Intro: Today seemed like the day to talk about competitive eating contests. Did you know there are 2 major leagues, devoted to eating as much as possible in a short amount of time? There’s the International Federation of Competitive Eaters, also known as Major League Eating. They sponsor some 80 contests a year. And then there’s the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters. They feature “picnic-style” rules. The 4th of July hot dog eating contest at Coney Island is attended by more than 60,000 spectators The “athletes” who compete in these contests make a living of this. They train, including strengthening the jaw muscles so that their bite force is about the same as a German shepherd.
The current #1 ranked competitor is Joey Chestnut of San Jose. He holds records for 37different foods right now, including his last hot dog record: 69 Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs and Buns in 10 minutes.
In case you have aspirations of setting a new record, here are a few of the current ones, all set within the past 10 years:
Grits 21 lbs - 10 minutes – by a guy who definitely has “true grit”
Cow Brains 17.7 pounds - 15 minutes – smart!
Chicken Nuggets 80 - 5 Minutes – I wonder if she got McSick?
Bacon 182 Strips - 5 Minutes – by some guy who really made a pig of himself!
It’s kind of fun to glimpse at an extreme now and then. That is extreme, isn’t it?
Still, as far as I know, we live in the only country where a waiter or waitress will approach your table, and say to you, “Are you finished, or are you still working on that?” What do you say, “No, I’m just taking a break from this work here. After I rest up a bit and get my strength back up, I’ll finish.” Where else do we sit down to a meal that’s more than we can finish and call it “working”?
This whole subject of hunger is challenging, because your version of hunger may sound a whole lot different than someone else’s.
On an average day, as a nation, we’re spending more than 50X more on wasted food and weight loss efforts than to help alleviate world hunger.
When we were kids, our moms would tell us to clean off our plates because of those starving children – where were they – India? Africa? China? Was Mom right? Whatever happened to those kids? If it’s as bad as some organizations make it sound, or as bad as the pictures they flash in front of us, how can any of us sit down to lunch today with a clear conscience?
There are a lot of different perspectives on hunger. So, first thing this morning, as we talk about the hungry, I want to get a…
1. A Biblical Perspective of Hunger
Let’s get a handle on what we mean when we talk about “hunger.”
Hunger is not the anguish you experience because you’re on a diet and trying to lose a few pounds.
Hunger is not the peril you experience daily if you are a teenager who hasn’t eaten for an hour.
Hunger is not the threat of having to go out to eat because you haven’t gone grocery shopping yet.
Hunger is not the absence of the specific brand of cereal you were looking for on the store shelf.
Hunger is not going by Chick-Fil-A and suddenly remembering they close on Sundays.
No, what we’re describing there is called “hungry.” You and I get hungry, every day! That’s normal, and healthy, and actually something that God built into every human to help us.
When you were a baby, your hungry alarm would go off – a signal from your body that you needed nourishment. Without even understanding it, you conveyed this to your parents, who then would feed you. Then, you’d be OK until you were hungry again, and you’d let your parents know about it again – and this never ended.
So, hungry is a good thing. It’s from God! Without it, we would most likely not feed ourselves and we’d die.
Chew on this for a minute: Being hungry, in some form, may even be a feature of Heaven. There’s a marriage supper of the Lamb, and a Tree of Life that bears fruit 12X a year. Being hungry, and satisfying it, is a good thing.
Connected to work
What helps you get through a long work day? What keeps you from just quitting? There’s this cheerleading section to help you. It’s called being hungry!
Proverbs 16:26
A worker's appetite works for him, For his hunger urges him on.
Hungry can remind us why we’re working. In fact, Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica…
2 Thessalonians 3:10b-12
…we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.
One biblical perspective on hunger is that those who are able ought to work for what they eat. Being hungry helps motivate us to work as we should. Both that hunger and the ability to work are from the Lord.
Being hungry is also a way we can learn…
Dependence on God
While Israel wandered around in the desert, God sent food from heaven – manna. Every morning, the people had to go out and gather it. Without it, they weren’t just hungry, they would have starved.
Deuteronomy 8:3;16 (NIV)
He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD…. to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.
Every time we sit down to a meal, we have an opportunity to reflect on the way that God has provided it for us and the way He satisfies our hunger! When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we’re recognizing our dependence upon God.
One more biblical perspective we need to have about hunger is that it’s…
Secondary to our spiritual needs
We can use being hungry as a tool to draw near to God. It’s called fasting - a time when we put aside eating and focus on our relationship with the Lord in a special way. It’s also a way that we can declare that our spiritual needs are more important to us than our physical needs. Ultimately, our physical selves will fall apart. It’s temporary. But there’s this part of us that will last forever. Which one sounds more important to you?
In John 6, Jesus recalled the manna that God had given to Israel in the desert, and then He explained how the real bread from Heaven is Him! The real bread that sustains us, what we really need, is a relationship with Jesus.
This is also true for every hungry person. They need to eat to live. They need Jesus to live forever. We might be able to feed them, and that’s good. What’s even better is if we feed them and give them the thing they need most: they need to hear about Jesus!
Now, that’s all about being hungry. Hungry is a good thing. Hunger is another thing…
Hunger is when hungry people aren’t able to eat enough food to be properly nourished, so, if they survive, they grow up permanently stunted and impaired. Hunger causes the death of 11 mil people a year, over 30,000 a day – one every 3.6 seconds. On an average, by the time I finish this message, over 416 people will have died from hunger. Poor nutrition causes 45% of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year. It kills more people each year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
The problem isn’t that the earth can’t support the population. The world produces more than enough food to feed everyone. But access to food is disrupted by wars, natural disasters, lost infrastructure, and chronic poverty. 1/3 of the food produced around the world is never consumed.
There’s good news, by the way - the number of people living with hunger has dropped over the last 23 years by 17%, so progress is being made.
Now, let’s take all that perspective on hunger and talk about the other things we need…
2. A Heart That Reflects God’s Heart
Remember that the reason we’re talking about hunger today is because Jesus talked about it in Matthew 25. It was there that He said, (v40)
"Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” That included feeding those in need of food. Remember, we’re talking about seeing the face of Jesus on those who are in need.
With all the good things that being hungry can do for us, there’s still this issue of hunger that is a different subject. Those who can’t feed themselves are faced with something more serious. Those for whom there is no work, or who are displaced by war, or who are faced with famine, or who are caught in a cycle of poverty that holds them down are on this list Jesus calls “The least of these.” God has a special heart for those who are truly in need.
This is reflected by the words and actions of Jesus when He fed the 4,000 in Matthew 15…
Matthew 15:32 (NIV)
Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way."
Jesus knew these people would be hungry again, but they had devoted time to listening to Him. So He turned 7 loaves and a few small fish into a meal that fed all of them. He wanted them to value their spiritual needs more than just a meal, but He also cared about the very practical need they had.
God has always told His people to make some provision of food for those who can’t do that for themselves. One of those was called gleaning.
Deuteronomy 24:19-21 (NIV)
When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow…
God wanted hungry people to be fed - those who couldn’t care for themselves – the alien, the fatherless, the widow. Most of us don’t have wheat, olives, or grapes to leave behind, but you get the idea. God cares about the hungry, and He uses His people to take care of them. We need a heart like that to rightly care for the Least of These.
Let’s get more practical for our situation. There’s no shortage of causes out there, many of them aimed at feeding the hungry. But it’s just not enough to look at pictures of malnourished children and feel bad. And I want to challenge you that it’s not right to just start sending money to every cause you hear about. We also need…
3. A Strategy That Actually Helps
It’s easy to give up pretty fast on this. The numbers are staggering, and in many ways, it seems like the non-Christian world has a better start than the church. There are also a lot of scammers out there. But I want to reiterate that…
Apathy is not an option!
We just can’t read Matthew 25:31-46 and not care about people who are in need.
(Misguided benevolence doesn’t help)
At the same time, it’s quite possible to engage in honest efforts to truly help the hungry and cause more harm than good.
For instance, it doesn’t matter where you go, if you show up at a hungry mob with a load of food and just start throwing it around, it creates more problems.
Robert Lupton has worked with inner city mission work in Atlanta for over 40 years. He released a book, Toxic Charity, that addresses the way so much effort to help actually does more harm – by taking away incentive and dignity, by creating dependency, by creating damaging relationships, and by poorly using resources. He proposes some different, more effective ways to help, rather than creating more problems. He makes some points that really make me take a 2nd look at what we’re doing. What’s better is that he presents ideas for doing things that actually help. One of those is a simple…
Oath for Compassionate Service
• Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.
• Limit one-way giving to emergency situations.
• Strive to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
• Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.
• Listen closely to those you seek to help, especially to what is not being said—unspoken feelings may contain essential clues to effective service.
• Above all, do no harm
Basically, what we’re talking about here is an approach that comes from…
Micah 6:8
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Justice and Mercy
Whether we’re feeding the hungry or providing some other help to the least of these, we need to act justly and with mercy. Mercy means we care about people with the same kind of care God has shown to each of us. Justice means we are careful to help in a way that truly helps people in need, not just to help ourselves feel good about what we’ve done.
One of the things I like about Rockford Rescue Mission is the way they report each month not just how many they have fed, but also the number of people they have helped find a job or to find housing and get off the streets. Next week, as we bring food to help feed the hungry of our own community, we’re also part of a bigger picture that’s providing real help where it’s needed.
I want to wrap up with some practical steps we can all take, in addition to bringing food next week.
Application:
Hunger to do list:
1. Try fasting for a day as you do the following:
2. Learn about hunger
Don’t just look at depressing pictures and feel guilty! Learn! Learn what’s going on in the world that contributes to the problem. Learn what efforts are helping and what efforts really aren’t.
3. Assess what you’re doing
Think twice before you waste food again.
Are you misdirecting care, giving every time you’re asked without considering whether it’s truly helping a person? After all, that takes much less time than sitting down with that person and eating together and talking about his life, doesn’t it?
Or, are you doing nothing? Take an assessment.
4. Add a step locally
There are good opportunities to engage in real help right in Rockford. I suggest you look at some of the efforts already helping in town, and see which ones are working to provide people with help that really helps.
5. Add a step globally
After you’ve done that, you might want to add some way to help hungry people around the world. The progress being made at this is good. There are good, Christ-focused groups like IDES that are a trustworthy avenue to some real good. That’s more important than just feeling good about ourselves.
6. Don’t stop at the physical level
The next time you are prompted to help someone who’s hungry, don’t just feed him or her. Eat with him. Talk to her. Engage that person in a relationship that shows you actually care – not that you’re just going along with the game to get him out of your hair.
OK. Now you’ve heard about it. This week, I encourage you to pray about this. You have a list today of the needs RRM has presented. Bring it with you, and pile it on the stage here when you come to worship next Sunday, OK? I want one day to hear Jesus say, I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat.
