The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 2, 2026

St. Pauls - Proper 13 - August 2, 2026

At a crucial moment in the classic film 101 Dalmatians, Pongo, Perdita, and their fifteen puppies are huddled together in a small room, watching television, waiting for the right moment to escape from the wicked Cruella de Vil. One of the puppies, Rolly—despite being totally captivated by the screen—looks up and says: I’m hungry, Mother. I’m hungry.

Perdita, tired and anxious, replies: Now Rolly, you’ve just had your dinner. But Rolly insists: But I am, just the same. I’m so hungry I could eat a... a whole elephant.

It is a charming moment, but if we pay close attention, Rolly is pointing us toward a deep human truth: there are two kinds of hunger.

The first kind of hunger is the one we know best. It is the hunger that has a name. You know exactly what you want, but you haven’t got it—or you can't have it.

• It’s the hunger you feel when you interviewed for a job you desperately needed, and you can't understand why they didn't hire you.

• It’s when you long with all your heart to hold a baby, but it isn't happening.

• It’s when you're dying for something to eat, but the cupboard is bare.

• It’s when you just want something—anything in your life—to go right for a change, but people keep letting you down.

This kind of hunger can become all-consuming. It contorts our temper, our relationships, our patience, our clarity of thought, and our character. They say we are what we eat, but the truth is, we are also capable of becoming shaped by what we hunger for.

In 1943, the psychologist Abraham Maslow published his famous hierarchy of human needs. He observed that we cannot easily engage with higher matters of the soul until our basic physical needs are met—food, safety, belonging, and esteem—before we can ever reach self-actualization.

Even if we have never experienced literal starvation, we all know what this first hunger feels like. We know the relief of devouring a good meal after a long day when we are faint with craving.

Now there is a second kind of hunger. This one lingers deep and disturbingly at the bottom of the soul, and it doesn't have a simple name.

There is no quick fix for it—no hot meal, no job title, no luxury vacation that will ever satisfy it.

The band U2 famously gave voice to this second hunger when they sang with aching bewilderment—oh if Katie were here to sing this:

I have climbed the highest mountains, 

I have run through the fields...

I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls...

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

Or as the Rolling Stones put it, weary of the wild life…wishing Katie were here to sing it: I can't get no satisfaction, 'cause I try, and I try, and I try... These songs endure because they touch that restless, gnawing point deep in our gut. They speak for the soul that knows it hasn't found what it’s looking for.

In today’s Hebrew Scripture lesson, the prophet Isaiah speaks directly to both of these hungers.

For fifty long years in Babylonian exile, the people of Israel suffered from the first kind of hunger. Their desire had a clear name: We want to go home. Everything wrong in their world was crystallized in that single fact—they were a thousand miles from the Promised Land.

Eventually, God brought them home. Israel returned. Jerusalem was restored, the Temple was rebuilt, and the city walls were raised again.

And yet, when all of that was finished, Israel looked up and realized... they were still hungry.

Now Israel, you’ve just had your dinner. But I am, just the same. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole elephant.

It turned out that merely going home wasn't all their hearts were aching for. And so Isaiah confronts them with those haunting words: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2) Working out the difference between the hunger that has a name and the hunger that doesn't is the key to all Christian ministry and mission.

One of my favorite of all time movies was the 2004 film The Chorus (Les Choristes), set in southeast France in 1949.

A strict headmaster presides over a reform school for troubled boys at a place called Fond de l’Etang—which literally translates to Bottom of the Pond or Rock Bottom. A modest, out-of-work music teacher named Clement Mathieu arrives to teach them. The headmaster’s system is simple: keep the boys compliant through fear, rigid discipline, and basic meals.

The boys are deeply angry, constantly acting out. On the surface, they know the first kind of hunger: they want food, freedom, and revenge on anyone who tries to pin them down.

Instead of trying to control them or just give them what they thought they wanted, Monsieur Mathieu does something unexpected: he teaches them to sing.

Gradually, a chorus forms. Among them is Pierre, the wilder, most suspicious boy of all. Beneath his rebellious exterior, Mathieu discovers that Pierre possesses an extraordinary treble voice. Through music, Pierre’s dignity is unearthed, and the choir transforms the culture of the school.

Fifty years later, we see Pierre grown up, standing as a world-renowned orchestral conductor at the height of his powers.

Monsieur Mathieu didn't satisfy their basic daily complaints. Instead, he took a massive gamble on reaching the hunger they didn't have a name for.

We often assume practical Christianity is only about meeting the first kind of hunger: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless. All of that is good, vital, and Christ-commanded.

When the crowds follow Jesus into the deserted place in today’s Gospel from Matthew, the disciples see the first kind of hunger. They say, Send the crowds away to buy food for themselves. But Jesus responds: They need not go away; you give them something to eat.

Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, blesses them, and feeds five thousand men, plus women and children, with twelve baskets of fragments left over.

Christ meets their physical need, yes—but He does so to reveal something far greater. Christianity is a massive, grace-filled gamble on the hunch that what human beings are truly starving for is something they cannot name and would not initially recognize on their own.

And what is that mysterious food?

It is the wondrous truth that there is something even deeper, more long-lasting, and more insatiable than our hunger: God’s hunger for us.

As Isaiah writes just a few versus after today’s lesson:

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

God's hunger is vast, but God knows exactly what He is hungry for: He is hungry for you.

Discovering God's desire for us is like those young boys discovering choral music at Fond de l'Etang. For some of us, like Pierre, it unearths a dormant gift longing to break free. For others, it is the realization that together we can make something beautiful we could never construct alone—that there is a place for every shape, size, voice, and energy in a song that comes from a love far bigger than ourselves. Bigger, even, than a whole elephant.

So I ask you today: Are you hungry?

If so what is the simple name of your hunger—a yearning for a job, a partner, a physical healing, a fresh start, or something else?

Or is your hunger deeper and more insatiable than that—a quiet aching that even gaining those precious things will not fully cure?

Listen to the prophet Isaiah, who echoes across the centuries:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price... Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. (Isaiah 55:1, 2b)

This feast is free, but it is not cheap. It is priceless, and it is offered to everyone.

If you are hungry today—deeply, deeply hungry—hear the Good News you have been waiting your whole life to receive: God is hungry. And He is hungry for you.