It was hors d'oeuvre hour this past Friday evening - the time to chow down between the wedding of Julie Kellogg and the reception. As an aside, I had a year of French in high school, and thought "hors d'oeurvre" might mean something like "hour of the egg." Nope. Actually, "hors d'oeuvre" literally means, "outside the main work," or in this case, outside the main course. The lines were long at the various buffet tables, because of the frightening prospect that we might not be eating again for another forty-five minutes. I shared with some friends that as a pastor, the hors d'oeuvre hour is usually a time of anxiety as I try to decide: am I going to be asked to say a prayer at the reception ... or can I have that second glass of wine? This past Friday evening I chose correctly. At the reception, in what was a touching and appropriate moment, the father of the bride, Jeffrey, offered the prayer. I take prayer seriously and so did Julie's Dad!

Now I recognize that a good many folks at a reception see the prayer as a filler, of sorts, something to while away the time following the hors d'oeuvre hour and the best man's toast. To some in the reception hall the prayer is a necessary evil, but to others, a necessary good. At any rate, there is a prayer I often use, with one variation or another, and it goes something like this: "Dear God, we shall soon be served fine food and drink of the fruit of the vine ... and we shall be partially fed; we are surrounded by friends and loved ones and share the joy of bride and groom and we are fed even more. But as we take this time to acknowledge your presence in the midst of it all, it is now that we are truly filled. Amen."

Nothing fancy. I like to think it may help set a tone for the evening, but I suspect that a lot of people are not much interested in either prayers or God. At least, not that they would admit to. And yet, my sense is that beneath the surface gaiety there is a great hunger ... a yearning, a searching. Many couples who look spirited and joy-filled are at the core, hungry. For what? For whom? They may not be quite sure. They want to be fed but do not quite know where to turn, or even what appetite they want satisfied. But the primal beat of the music and the fairy tale setting of the reception can mask the pain and the loneliness, that sense of longing and dis-ease. And that is why, when I am asked to offer a prayer at the reception, I try to use my fifteen seconds in the spotlight to acknowledge that the God of all life is indeed present. It is God, and only God, Who can fill the deepest hunger and quench the strongest thirst!

Let me transport you from a catering hall to a nursing home - a whole world away. At both places I offer a prayer. It seems to me that my prayers are more welcome in the nursing home. As you might guess, the members of my nursing home congregation are quite elderly and are unable to consume quite the amount of food and drink of most of the wedding reception guests. Still, however, they want to be fed. They are hungry and lonely and feeble and frail and they want to fed; they yearn to be filled. And by the grace of God, food and drink are among the things I could offer.

Do you recall this story? At the appropriate moment in the liturgy, I begin to walk around the room to Commune the congregation. I take a small wafer and break it in half, and then break it again. Chewing is a difficult, almost a lost art for some of the people. But they desperately want to be fed. I dip one tiny quarter of the wafer in wine and place it on the tongue of each person: "This is the Body and Blood of Jesus, broken and poured out for you." I stood before one lady with this tiny gift; she eyed me suspiciously. I had just done my breaking and breaking again routine in front of her. I dipped the wafer remnant in wine and leaned forward to place it in her mouth. She said, "Are you sure you can spare it?"

"Are you sure you can spare it?" This lady wanted bread. She didn't want more than her fair share but she wanted her fair share of the bread this world cannot give. The spiritual bread. The heavenly bread. And the wafer I offered represented all of that - and she wanted something she could chew on. You better believe the next month I gave her the entire wafer. And she winked at me. She knew that I knew and she understood that I understood!

We all are hungry. The wedding guests of the catering hall? Hungry. The residents of a nursing home? Hungry. The five thousand who gathered to hear Jesus preach on the shores of Galilee? Hungry. Each one of them. And they were looking for more than bread and fish, though they might not have realized it. Jesus had just fed the crowd with little more than a small boy's fish salad sandwich ... and before Jesus left, his disciples gathered leftovers. Nobody leaves this place hungry; at least, not for food. Yet, the people were only partially filled.

This Jesus understands. And so, not long after, and our text this morning is a continuation of that feeding miracle, not long after, Jesus tells the crowd, "I am the bread of life. I am the bread that came down from heaven." And the people are less than grateful. "This is Joseph's son; Mary's son; he's the boy from down the street and he claims to have come down from heaven?" And as for this attitude, again, Jesus understands. The people want bread - not a metaphor. They want something they can pop into a toaster, slather with jam. Taste smell, and fill their tummies. Something real. Something tangible.

However, Jesus knows of a deeper hunger; a hunger only God can fill. It is the same hunger of wedding guests and nursing home residents. A yearning which is often buried in the midst of a superficial search for fulfillment. Why is it we are so often convinced that one more dollar or one more toy or one more slice of bread can satisfy our hunger? We hope against hope that in some way, someone ... can fill our hunger and our loneliness.

And so to farmers and fisherfolk, and to you and me, Jesus talks about another kind of bread - one that can fill life's deepest hunger and calm life's deepest fears. "I am the bread of life." And you just know that some people hear the words of Jesus and think to themselves, "Whaaat! No more bread? That's it! So long! Adios, Rabbi"! If they cannot see, feel, touch it, grasp it - some people just plain aren't interested. And so a prayer at a wedding reception, to many, is a nuisance. A lull in the festivities - a reminder, perhaps, of a gnawing hunger that people would just as soon forget.

If it is true you have a bit of that hunger in you, a sense of dis-ease, that all is not well, Jesus extends the invitation to feed on him - the Bread from heaven; the Bread of Life. Not bread from the bakery, but bread from above. The meal soon to be served is not the hors d'oeuvre - it is the main course ... the central meal. This meal touches our deepest hunger as we grow both older and up! Ultimately, with Jesus in our midst - we have everything. And without Jesus? We don't have a prayer.