Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. – Luke 6:21

 Today's Scripture Reading (November 7, 2020): Luke 6

Mahatma Gandhi argued that "There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." I hope that we who are fed attempt to understand the plight of those in our midst who go hungry. And when you are hungry, there is not just a lack of food; there is no God. The hungry can have no concept of faith when security is absent in their lives. Food and shelter become the allusive gods for which they are searching. And empty words that leave them hungry and scared will never lead them to believe in a God that they cannot see. Evangelism starts with bread. Only when they have been fed can it continue with a message of forgiveness and acceptance that heals the hurt that exists long after the hunger has been satisfied.

But hunger can also be a blessing. I know, not when you are hungry, but the truth is that food doesn't satisfy someone who is not hungry as much as it does the one who is starving. To the hungry, a plain piece of bread tastes like a meal prepared by a top chef. And there is nothing like laughter to the one who has lived for a long time in sorrow.

Jesus promises that the hungry will be fed and that those who mourn will laugh again. In the short term, I think this is the work of each of us. In the process of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves, we will find ourselves set to the task of feeding the hungry and bringing smiles to the faces of those who mourn. We have the assurance that something better is just around the corner. No one is too insignificant to be essential to God, and therefore, no one is too insignificant to be important to the church that bears his name.

But there is also a hint of longer promise. That there is a place where hunger and weeping simply no longer exist. For those who die in hunger because of our (meaning the world's) failure, this problem-filled existence does not carry over to the next. We (again indicating the world) need to commit ourselves to end hunger on the earth and comforting those who mourn. And the Christian Church should be leading the charge against the problems of this world; the issues that threaten all of us living here because there is needless hunger and death on this planet, which is a problem that we can fix. But there is also a promise of a place where hunger and death don't exist anymore. A place –

          Where the streets pf gold welcome weary souls

          All the grateful drink from the crystal stream

          Peace forevermore, troubles disappear

          And the only thing that's missing there is tears (Tony Wood, Michael Farren, Dan Dean).

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Matthew 11