A prayer for hunger

In an economy based on subsistence agriculture, desperate, life-threatening hunger is just one bad harvest away.  When one is hungry to the point of starvation, finding food becomes an obsession.  Nothing else matters.  Virtually everyone in Jesus’ day – as is true in many places of the world today – would have known times of extreme hunger.

For this reason, scriptural images of heaven often centered on feast of rich foods and fine wine in abundance, as we see in Isaiah’s vision in today's reading.  Many of Jesus’ parables of the kingdom also featured such feasts.  Today’s miracle of the feeding of four thousand was such an important story for the early disciples that it is included six times in the four Gospels.  Other than the resurrection, it is the only miracle story recorded in all four gospels.

I have never experienced the pangs of hunger as Jesus’ disciples often did.  I have always known that the next meal is only hours away - and snacks are even closer!  I take food for granted.  Perhaps this is my good fortune, but it is also my loss.

For Jesus wants us to experience hunger – spiritual hunger for Him and for God’s kingdom.  He wants us to seek him out as a starving person seeks food – constantly, persistently, and obsessively.  Put all other things aside, we must have Jesus.

Advent is a time for us to assess our hunger for Jesus.  Do we constantly seek to be close to him, to follow him, or do we simply take him for granted?

On many mornings, I realize that it’s already 9:00, I have been up for several hours, and I have yet to pray that day, yet to thank God for the life he’s won for me, yet to offer the day to the him, yet to seek his help for all that I am to do that day.  Haven’t I taken Jesus for granted?

When I sit down to eat while reading the paper or scanning email, not remembering to thank God for his providence, haven’t I taken Jesus for granted?

When I pass by a homeless person or a beggar on the sidewalk without stopping to talk or to offer some small piece of the abundance that God has given me, haven’t I taken Jesus for granted?

This Advent, I pray for hunger, hunger to be near Jesus, hunger to learn from Jesus, hunger to follow Jesus as if my very life depended on it.

Because it does.