Hunger for Heaven

A Sermon Preached by the Rev’d Peter De Franco at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on August 3, 2008

Nothing about the history of Sara Miles would have brought her to the place where she is today. An avowed atheist who was raised by atheist parents, A radical reporter on the staff of the left wing publication, Mother Jones. A journalist who covered the 1980’s war in Nicaragua. A sometimes cook in New York restaurants. A Mother of one. A wife of another woman. She is the last person you would have expected to walk into a church. But stranger things have happened.
When Sara Miles walked in St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, little did she anticipate it would be the day of her conversion? Why did she do it? This is what she said: “I was curious. You know, I'm a reporter, and it's a big, beautiful, wooden-shingled building. And it has this gorgeous mosaic icon outside and a sign that says, "All That Is Prays to You." You walk inside and you are struck by this huge mural of dancing saints, only the saints are people like Malcolm X and Cesar Chavez. It's very surprising.”
Sara Miles walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa Church and heard the invitation to receive communion: “Jesus welcomes everyone to his table and so we offer everyone, without exception, the bread and wine, which are Christ’s body and blood.” Deacons and priests came into a congregation standing around a circular altar giving to all a piece of bread broken from a loaf. They passed around chalices with wine. Sara describes her experience in these words: “A woman put a piece of fresh bread in my hand and gave me a goblet of some rather nasty, sweet wine. And I ate the bread and was completely thunderstruck by what I felt happening to me. So I stood there crying, completely unsure of what was happening to me. I thought I’ve got to get out of the church as quickly as I could before some strange, creepy Christian would try to chat with me. And I came back the next week because I was hungry, and kept coming back and kept coming back to take that bread.’
Completely Thunderstruck by what was happening. Now how many of us are thunderstruck when we receive communion?
Here is another way she describes communion: "It was pretty good bread, a nice whole-wheat bread. The other was that God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."
But that was only the beginning. She came back, week after week, drawn to satisfy a hunger that she had long known but could never find the food to fill her. Sara knew that the invitation to receive the body and blood of Christ echoed the radical welcome Jesus gave to all whom he invited to share his table.
We heard that invitation which Jesus extended to 5,000 men. I wonder why Matthew did not include the women and children. To all of them, to girls and boys, women and men, anyone who could eat food, Jesus and the apostles spread out, like those priests and deacons spreading out through the church, giving to one and all a lunch of bread and fish. It was a bountiful meal. There was so much food that they put together doggie bags, twelve baskets of leftover food.
Let’s recall that the gospels speak in symbolic language and when they talk about 12 baskets of extra food, they mean food to feed the 12 tribes of Israel, all of God’s people have enough to bring home. Sara knew something of that generosity of Jesus. She knew that hunger not only touches the heart, as it touched her. Hunger cripples the body.
San Francisco is close to the bountiful fields of northern California. People in the city began to organize food pantries where the bounty of the fields would be sold to food pantries. Sara had the bright idea of starting up a pantry.
St. Gregory’s church does not have a parish hall. The church is a double room. One room has chairs that are set up to face one another. The other room has only one piece of furniture in it: an altar. Sara asked to set up the food pantry in the church, with tables surrounding the altar. Food would be brought in every Friday morning. Volunteers would set out the food on tables surrounding the altar. Melons, fruit, tomatoes, lettuce, rice, beans, boxes of cereal, pasta. People would come with their bags and slowly enter into the church. Candles would be burning in front of icons. Flowers decorate the church. Five tons of food would be handed out to 450 people. They do that every Friday.
The Food Pantry at St. Gregory’s Church was only the start. When you do God’s work, God sees that the work will spread. Money started to come into her pantry and she gave the money to other places to start pantries. Only one church joined her effort. But parents in schools, people in the projects, volunteers started to come from all different places to find food. It all sounds a lot like us.
I invite you this day to come to this table that Jesus sets for us, come with your hunger, come with your heart desiring to be filled. Perhaps this day you too can say with Sara: God was alive and in my mouth. It was bread, and it was God."