St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
August 8, 2021
Year B, Proper 14: The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51
Praying for a Good Appetite
And, just like that, it’s our third Sunday together!
You’ll be glad to know that each week, I’m learning my way around a little better, using the GPS a little bit less.
Each week, I’m learning a few more names – still forgetting and messing up, yes, but I’ll get there.
And, each week I’m beginning to do a little bit more ministry – visiting with people, setting up times to talk with ministry leaders – reflecting on what we’re already doing and what we might take on.
And, I’ve been trying to raise our church’s profile on…Facebook.
I don’t know what you think about social media. As we’ve all seen, at its worst, it can certainly be quite divisive and destructive. On the other hand, it allows us to easily keep in touch with lots of people. And, whether we like it or not, whether we use it or not, the reality is that the church needs to have a strong social media presence – to let people out there know what’s going on in here.
I don’t remember why I started doing this, but about ten years ago I began posting on my own Facebook page a kind of daily devotional – a prayer, or a piece of Scripture, or a quote from a holy man or woman, usually accompanied by a photo.
Some people seem to like these posts so I’ve kept at it all these years. And, the truth is that over time creating these daily devotionals has become an important spiritual practice for me.
Usually, I don’t plan them out. Instead, I get up early in the morning and review the readings of the day, and check out the saint of the day. And I also look at who died on that day in history since, traditionally the church honors people on the day of their death, the day they entered new life.
Maybe this sounds strange or even morbid, but this practice has been a kind of continuing ed., helping me learn about lots of people I wouldn’t otherwise have known.
Anyway, this past Tuesday was the death anniversary of the 20th century writer Flannery O’Connor.
Maybe some of you are familiar with some of her work.
And, as some of you saw, for my Facebook devotional post that day I used a quote that I really love from O’Connor’s spiritual journal that was first published just a few years ago.
A young Flannery O’Connor wrote, “God is feeding me and what I’m praying for is an appetite.”
“God is feeding me and what I’m praying for is an appetite.”
When I read that quote this time around, I thought about what Jesus has been teaching us these past couple of weeks – about spiritual hunger and the food that endures.
In today’s gospel lesson, we pick up right where we left off last week. To the crowd that had feasted on all that bread and fish and who had come searching for more, Jesus says:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in my will never be thirsty.”
But, as Flannery O’Connor understood, the question for us is: do we have an appetite for what God wants to feed us?
Or, to put it another way: Do we have a “good” appetite?
We certainly don’t have to look far to find examples of “bad” appetites, right? All we have to do is turn on the news to find endless examples of celebrities and politicians so hungry for fame, pleasure, fortune, and power that they are willing to do just about anything, no matter who gets hurt. And yet, somehow, even when they achieve fame, pleasure, fortune, and power it just never satisfies – it all turns out to be spiritually empty calories.
And maybe we can look into our own lives and hearts and remember times when our bad appetites got the better of us, causing much pain and suffering for ourselves and others.
And, we can definitely look at the Bible and find plenty examples of people’s bad appetites wreaking havoc.
If you were here last week, you may remember that we talked about the story of David and Bathsheba – a profoundly disturbing tale of King David’s bad appetites leading him down the grim path of sin.
Despite everything, God will never let go of David – which is very good news for him and for us - but there will be consequences for David and his family. You may remember that last week we heard the Prophet Nathan predict that the Lord would “raise up trouble” against David from within his own house.
And now in today’s lesson we heard that grim prophecy fulfilled in the person of one of David’s sons, Absalom.
You may have noticed that todays lesson from Second Samuel is kind of choppy – so I’ll try to fill in the blanks without overwhelming you with detail.
So, David had many wives as well as concubines and there were lots of children, lots of half-brothers and sisters. And, David’s family, if you can even call it that, was often an ugly mess.
And there’s nothing uglier than this: one of David’s sons, Absalom, killed another one of David’s sons, Amnon, because Amnon had violated their sister, Tamar.
And because Tamar had been so terribly abused, Absalom thought that their father David would back Absalom’s action, but that’s not what happened. Despite his awful crime, David had a soft spot for his firstborn son Amnon, and mourns his death. So, the angry, but also quite popular, Absalom rebels against his father, beginning a civil war not just in his family, but in Israel itself.
In today’s lesson we hear the grim conclusion of this civil war when David’s son Absalom was killed by David’s own men. This wasn’t what David had wanted – in fact, he had expressly forbidden it – but, you know, often we can’t control the consequences of giving into our bad appetites.
And so, we see just how far David has fallen.
He was a king who simply took what – who – he wanted – a king who engineered the death of the loyal Uriah the Hittite so he could have what and who he wanted.
And now, David is still a king, yes, but he’s a broken man whose son had turned against him, and now that son was dead, closing the door to any hope of reconciliation.
We’re left with the haunting image of a grieving David crying out, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
It’s quite a tragic story, isn’t it?
And, although our lives are surely nowhere near as dramatic as David and his family, the question remains:
Do we have an appetite for what God wants to feed us?
Do we have a good appetite?
Well, now that it’s my third Sunday with you, let me tell you what I really think.
You know, the people at our church and neighborhood back in Jersey City were very surprised when I announced that I was leaving home and coming down to be here with all of you.
And, I have to say I was – and still am – a little surprised, too!
And, I wouldn’t have put it quite this way at the time, but what drew me to you – or better, how God drew me to you – was that I could see that this church has a good appetite.
I could see your good appetite when I read the parish portfolio and watched your wonderful videos.
I could see your good appetite when I met with the Search Committee and heard and saw your eagerness to begin a new chapter, to get moving again.
I saw your good appetite to welcome even more hungry people to our church, and to be of even greater service to the many hungry people all around us.
And, I saw your good appetite when at the terrifying start of the pandemic, when everything seemed to be falling apart and so many items – very much including face masks - were in short supply, you hung all those masks on our doors, free for any of our neighbors who needed them.
That simple, beautiful act told me so much about your good appetite.
And, now, here we are – our third Sunday together.
In the intimacy of her spiritual journal, Flannery O’Connor wrote, “God is feeding me and what I’m praying for is an appetite.”
And God is surely feeding us – feeding us with community.
God is feeding us with one another, with the deep roots of people whose families have been here for many generations and people who are about as new to this community as Sue and I are.
God is feeding us with the beauty of this extraordinary place – maybe you saw the pictures I posted on Facebook the other day of butterflies feasting and dancing in our pollinator garden
God is surely feeding us – feeding us most of all with Jesus – with the food and drink that truly satisfies.
But, as always, God leaves us with the choice:
Do we have an appetite for what God wants to feed us?
So, with our sister Flannery, let’s pray for a good appetite.
Amen.
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