Jesus Was Hungry Too
On vulnerability, communion, and the freedom to stop pretending we are the hero
I’m the hungry one.
That’s hard to admit.
I’ve lived so much of my life believing that I’m the one who provides the bread.
Believing that I’m the strong one who helps the weak.
Believing that I’m the servant for those who need to be served.
But I’m the hungry one.
Jesus was hungry, but we’re taught not to notice.
We’re taught that he fed. We’re taught that he healed. He’s the savior. He’s the hero.
So, if we’re looking down at our wrists, wondering, “What Would Jesus Do?”
...isn’t it obvious that we’d try to always be the hero?
But my faith, when I take it seriously, reveals how hungry I truly am. It tears off my cape. It scrapes off the makeup of the hero character I’ve been pantomiming. My faith reveals how hungry I am.
Don’t get me wrong. My belly is full. I float easily in a swimming pool of privilege and relative financial well-being. I won’t try to associate myself in some performative way with the poor, the persecuted, or the destitute. Please don’t get me wrong.
And that’s part of why it’s hard to admit that… yes… I need the bread and the cup.
I too am truly hungry.
I am in need.
I don’t want to admit it. But it’s true.
I need to be seen. Known. Heard. Understood. I need to feel belonging. I need to release the hurt inside. I need to be acknowledged and affirmed. I need to laugh. I need to cry.
I am hungry for togetherness. For relief from the lonely. For rest from the striving.
I’m unable to go it alone. To figure it all out. To get it right by myself. I’m weaker and less brilliant than I want to be. I’m more fragile than I care to admit.
I am hungry. I need the bread and the cup. I ache for it. I am desperate at times.
Jesus was hungry too, but we’re taught not to notice.
Yes, he healed. But we forget he arrived into the world as a vulnerable, crying, helpless baby… needing a mother to nurse him and nourish him, and a father to soothe him and protect him.
Yes, he miraculously turned water into wine. But as he hung, lynched, at the very end… he said, “I thirst.” He thirsted for living water. He thirsted for love. He thirsted, raspy-voiced, for a drop of mercy in a world gone dry.
Yes, he fed thousands. But after fasting in the wilderness his hunger was apparent. He was empty. Weak. And it was then, in his hunger, that temptation rose up to meet him in the heat of the desert.
In the garden, at the moment in the story when a Hollywood version of a hero would have found his strength to fight back and save the day… he broke down to his friends, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Yes he eventually raised Lazarus from the dead. But before the miracle, he was heartbroken, sobbing for the loss of his best friend and the inevitable changing of a deep relationship. He wept.
Jesus begged his friends to stay with him. He thirsted. He hungered. He wept.
He was vulnerable.
Mortal.
Hungry.
I am allowed to be hungry too.
We are all allowed to be hungry.
When I was in college, I went on one of those “Alternative Spring Break” service trips.
About a dozen students piled into a van and drove nearly 700 miles to a small town full of people we believed needed our help.
We were ready to serve.
Ready to help.
Ready to bring our fancy college selves to people we imagined were poor and needy.
And honestly, I barely remember the work we did. I think we painted a house a little. Fixed some things.
But what I really remember…
…is the food.
Collard greens and juicy pork ribs. Corn on the cob. Biscuits. Sweet tea. Cake and pie.
More than I could possibly eat.
Served to all of us college kids by the very people we had traveled 700 miles to “help.”
Cooked and plated and delivered to our table by joyful, generous people in a little church full of laughter and warmth.
Looking back now it’s clear that I misunderstood that whole trip. And I don’t mean to say something cheesy like, “Geez, I guess it was me who needed saving all along.”
No. I mean this:
The table was the whole point.
We all ate together.
We all were hungry.
We didn’t drive 700 miles to paint a house and fix some stuff. We piled into a smelly van that rattled down the highway for 700 miles so that we might realize that we were hungry too. And that hungry people can nourish each other.
We are all allowed to accept the bread and the cup when it is offered.
From our familiarity with and acceptance of our own hunger, we are far more prepared to feed.
From our thirst, we are far more likely to provide living water.
From our wounds, we become gentler with the wounds of others.
The myth is that anyone is the holy hero who feeds the needy. Salvation is found in our mutuality. In our vulnerability. In our shared hunger.
We are meant to feed each other and be fed.
To wash each other’s feet and be washed.
To heal each other and be healed.
The table invites us to all show up… hungry… thirsty… vulnerable… ready to receive from the abundant love of God.
It’s scary to admit that we’re hungry.
But I’ve come to believe that it’s only when we stop hiding our needs, when we stop masking our frailty, when we stop concealing our hunger… that the bread can finally become communion.