Come and be fed

Preached at Faith Episcopal on July 10, 2005.

Bombs in London, car accidents, all manner of tragedy and sadness. We’ve just had a week that reminds us how easily our fears are fed. God bless the Brits for climbing out of smoke filled tube stations and being so British – stiff upper lip and a refusal to be afraid.

Then we have Isaiah issuing this extravagant invitation. Come and be filled with that which truly feeds you. Drink deeply of the waters that truly quench your thirst. In the midst of a frightening morning Londoners reaffirmed who they are – their insistence on being true to themselves was their nourishment. Courage satisfied them and they spent no money or labor on fear.

I’ve been fed a lot this week. Melanie’s leaving has been the occasion of many lovely invitations – all of which offered abundant food. It was a wonderfully satisfying week –experiencing such mutual affection – yours for Melanie and hers for you. We ate in restaurants, in your homes and all the food was good but it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d been served bread and water – what fed and satisfied us was the love and friendship shared in those moments. Thank you all.

There have been many feeding stories that have come across my desk and computer screen in the last week. They all tell the same story in different ways… It seems that in Everett, Washington there was another bride who decided to call off her wedding 12 days before the event. Instead of creating a media circus by running away she and her parents held the reception anyway and invited the residents of the Interfaith Family Shelter which is across the street from the church where the wedding was to be held. Fifty of the family’s friends joined an equal number of shelter residents. There was delicious food and a DJ cranking out good danceable music. The extra food fed people for three more days. The manager of the shelter remarked how wonderful it was for people to have an evening free from worry. This is a story straight out of the gospels.

Another story about feeding came from an experimental program in Kenya – looking at the kind of help from developed world do African nations really need. The village of Sauri was selected because it is a typical remote African community. Almost two thirds of the villagers live on less than $.55 a day; a third of the adults were HIV positive and malaria was rife. The nearest hospital served 100,000 people and had no doctor. The traditional subsistence farming had left the soft red soil worn out and depleted of nutrients. Enter Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Their Millenium Development Goals plan to reduce world poverty by half by 2015. The first step was to infuse the soil with fertilizer that had always been unaffordable for the farmers of Sauri. Seed for hybrid corn that produces double ears was provided, the community water supply was repaired and a clinic was built. They also provided mosquito netting to cut down on the malaria. None of this took huge amounts of money – it is estimated that it costs $110 per person. People with AIDS are being given anti-retroviral drugs. The villagers have bought a truck to take their surplus produce to the nearest town. The Kenyan government has upheld their part of the project by getting electricity to the school and clinic. The villagers each now contribute about $10 in labor or goods. They have made benches for the school. The farmers will pay for their fertilizer and seeds by giving a tenth of the crop to the school for lunches.

This kind of project is neighbor love that truly feeds. It is one response to hunger in the world and can be embraced with courage and conviction. We will never be truly fed or satisfied by selfish acquisition. All that we can accumulate will be as dust in our mouths unless it is shared. You will be fed by the knowledge of God, by God’s knowledge of you. You will be fed by the love of God, that love which you receive and which you give. You will be fed endlessly.

I leave you with a story…

The students of a great Zen master asked him to describe Heaven and Hell. He told them – in Hell there are banquet tables covered with every sort of good food, delicacies from many kitchens all offering up tantalizing aromas, all beautiful to please the eye as well as the palate. But the people seated at the tables are starving and shout angrily at one another, for you see, they all wear golden sleeves and they cannot bend their arms to feed themselves. They sit in the presence of such abundance and cannot enjoy it. After a pause, the great master said Heaven is not that different – great tables overflowing with every kind of delicious food, prepared to delight the senses. The people seated at the tables also cannot bend their arms but the sounds of laughter and joy ring from the banquet hall because at the Heavenly banquet the people feed one another.