by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given February 3, 2008

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!

Come into this circle of love and justice,

Come into this circle of mercy and holiness and health,

Come and be nourished by these words and this music

Come now, and let us worship together!

Hunger is a condition that is largely hidden.  And when I say that, I mean physical hunger and many other kinds of hunger, hunger in a metaphorical sense as well.  We hunger, but we don’t talk about it.  Let’s talk about it this morning.  First let’s talk about literally needing food.

We all know that hunger is an enormous human rights issue in our world—after all, it is a human right to be nourished.  Some time ago a friend sent me an e-mail showing pictures of families around the globe and spread out before them in living color, was the food each of these 4-member families consumed in a single week, and then an indication of how much that food cost.  The United States was not at the top, to my surprise—Germany was, at $500 a week.  The U.S. was second at $342.  And on down.  China at $155, Egypt at $69 (and of course we’re finding less and less meat and processed food, as we go), Ecuador, $31.55, and then at the very bottom were refugees in Chad, a family of 4 trying to survive on $1.23 a week—basically, a couple of bags of grain.  So let’s put this question in context: we are a wealthy, wealthy country, where everyone should have plenty of what is basic to keep people alive—clean water and nourishing food.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.      

I expect that most people in this congregation think that they don’t know anyone who is hungry—I mean, actually physically hungry.  But I can guarantee you that all of us know people who are hungry.  In fact, I would guess that there are people here in this sanctuary this morning who are literally hungry—or at the very least, what social workers call “food insecure”—that is, they are not sure where their next meal is coming from, and they often do not have enough to eat, nor enough money to buy nutritious food.  Almost 12% of Oregon citizens are “food insecure.”  But hunger is a hidden condition, because people who are hungry are ashamed, and they don’t tell their neighbors, and they don’t tell their co-workers—kids who go to school hungry will not tell their classmates or their teacher that they are hungry.  It’s not an acceptable thing to say.    

How does it happen that people don’t have enough money for food?  Many people who use food stamps are, in fact, working.  Well, it goes like this.  An Oregonian on a limited income pays whichever bills are most urgent when they get a paycheck—how do you prioritize?  “You have to have a house, you have to have a place to live,” says one woman.  Yes, health insurance is important, but maybe automobile insurance is more important because I have to drive to work; I have to pay the phone bill, because I’m looking for another job, and I have to be able to receive calls.”  Kathy, who lives in Grants Pass, talks about the dilemma this way: “We didn’t pay the electricity bill because we had to pay for our kids’ school supplies.”  So it sometimes comes down to this: which bills do I pay, and do I have enough money left over to buy food for the family?  An emergency as small as a dead car battery can mean no food money.

Terry talks about a time when her family lived on popcorn for a while.  She would put a mound of white on each child’s plate for dinner.  She remembers her son used to separate it out and say, “This is my steak, this is my potato, this is my vegetable—Mom made a really good meal for us.” 

The last time I talked about this topic was eight years ago, and Oregon was number 1 in hunger in the nation—yes, we were the state with the highest per capita of hungry people.  Now, mainly because of aggressive efforts to promote food stamps, we are somewhere in the middle.  Nationally, though, things are getting worse, not better: 2005 showed the fifth annual increase of food insecure households in the United States,—and actual hunger went up over 60 percent.  What this means, in actual terms, is that many children are going to school hungry each morning, restless and unable to learn. This is at a time, my friends, when the purchase of luxury goods is at an all-time high.  I don’t mind if some people want to buy $12,000 watches and $5,000 purses, but I can’t support a tax structure and an economic philosophy that says that some people have tremendous excess while others don’t have the basic necessities—an economic philosophy that literally takes food off the plates of children. 

I know that many of you, as I do, give money to the Food Bank each year and collect cans of food for various organizations, and that is well and good.  But we need legislative change at the national level.  And so today I’m going to ask each one of you to do one thing in behalf of hungry and malnourished people.  I’m going to ask you to go down to the Social Justice table in the parish hall after the service and get information about legislation supporting a Federal nutrition program, and then make two phone calls that can make a difference.  Let your voice count on this issue.  Nobody should be without food in this country.

But now as I mentioned earlier, there are many kinds of hunger.  I noted a recent article in the NY Times, an analysis of the mood of voters at this time in the election cycle.  The article says, and I quote, “. . . there has been a darkening of the country’s mood and, in the eyes of many, a fraying of America’s very sense of itself.  . . . .  Americans feel a loss of autonomy, in their own lives and in the nation.  <They feel powerless> to control their financial well-being, their safety, their environment, their health . . . ,” the article goes on to say.  Parents are worried about the next generation, and there is a feeling that the political system is impotent.

It’s not just a loss of control in measurable indicators, like health care and income.  It appears that we are hungering for direction, for hope, for some sense that we’re going to be all right, after all.  As a people, we are divided and isolated, and so we hunger for community, for intimacy.  Who was the poet who wrote, “Many are dying for lack of love alone”?  But these are largely hidden hungers, because these are not things people mostly talk about.  It’s too scary to say to another person, “I feel desperate” or “I feel terribly lonely.”  As one wag said, “People think that of all the animals, humans most resemble monkeys, but that’s not the case—we most resemble ducks: on the surface, we look calm and quiet, and underneath, we’re all paddling furiously.”

So what do we do with all this angst, as we relate to food?  It’s fascinating, what happens.  I remember distinctly how I responded when my best friend died about 9 years ago.  She had been ill for a while, but I had no idea that she was near death.  I stopped by her house after I preached on that Sunday and was greeted at the door by her family, who told me in tears that she was in a coma and was dying.  I knew I would not be able to speak to her ever again.  Heartbroken, I went home to change clothes and to return to stay with my friend for the time of her dying, and on the way home, I stopped at a restaurant, and I ordered a huge breakfast, and I ate, and I ate, and I ate.  Loss triggers hungers of all kinds.  It triggers emotional hungers, it triggers sexual hungers, and it often makes us crave food.  Eat and live.  We’re reaching out for life.

Our hungering in this culture is often expressed in how we relate to food, in various ways.  And this relationship surely must be classified as a love/hate relationship.  We are obsessed with dieting, and yet we keep getting heavier and heavier.  Since we lack control in our lives, we have this fierce desire to control our bodies—and so we impose strict rules on our flesh, rules that unruly flesh cannot and will not obey. 

We judge others and ourselves harshly if we eat the wrong foods.  Are you the kind of person who looks in other people’s baskets at the grocery store to see what they’ve chosen?  I do.  Surely they’re not buying those cookies!  Not those soft drinks!  But the worst is white bread.  I’m not talking about your Italian loaf—I’m talking about Wonder Bread.  Now if a person comes to me and confesses that he has been committing adultery, I can understand that human failing, and I can forgive, but when I visit someone in another part of the country, and they serve Bunny Bread, I just can’t handle that.  I think, “You are BAD, BAD, BAD!”

And consider the way we eat.  We rush through our meals the way we rush through our lives—where we’re going, I’m not sure, but we’re moving all the time.  Do we just have to keep going, because if we stop and consider, we will fall into despair?  We fail to notice, to really be present with our food, and it becomes just a means to an end, just fuel for the furnace, not something sacred, not a blessing.  

And then what happens when we cannot bear our emotional emptiness?  We may eat to fill that emptiness, perhaps going back somewhere in the subconscious to the food which first gave us life, at our mother’s breast.  Eat to live.

And yet food, that gives us life, has become dangerous, for our very bodies have become commodities, and so we have developed a compulsive concern with the way our bodies are seen and assessed by others.  How well we sculpt our errant flesh becomes a measure of the person, becomes a moral issue.  The fact is that virtually all women, with very few exceptions—no matter how beautiful they are—don’t like their bodies.  I remember once sorting through some old boxes of books, and I came across an ancient Weight Watcher’s cookbook—and tucked inside it was a faded yellow paper outlining weight-loss menus that I must have followed when I was in my 20s.  I thought back, aghast—I was married at 28, I was 5’10” and weighed only 128 pounds.  My wedding pictures look almost skeletal.  What was I thinking of?  No matter what women weigh, we’re never thin enough.  And now men are becoming obsessed about their bodies, as I note on magazine covers at the airport—they’re becoming obsessed with their abs, whatever that is.

So food, which comes to us as a gift and a blessing, has become the enemy.  Our bodies—our lovely, luscious flesh through which every earthly pleasure is received—our bodies become symbols of our lack of control, reminders of our frailty, our fallenness.  The weight-loss industry and the beauty industry have preyed upon our very human fears and have told us over and over again what we always suspected: that we are lacking, somehow, that we don’t deserve to be loved as we are.  That is a lie manufactured to get our money for make-up, mouthwash, and fast cars.  Nothing more.

Guilt has been a part of eating ever since Eve gave the apple to Adam.  We feel guilty when we bite into a hamburger and realize we’re helping to destroy a rainforest, or when we drink a cup of politically incorrect coffee and acknowledge to ourselves that we are exploiting peasants in South America.  I wonder if we can begin to leave guilt behind and begin to pay attention to health of body and health of spirit.  I wonder if we can begin to acknowledge which hungers can be met with food and which need to be acknowledged and met in other ways.  I wonder if we can move in a positive way toward our real needs in regard to food—to eating what our body tells us we want, when we really pay attention to our body.

Let me make a few simple suggestions.  We can start by coming closer to the earth itself.  If possible, find some space somewhere and grow something—grow something that you can eat.  Even a little plot will make a difference.  Even a tomato plant in a big pot will do for starters.  Visit local farms and buy from farmer’s markets.  Make the connection between the earth itself and our physical sustenance.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, tells of asking a group of children, “What is the purpose of eating breakfast?”  One boy replied, “To get energy for the day.”  Another said, “The purpose of eating breakfast is to eat breakfast.”  Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “I think the second child is . . . correct.  The purpose of eating is to eat.”  “Eating in mindfulness,” he says, “is an important <spiritual> practice.”

Whether we take the Buddhist way or the Christian or the Jewish blessing, it is important that we pause beforehand to give thanks—we need to be awake to what we are about to do.  Sometimes you may want to say a grace, other times you may just want to pause and look at the colors of the food on your plate, to smell the fragrance, and to be thankful for what you are about to receive.  Being awake, then, we eat slowly, fully tasting the food.  We are present with the food and with the act of eating.  We are present with the ones who are sharing the meal with us.

We can depend on our bodies to let us know what is good for us when we eat in this manner.  Trust me—you will not really want to have a double-fudge sundae every day.  And when you have had enough food, your body will tell you. 

Being mindful about food will not take away our fears, our disconcerting feelings about all that needs to be changed in our world.  But as a spiritual practice, carried out each time we eat, it will remind us of the present moment, it will remind us to be thankful.  It will tell us of our connection to the earth and to all those who helped bring this nourishing food to our plate.  It will give us some sense of solidarity with all humans all over the earth, all of whom are doing just as we are doing—waking up hungry, wanting some sustenance, wanting to have the comfort of food before confronting the challenges of the day.

So being mindful of food will help us to understand its proper use, and we will begin to see that these other hungers—which can be devastating to the human spirit—our hungering for justice, for meaning, the hunger for love, for healing of the soul—these spiritual hungers must be met some other way.  To acknowledge our hungers, to speak them out loud, to take them out of hiding, is to begin to find the way home.  Let them be hidden no more. 

May this church community be a place where we can come as we are, with all of our talents, all of our gifts, and all of our humanity as well, all of our longings, our losses, all that we are and all that we wish to be.  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we hunger, we want, we yearn.  We confess that we do.  We ask for healing for ourselves, for our nation, and for our world—for we know that we are one with all that is.  Let our desires rest upon living bread, not the false comforts that would betray us.  Let us find the nourishment that will satisfy the true desires of our hearts.  Amen.

BENEDICTION

May you know your true hungers for what they are, and may your true hungers be filled.  Go now in love and go in peace.  Amen.

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Copyright 2008, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.