Sermons

“LORD, WHEN DID WE SEE YOU…

HUNGRY AND THIRSTY?”

Matthew 25:31-46 (from The Message); Isaiah 49:8-13

Delivered by Rev. Tim Tiffany at Vista La Mesa Christian Church

(Disciples of Christ) in La Mesa, California on March 8, 2015 

And now, O Lord, whether through me or in spite of me, speak to these, your people and impart fresh insights and new visions for the living of these days. Amen. 

It was so, so different for me—being a Christian and all—when I was a boy. Even in to adulthood, there was just a different understanding about what defined the “saved ones.” It felt, it was, pretty rule-oriented. Don’t smoke. Don’t cuss. Don’t drink. And for heaven’s sake—really, for heaven’s sake: DON’T DANCE! There were rules for what one could and couldn’t do, rules for everything.

Now one might get away with smoking, particularly if you lived in North Carolina, Georgia, or Kentucky. God seemed to have different rules there where tobacco was grown! I lived in Kentucky for five or six years and didn’t hear much preaching or teaching against smoking. Back then cussing was possibly OK, too, if one were talking about the damn Democrats or the gol dern New York Yankees or the blankety-blank communists!

Have you noticed that all those “don’ts” were individual? They were personal sins. Why, I remember even when I was in my 20’s or 30’s, being in a church where there were cards in the pews with a whole list of things one could check off. “This week I read my Bible every day. This week I told someone about Jesus. This week I prayed at every meal.” On and on. That card just seemed to underscore how much being a Christian was about checking things off a list.

And even now don’t you sometimes long for the good ol’ days? For salvation can really be a whole lot easier if it’s just between me and my carefully managed God. If I’ve got God pretty well figured out and under my thumb, life is good. Personal sins I can deal with or explain away or rationalize. But then I come up against Matthew 25. “I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink, homeless and you gave me a room. I was shivering, and you gave me clothes; sick and you stopped to visit. I was in prison and you came to me.”

As I said in class the other night, “I just wish Jesus hadn’t said that stuff!” Because what Jesus has done is to take salvation out of a set of personal check lists to be proud of and put it smack dab in the middle of relationships with those in need.

Sometimes you and I may wrestle with biblical passages that are oblique, unclear, hidden. We can’t seem to make sense of verses like ones in the Hebrew scriptures where it seems to be all right to bash the heads of children against a rock. Or a New Testament passage that speaks of hell or the “unforgivable sin.” One can spend lots of time pondering things like that and not ever get really very clear about the meanings. But Matthew 25 is not one of those scriptures. Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me. It is the parts that I do understand.” Well, this is one of those easily-understood- but-hardly-easy-to-do scriptures. This scripture pushes us out of our comfortable, safe, salvation “caves” into the public arena, an arena that encompasses local, national, and global dimensions.

Hunger gnaws at the very fabric of the human spirit. It leaves people susceptible to disease. Hunger kills a brother or sister of yours and mine every 3.6 seconds. While we have sat here in worship this morning 750 people have died from hunger; 562 were children. Can you hear the weeping parents even as we sit here? Can you feel the losses, or is it just too much to bear?

It’s not easy to think about, is it? A lot easier to just work on our personal salvation checklist and ignore the fact that 14.5% of Americans live in poverty or that nearly 5 million senior Americans are food insecure. Maybe some of those statistics are real people right here in this church. Maybe they’re neighbors of ours who make the choice to buy the month’s medicines and go without nutritious meals. Maybe the money runs out before the month does. And hunger gnaws away at the very fabric of the human spirit.

The challenge of water is no less daunting. Jesus said that we meet him whenever we offer a drink to someone who is thirsty. He was wise to say so. For human beings can only go about 3-4 days without water. In some ways, the need for clean drinking water is more critical than the need for food. And yet 2.5 billion people live without basic sanitation. 780 million people globally live without clean drinking water. Diarrhea has killed more children in the last decade than all the armed conflicts around the world since 1945. Half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by people with easily preventable waterborne diseases.

Jesus promised living water to the woman at the well. In his name we want to do that, don’t we? But it is way easier, is it not, to ignore the statistics and turn our eyes away from the broken world that threatens to overwhelm and depress us?

And yet, our scriptures are replete with texts that challenge us to live and act in the midst of that broken world, to not ignore the needs of others:

ü“If you oppress poor people, you insult the God who made them; but kindness shown to the poor is an act of worship.” Proverbs 14:31

ü“Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and the needy neighbor in your land.’” Deuteronomy 15:11

üIf we are rich and see others in need, yet close our hearts against them, how can we claim that we love God? Little children, our love should not just be words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.” I John 3:17-18

ü“Faith without works is dead.” James 2:26

We know the texts. Some of us even memorized them way back when in Sunday School. But now it’s time to move from knowing the scriptures to living out the scriptures as true followers of Jesus Christ! How do we do that? How can we feed the hungry and provide water for the thirsty?

During Lent we’ve been singing, “Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch him and say that we love him.” Do we mean that or are we just going through the motions? And even if we know that therein we will meet Jesus, even if we believe that, in the face of such overwhelming challenges, what can we do? What can we do? That was what we asked ourselves on Wednesday night, and the brilliant people gathered around the table came up with some ways that every person in this sanctuary could begin to address the problems of hunger and the need for clean water

We already do some impressive things to address local hunger and poverty issues. Our 3^rd Sunday emphasis on bringing groceries for the food bank at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church is a wonderful way that almost everybody can contribute. Our annual two-week hosting of the interfaith shelter provides shelter and food for people who are sometimes in desperate situations without any place to stay but their cars and a significant shortage of food. The summer lunch program here at VLMCC means that children receive a good lunch five days a week during the period that schools are closed. These are important ways to feed Jesus by feeding “the overlooked or ignored.”

We have just participated in the Week of Compassion special offering, an offering that really can be given year round. For Week of Compassion addresses needs both nationally and globally whenever people are in distress through natural disasters or political turmoil. Think of what it might mean for our Week of Compassion offering if we just created, each of us, a penny jar and every once-in-awhile brought all our pennies to expand our capacity for compassion. Try it for the next month and see. And, of course, there are other wonderful organizations such as Heifer International or charity:water or Water Wells for Africa that make it possible for us to provide food and clean water for Jesus.

We learned the other night that twenty-five cents per day was all it took to provide a child with all the vitamins and nutrients she or he needs to grow up healthy. Twenty-five cents a day; most of us could afford the $7.50 that would make that happen every month for a child.

Another way to combat hopelessness is by seeking out and hearing stories of hope. Katie shared the other night that her sister, Ann—a missionary in Nicaragua—had helped to develop a water filtration system in that poor country to provide clean drinking and cooking water for families. In Central American nations like Nicaragua 75% of the people suffer from chronic dehydration. Ann, and others like her, not only make a difference for poor people but also provide beacons of hope when we find ourselves burning out because the problem seems so impossible

See, it’s not as overwhelming as it first seemed. There are ways every one of us can provide food and water to Jesus. We do it when we provide it to one of the least of these who, like us, is a member of the family of Jesus.

You’ve heard the story about the wise man who was walking the beach and came upon a young man tossing starfish way out into the ocean. The wise man asked, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” The young man explained, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.” Amused, the wise man retorted, “But, young man, don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile. You can’t possibly make a difference!” At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, the young man quietly said, “It made a difference for that one.”

You and I may not be able to provide clean water for every one. We may not be able to feed all the hungry. But we can begin. We can make a difference one-by-one-by-one. And if we listen closely, we may hear Jesus say, “Enter, you who are blessed by God. Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom…(because) I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.”

Places to Go for More Info.

ü  Ban the Bottle. banthebottle.net

ü  charity:water. Charitywater.org

ü  Feeding America. feedingamerica.org

ü  “5 reasons not to drink bottled water,” by Chris Baskind (3-15-2010). mnn.com

ü  Heifer International. heifer.org

ü  Oxfam America. oxfamamerica.org

ü  The Hunger Project. thp.org

ü  The Water Project. thewaterproject.org

ü  Water Wells for Africa. waterwellsforafrica.org

ü  World Food Programme (UN). wfp.org

ü  Zero Hunger Challenge