I Can't Get No Satisfaction August 1, 2021, Tenth Sunday After Pentecost

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction August 1, 2021, Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, John 6:22-35 In the second season of the TV show Fargo, we meet a most annoying character. Peggy Blomquist. She is a young woman, a beautician, married to a nice man named Ed. Ed works in the local butcher shop. They have a nice life together. He dreams of one day raising a family with Peggy. But Peggy is not satisfied. Not with the idea of raising a family. Not satisfied, period. Her friend at the beauty shop has put her onto a motivational speaker. And Peggy has fallen under his influence. The motivational speaker says that seeking meaning in life will only lead you to nonsense. Instead of seeking the meaning of life, create your own meaning. Be all that you can be. Peggy is soon faced with a series of crucial decisions. And in every case, she follows the philosophy of the motivational speaker. And every decision brings her and her husband into greater danger, until finally her husband Ed is killed trying to protect her. By contrast, another young woman in the story, Betsy, has a challenging life. She is married and has a young daughter, but she has also stage four cancer. One day she is having a conversation with a teenage girl she’s trying to help. The girl quotes the French philosopher, Camus: “Knowing we’re all going to die makes life a joke.” Betsy replies, “Nobody with any sense would say something that foolish. We’re put on this earth to do a job, and each of us gets the time we get to do it.” She goes on to say, “And when this life is over, and you stand in front of the Lord, well, you try telling Him it was all some Frenchman’s joke.” Betsy has a no-nonsense approach to life. But would she say satisfaction with life is unimportant? Foolish to even think about? Just put on a stiff upper lip and tough it out. But even the Lord, even Jesus talks about satisfaction with one’s life. Jesus was speaking to a crowd about the “bread of life.” Says whoever eats the bread of life will never go hungry. He is talking about what provides deep and lasting satisfaction, what gives meaning to life. And He is not necessarily talking about food. He’s not talking about what satisfies an empty stomach. He’s talking about what satisfies our need for meaning. And what Jesus says is that folks are looking for what satisfies in all the wrong places. He warns against working for food that spoils. Again, He’s not talking about food that goes bad from being in your refrigerator too long. He’s talking about seeking meaning and satisfaction in the things of this world, but it’s not there. Only He can give it. He alone is the bread of life, the meaning of life, the satisfaction of life. Is Jesus wasting His breath? Do common sense, no-nonsense folks, like us, not worry about such things? Meaning in my life? Feeling like I’m making a difference? Satisfaction? With my life? I never give any of that a single thought, Pastor. Let the philosophers fiddle with that stuff. Really. Well, not long ago, a doctor at a nursing home convinced the director to bring in dogs, cats, parakeets, rabbits, and even some laying hens to be cared for by the residents. And what do you think the response was? Residents who previously did not speak, who were practically catatonic, started speaking. Residents who were withdrawn and non-ambulatory started coming to the nurses’ stations to say, “I’ll take the dog for a walk.” All of the parakeets were adopted and named by the residents. The need for drugs for the patients dropped 38%. Deaths fell 15%. Why? Because the residents had found a reason to live. They had found new meaning, satisfaction, felt like they were making a difference. Because whether we’re conscious of it or not, it is not enough to simply be housed and fed and safe. We all need a reason to live. We all need meaning and satisfaction. The writer of Ecclesiastes says, “A person can do nothing better than to find satisfaction in their own toil” (Ecclesiastes 2:24). But that was exactly what he could not find, even in his work. “I undertook great projects,” he says, “I built houses for myself and planted vineyards… But I hated life… My heart began to despair over all of my toilsome labor under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:4,17,20). He could get no satisfaction. Folks today seek satisfaction in work, in relationships, in wealth, power, personal achievement, comfort, security, travel, and sexual gratification. All of which provide satisfaction only for a while. And eventually leave a person even more unsatisfied than before. As a country we are unimaginably wealthier and more comfortable than our ancestors, but no one says that we’re more satisfied than they were. There’s lot of complaining about drug addiction and alcoholism and the crime they create, but few talk about the despair and depression that lurk beneath these problems or the high rate of suicide. The problem is not simply solved by going to church. Nor is it solved by loving people less or loving things less. The problem is not about how much we love people or things. It’s about who we love first. If we love anyone or anything more than we love the bread of life, Jesus, then we can actually do harm to the person we love or to the world around us. Because we’re dissatisfied. We want more from them than what they are able to give. C.S Lewis said something very wise about this. He said, “A creature is not born with a desire unless satisfaction for that desire exists. A baby feels hunger. Well, there’s such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim. Well, there’s such a thing as water. A man feels sexual desire. Well, there’s such a thing as sex. So, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Yes, a world in which Jesus is the center. But you cannot just tell yourself “Jesus loves me” and expect your heart to change with the snap of a finger. Nor can you say, “From now on, I will love Jesus best.” You can, however, consider the crucial decisions that, like Peggy in the TV show Fargo, you have gotten wrong or actions you’ve taken causing others harm, just because you were dissatisfied and trying to be all you can be. And you can consider the One who, like Ed, got Himself killed protecting you. Protecting you from yourself. The bread of life broken for you. The One from another world who made Himself killable, breakable, vulnerable so you can find meaning in Him, your reason to live, your heart’s desire. In Him, the Bread of Life, through those whom He has already filled, you have received a taste of what satisfaction is. Through them, you have received a taste of Jesus’ love. And it cannot be taken from you. So, may it fill you. May it satisfy you fully, transforming your actions, so that you love your loved ones better and care for what’s around you more tenderly, until we stand before the Lord. .

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