How many of us have heard Bruce Springsteen’s famous song, “Everybody’s got a hungry heart?”
Millions can sing along, because we know it’s true. Everybody’s got a hungry heart.
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But not everybody knows how to satisfy it.
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This is why the crowds are following Jesus in today’s Gospel – like all of us, they’re hungry. And they’re wondering if he can satisfy them.
Fully aware of their desires, he says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35).
Jesus promises the crowds – and all of us gathered here this morning – that if we listen to his teachings and follow his example, then we will be satisfied.
But why is that? How can Jesus satisfy us?
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Because he is love – and that’s what we all hunger for in the end, love.
As Saint Paul says, “If I do not have love…I am nothing…. I am a resounding gong or a clashing symbol” (1 Corinthians 13: 1-2).
Without love we will be forever hungry.
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This is the point that Paul’s making in our second reading.
He’s writing to a group of newly converted Christians, urging them to remember the teachings of Jesus – to remember how to love – instead of retreating to their former ways of life, when they indulged in selfish and sinful behavior.
That will not satisfy them – or us – in the end.
“Put away the old self of your former way of life,” Paul says. “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self” (Ephesians 4: 22-24).
In a word, put on love.
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The Native Americans have an interesting way of describing this tension between our “old self” and our “new self.”
They say there’s a battle happening inside all of us between two wolves. One wolf is evil. It feeds on the “old self,” on sinful desires such as lust, greed, anger, jealousy, pride, and selfishness.
The other wolf is good. It feeds on the “new self”, on healthy desires such as forgiveness, honesty, generosity, patience, and kindness.
We cannot feed both wolves; only one will win. The question is, “Which one is it?”
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The one we feed.
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Which wolf am I feeding?
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Ultimately, that’s a question we answer in our daily lives; every decision we make feeds one of those two wolves.
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Everybody’s got a hungry heart.
And Jesus tells us how to satisfy it. We must feed that good wolf within us by loving our neighbor and our God without counting the cost. It’s the only way we will ever be satisfied.
Still the choice is ours.
Which wolf will you feed?