Christ the King-Epiphany, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

August 4, 2024 / Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 18B

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; John 6:24-35

Do you remember the Snickers candy bar ads from a few years ago?  The ones with the tag line:   “You’re not you when you’re hungry.  Snickers satisfies.”  There were lots of versions of the ad, featuring famous personalities like Willem Dafoe, Aretha Franklin, and Rowan Atkinson.   But I think the best was the original, which aired in 2010.  It was actually the number one Super Bowl ad that year.  It shows the actress and comedienne Betty White playing football with a bunch of young guys.  She goes out for a pass and gets tackled without catching the football.  Her teammates yell at her and try to insult her by saying that she’s playing “like Betty White,” at which point she gets mad, and it looks like a fight is about to break out.  But then a girl calls out from the sidelines and hands Betty White a Snickers, which, when she eats it, changes her into a young, athletic-looking guy who jumps right back into the game.  Because you’re not you when you’re hungry.

You’re not you when you’re hungry.  I know that’s true for me.  How about for you?  Hunger can make us grumpy.  Or distracted.  Or impatient.  We’ve even created a word for some of the feelings:  hangry, which has been in the Oxford English Dictionary since 2018!  We’re just not at our best when we are hungry, and this might explain a little bit of what was going on with the Israelites in this morning’s lesson from Exodus.  Six weeks earlier, the Israelites had escaped from their bondage to the Pharaoh in Egypt.  You may know the story well.  Moses, with a lot of help from the Lord, had convinced the Pharaoh to let the Israelite slaves go free.  But afterwards, Pharaoh had changed his mind and sent his army out to pursue them, leaving the Israelites trapped between an impassable sea and the approaching Egyptian army.  Just when it looked like their freedom was going to be revoked, the Lord had parted the waters and opened a path for them through the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to cross the sea on dry ground.  But after they were safely through, the Lord had stopped holding back the sea, drowning all the Egyptians and ending their pursuit of God’s people.  The Israelites had danced and praised the Lord in gratitude for their lives, believing once again, for the first time since their 400-year enslavement, that they were, indeed, God’s beloved and chosen people.  But six weeks had passed since this amazing deliverance, and they had left Egypt in such a hurry that they hadn’t been able to carry much in the way of provisions with them.  And by the time we catch up with the people in this morning’s lesson, their gratitude had faded, probably fading at the same rate that their hunger was on the rise.  It took just six weeks for the people to forget their gratitude and begin to complain.  It took only six weeks for the people to forget who they were – the free children of God – and to begin to reminisce about the good old days of slavery, when at least they had food to eat.  Did they really think that the Lord would go to all the trouble to rescue them from slavery only to let them die of starvation in the wilderness?  Perhaps they did – because, you know, you’re not you when you’re hungry.

When we’re hungry, it’s hard to be grateful.  When we’re afraid that our most basic needs aren’t going to be met, it’s hard to trust.  When survival mode kicks in, whether what we’re trying to survive is starvation or hardship or a job we hate or a difficult relationship or illness or grief – when we feel like life, as we’ve known it, is slipping away – when we’re worried about survival in a physical or cultural wilderness, where we look around and everything seems foreign and strange – when we’re in survival mode, all we can think about is ourselves and our immediate predicament.  God knows this about us.  And that’s when God provides manna – what we need.

The manna that the Lord gave to the Israelites was amazing stuff – “bread from heaven,” a fine, flaky substance like frost on the ground every morning – enough for the people to gather and eat and survive.  But in my opinion, what’s even more amazing about the manna is that the Lord provided it for the Israelites without their even asking for it.  Did you notice that?  The Israelites complained to Moses and Aaron that they were hungry, but they never asked the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, their provider, their deliverer, the source of all that sustains us – they never asked the Lord for food.  They had seen the Lord literally part the sea for them.  Did they not think that the Lord would be able to provide for them?  Did they not think that the Lord would want to provide for them?  Again, I wonder if they really weren’t themselves because they were hungry.  But the Lord . . . was Godself:  a loving parent who heard the complaints of the children and provided them with food without their asking.  This is a God who can be trusted.  And as the story of Exodus unfolds, the Lord continues to provide for the children of Israel, even when they’ve turned away, even when they’ve disobeyed.  And in the same way, even when we do not trust, the Lord continues to be trustworthy in every way.

God wants us to ask for what we need, just like any good parent would want their child to feel safe and secure in asking for what they need.  In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther writes that when we pray – Give us this day our daily bread – bread doesn’t just mean bread, but everything we need to live.  We’re supposed to ask for what we need.  But sometimes we don’t.  We don’t ask because we think we can rely on ourselves, or we don’t ask because we don’t believe that God really can provide what we need, or maybe we don’t ask because we just don’t feel worthy to ask.  But the scriptures remind us of the truth.  The truth is:  we can’t rely on ourselves:  we’re just like the children of God in the wilderness, helpless and vulnerable.  The truth is:  God can and does provide – manna, or whatever it is that we need.  And the truth is:  we are worthy to ask, not because of who we are, but whose we are.  We belong to God because of Jesus Christ, who is the very bread of life.  He is what we need to live.

The Mars company had it right in their commercial for Snickers.  We’re not at our best when we’re hungry.  But for our purposes, I would change just one word in their ad:  You’re not you when you’re hungry.  Jesus satisfies.