Paul wanted to escape.

But Buber said there is also another world—a world of I-Thou, where people connect with each other through respect, understanding, love, and grace. In those I-thou encounters, people connect to more than just each other. They also connect to a divine energy that enlivens and feeds them both, and charges their life with meaning and worth.

Paul had to admit to himself that he had on rare occasions glimpsed this world of I-Thou. The world was 99% suffering, but maybe it was 1% grace. So was it worth enduring the 99% suffering part to hope for a taste of the 1% that was grace? Paul didn’t think that sounded like much of a deal.

But then the wisdom in the book spoke into the tiny crack that had opened in Paul’s heart. “It’s up to you which world you want to live in,” it told him. Paul’s mind started reeling. You mean the quality of his experience didn’t depend on what was outside of him, but on the attitude he brought to it? You mean the “I” in “I-Thou” was his responsibility—not somebody else’s or “the world’s” or even God’s?

As these thoughts washed through him like waves of truth, he realized he would never be able to pretend to be life’s innocent bystander or life’s victim again. He was the one who was responsible for whether he was the “I” of an “I-It” encounter or the “I” in an “I-Thou” connection. He was the one who was making the choice for loneliness or connectedness, estrangement or love, emptiness or meaning.

Paul had been given his homework assignment for the rest of his life. He writes,

I was not here on this earth to be a victim of a callous, uncaring world. I was here to give birth to love in my own heart and to carry that love to everyone in my experience….I did not know it then, but Christ had taken hold of me and wherever I walked from that day on, he walked with me hand in hand.¹

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” How fortunate are those, no matter how discouraged they feel, who hunger for something more real, more fulfilling, more life-giving, than what the world of greed, pride, fear, and separation dishes up. Blessed are those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

What is the righteousness that Jesus applauds us for hungering for? It’s not staunchly obeying all the rules and conforming to somebody’s high standards of behavior. That was the “righteousness” of the Pharisees, which Jesus kept saying missed the point. In Biblical faith, righteousness meant right relationships rather than perfectionism in behavior. So for Jesus, righteousness towards God is fulfilled by loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. And righteousness towards other people is fulfilled by loving them as we love ourself.

As Paul Ferrini discovered, this was the hunger that his estrangement, depression and pain were about. He longed for a relationship with God that helped him feel known, understood and loved, that helped him know that he was a part of something bigger than himself, and that there was a reason for his existence, and that his life could make a difference in the world. He longed for relationships with other people that expanded and deepened his mind, heart and soul by opening him to another person’s perspective, experience and inner worth. He longed for that energizing exchange of the spiritual energy we call love that flows through the open door of understanding, appreciation and trust.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” So how is this hunger and thirst satisfied?

I suspect the answer to that question already lies in your own experience. Let me ask you, what do you do that makes you feel the most fulfilled? (People in the congregation volunteered the following:)

Mary talked about being a counselor at a summer camp, and gave special attention to a teenage girl who felt like a misfit and was very homesick and filled with self doubt. The counselor helped her try things she didn’t think she could do and gain confidence in herself, to the point that she didn’t want to leave when camp was over.

Greg teaches college students and finds great fulfillment in helping them learn to think, and in watching the lights go on in their mind as their minds expand.

Cheryl is going through an intensive training program to be a nurse, which she is finding more fulfilling than her previous administrative work.

Carol talked about the fulfillment of caring for her father-in-law during the last three years of his life, even though it was often hard.

I’ve never heard anybody say that they find real fulfillment in going to the mall or watching their big-screen TV, even though we’re bombarded with messages that tell us that’s were satisfaction lies.

Some of you saw the article in the Democrat and Chronicle March 21 about scientific studies on what makes people happy. It was titled, “Science and the Bible Agree: It’s Better to Give than to Receive.” In one of the experiments, the subjects were given various amounts of money, ranging from $5 to $20. Some were told to go out and spend it on themselves; others were told to buy a gift for someone else. It turned out that the amount of money they were given had no effect on how happy they rated themselves after they had made their purchases. What made the difference was whether they had spent the money on themselves or someone else. Those who had gotten a gift for someone else were significantly happier.

So Jesus reminds us today that our hunger and thirst can be satisfied very easily. We simply need to turn from trying to satisfy ourselves and turn our attention outward to another person—any person. We need to let down that invisible wall that separates us from other people–the wall of mistrust, judgment, hurry, or preoccupation with ourselves. We need to open our awareness to the inner truth of who they are--a fellow human being with a God-created spirit and a longing to love and be loved. And we need to be a “thou” to them—to be real, open, present, and generous with the quality of our attention. We practice doing that for each other at HUCC all the time, when we create a spacious openness of love, concern, support, respect, trust, honesty, and genuineness that opens us all up to God and to each other. This is what it takes to turn people from “its” into “thous.”

Everybody hungers and thirsts for that. And we can invite them to come and taste of this banquet here. And we can take some of this food out with us wherever we go–to the store clerks and mechanics and doctors who serve us, to our customers, clients, students, patients, and co-workers, to the people in our families, even and especially to people we don’t like very well.

Many of you have heard the story of the soul who arrived at the pearly gates. St. Peter took him to a big room where people were sitting around a huge banquet table filled with food that smelled and looked wonderful. But everyone was bitter, angry and emaciated. Their hands were fastened to very long-handled spoons. And try as they might, they couldn’t get those spoons filled with food into their mouths, because the handles were just too long.

“What is this?” the soul wanted to know.

“This is hell,” said St. Peter. “Now I’ll show you heaven.” He opened another door with a very similar scene. The table was laden with wonderful food, and everyone had the same long-handled spoons. But everyone was laughing, talking and eating. They were using their long-handled spoons to feed each other.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness–for the food of unconditional love that deeply nourishes every soul. Those who turn to their neighbor and offer it freely will be fully satisfied, for love will flow through their lives like a never-ending stream.”

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