Hungry?

Are you hungry?  It's a common question. It may be the prelude to stopping at a drive-thru, or a quick rummage through a refrigerator, or being handed a lint-covered granola bar from the depths of a school backpack, or dropping some change into a vending machine.  We are fortunate that we live in a place where there may be multiple answers to that question.  Certainly there are many places in the world where it's a  mute point. Of course. There's rarely any other condition.  But, for most of us, it's simply a question inviting an easy, hospitable act of satisfying a slight grumbling noise.  To Jesus, though, it was more.  During August in the New Community worship service, we will taking a close-up look at the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John.  It's all about being hungry and feeding...feeding miraculous numbers of people with a few morsels, and shifting our understandings from physical hunger to spiritual hunger. We probably know there are more types of hunger than just grumbling tummies.  Jesus was concerned about the starving souls all around him.  That's why BREAD was a favorite metaphor for him.  You may be experiencing some sort of hunger in your life.  Maybe you think it's just your tummy that is rumble-grumbling, but it might be something more. An ancient poet once said, "As a deer longs for flowing water, so  my soul longs for you, O God"  (Psalm 42)