Lectionary for Aug 4, 2024
11th Sunday after Pentecost
2 Samuel 11:26–12:13a; Psalm 51:1-12;
Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35
I’m just getting to the age where drastic steps are needed if I’m going to stay healthy. I’m running more and inviting my children along as accountability partners. I even made veggie spaghetti for dinner last night—no less than 16 plant species (and mushrooms) found themselves as part of my dinner. I was so proud of myself!
Yet, after I put the children to bed, my son’s pudding cups stared me in the face from the top of the refrigerator. I don’t even like pudding! Somehow that easy processed food made by someone else, along with its disposable container that didn’t need to be washed, called to me. I wanted that easy, fast, cheap sweet without the work, time, fiber, nutrients and sustainable cleanup. In short, my appetite sometimes leads me astray from what I know is good.
This week, the lectionary texts focus on harmful and healthy appetites.
In the reading from 2 Samuel, we see that David has done the unthinkable. He forced Bathsheba into his bed, murdered Uriah the loyal foreigner and then married the widow. God’s special concern for widows and foreigners is particularly outraged. In response, Nathan the prophet is sent to bring news of God’s fury to David. His speech uses the language of animals, hunger and meat. A rich man had large flocks and herds, but nevertheless he stole a poor man’s beloved ewe so he could feed a passing visitor. In other words, this is not a life-or-death situation—just a passing person’s passing hunger. David empathizes fully with the poor man and pronounces a debt of four times repayment on the rich man. Nathan exclaims: “You are that man!”
God, through Nathan, proclaimed that God had given David everything: kingship, royal wives, the palace, both Israel and Judah. And if that had not been enough, God would have added more! So how could David despise God and rape, lie and murder? As punishment for this base cruelty and cynicism, the sword would never depart from David’s line. David hungered for someone not permitted to him, and he engaged in all kinds of evil to quench his appetite. God’s punishment for this evil reverberated across the generations.
They came looking for physical bread because of Jesus’ miraculous provision, and they kept pressuring him to produce more of it. Their appetites were getting in the way of hearing and seeing what Jesus was saying ….
Hundreds of years later, Jesus began his “Bread of Life” discourse in earnest as a response to what we discussed last week. Hearers of Jesus wanted to take him by force and make him king because he had fed them with miraculously multiplied bread. These hearers followed Jesus around the lake. When Jesus saw them again, he chastised the crowd, saying in effect, “You came because you got to eat, not because you recognize the miracles and teachings as signs from heaven. You should have pursued eternal, rather than passing, bread” (John 6:26-27).
The people asked what sign Jesus would do so that they might see it and believe he had the power to grant this eternal bread. They—not so subtlety—suggested that Moses had given the manna as bread from heaven. Perhaps Jesus might want to perform a miracle that would feed their stomachs again …? Jesus then instructed them that it was God, not Moses, who produced the manna. Indeed, God had sent bread from heaven once again in the person of Jesus, if only they had eyes to see.
Whatever the condition of the people’s eyes, their stomachs were full of material hunger. They came looking for physical bread because of Jesus’ miraculous provision, and they kept pressuring him to produce more of it. Their appetites were getting in the way of hearing and seeing what Jesus was saying, just as King David’s appetites got in the way of recognizing what he knew to be right and wrong. We will spend the next several weeks with Jesus trying to get the people to look past bread to see the Bread of Life.
The point of these passages isn’t to say that bread or sex are bad. They are great! That lets us off too easy. Instead, we are being challenged to examine our priorities. David listened to his appetite for sex instead of recognizing Bathsheba’s agency and the loyalty of Uriah and Eliam that he had betrayed. The people hungered for bread and missed that the Lord of Life, through whom wheat, yeast, salt and water were created, stood before them offering himself to them.
Our appetites can be good and point us to what our bodies need. But they can also lead us astray if we can’t hear the voice of heaven over our loud and insistent cravings. God hungers for a harvest of justice and righteousness (Isaiah 5:7). May our appetites be in line with God’s!
