Year B Proper 14 1 Kings 19:4-8 John 6:35, 41-51

Elijah went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.

It helps us to understand today’s first lesson, if we know a little of the back story. Elijah has had a confrontation with Ahab – the then King of Israel. Ahab has built a temple to the god Baal, and thus a divide has developed amongst the Jewish population, some worshipping Baal and others worshipping God. In an attempt to unify the Children of Israel under the One True God, Elijah has taken part in a spectacular contest between him and the false prophets of Baal.

Elijah has won, and the false prophets have been struck down and killed by the wrath of God. When the king’s wife, Jezebel, a Baal worshipper, leans of this, she is infuriated, so she sends a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Elijah is no fool and we are told he ran for his life.

In today’s first reading we join him as he stops to rest. Elijah has been God’s faithful servant, but he’s getting tired of doing the will of God and taking abuse for it. Now his very life is being threatened. So it is in this angry and despondent frame of mind he speaks to God.

He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep.

This isn’t an, “into thy hands O Lord” type of statement. This is more like, “I’ve had it! Take me now!” Elijah has listened and has been faithful, but he is hurt, tired, angry and just “done” with all of God’s great ideas run amok at his, Elijah’s, expense. We can imagine his thoughts, “Did you forget me O Lord, or do you somehow just not care?!” And then, as he slept, suddenly an angel touched him.

This is not the angel he had asked for, because Elijah was waiting for the Angel of Death. Instead, the angel said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water.

It is always this way with God. Just when we think we’ve done everything we can, and just as we are ready to give up, God intervenes, not with a vacation, or a reward, or time off, but with something to sustain us so we can continue.

And the angel comes to Elijah not once, but twice, and each time Elijah eats and drinks. And then, when he is nourished and rested, tired and worn out though he may be, he resumes his work and heads for Horeb, the Mount of God. There, he will first complain, but then he will listen, listen for and to the voice of God.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Today’s Gospel continues the story we heard last Sunday. Jesus has fed the 5000, and He has told them that He is the Bread of Life. People heard Jesus say this, and they didn’t get it! Our Lord had said something way beyond their life experience, something that centuries later we still consider deeply mystical and in many ways inexplicable.

For the Jews who heard Jesus say this, a conflict immediately arose in their minds. For them, the bread of life which came down from heaven was the Law of Moses, what we call the Ten Commandments. This was the Law they lived by, that which gave them identity as a people, and their lives purpose and meaning. To hear a man say, “I am the Bread of Life”, made no sense at all.

Then the Jews began to complain about Him because He said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven."

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg--or he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either Jesus was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”

When they encounter Jesus in today’s Gospel, this isn’t the choice people are expecting to make, but there it is before them. As we go about our ministries, our daily life and work, it is also not a choice we expect to make.

Our daily lives can be exhausting, and our ministries, and yes, we all have a special calling from God, a ministry, can wear us out. Partly this is due to our always forgetting that doing things under our own power is going to do us in. We have lots of what we consider to be great plans and ideas of how things should be done. We throw ourselves into seeing that our vision is accomplished for the good of the Church and the good of our families, friends, and neighbors. And then, for one reason or another, we run out of steam.

Maybe things didn’t turn out as we hoped, or we felt unappreciated. Whatever the reason, we step back – and this is where what we do next means everything to us and to God. Do we, like Elijah, at first, throw up our hands, say we’ve had enough, and walk away? This only makes for an inner emptiness in us and causes our Lord great pain. Do we step back to take stock, to regroup? Will we continue to operate on our own power or rely on a greater one? And then we have to make a choice. Is Jesus the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse?

As we sometimes find Jesus’ call to us, the people in Jesus’ hometown, the people who knew Him, found His message too difficult to accept. They grumbled and complained, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” We are more likely to say, “This is too difficult. Of course Jesus is God, but surely this isn’t what He wants from me.”

And Jesus told them and tells us, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…”.

That’s the part we forget. Drawn by the Father! Jesus never said that we have been chosen to work everything out on our own. He never assured us that our plans would work. He tells us we are the Father’s, drawn by a holy calling to do God’s work in this world. And right here, in today’s Gospel, He assures us that we are not going to be alone in this, but rather that we will be supported and fed, nurtured and sustained, and expected to carry on.

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.

We need to, daily, take a look at what we rely on as sustenance. From what do we draw our strength? Do we rise in the morning with a prayer on our lips and a smile on our face and grateful hearts, or do we struggle out of bed, grumble at the aches and pains, and head for a cup of tea or coffee? Some of us may say we do both, just depends on the arthritis and the weather.

But the bottom line is, we need to be able to say, “It is well with my soul”, and that isn’t going to happen if our strength comes from personal force of will and our morning caffeine jolt. Is Jesus the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse?

Elijah, a prophet called by God, a person doing God’s work in this world, got worn out. We all get worn out. Elijah was busy talking, prophesying, fighting, defending the faith, and finally he’d had enough. Our first lesson gives us a good look at just how exhausting it is to be doing God’s work in this world, to be answering our call from God. And Elijah headed out, running for fear of his life, a worldly fear, and God knew exactly what was going on, and sent not liberation from responsibility, but the sustenance to continue his calling.

I am the Bead of Life! ,,, This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

It is a mystery we cannot explain. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ in communion, and we cannot fathom the mystery, because no one can understand God. But one thing we know, we need this food to spiritually survive. We need this food to have true life in us, and strength to do God’s will. We are nourished, not to forge ahead with our plans, but find the time to settle, to rest, to listen, to accept what Jesus’ wants from us, to accept that our plans may be rubbish, and all those things we think we know are “right” may be totally unimportant to God.

We protest! Our plans are easier than what Jesus’ wants from us. And that may be true, but it is also meaningless.

We are called to be a holy people, to be Jesus’ followers, to acknowledge Him as Lord, and to do His will in this world. We will get tired and worn out. We will mistake our will for Jesus’ will. We will become upset, want to quit, want to complain, question God. We do all this because we are human and we are sinners. But always we have a choice to make. Is Jesus a madman or worse, or is He the Son of God?

When you pray take time to listen, open your hearts, shut down your desire to always do it your way, and become the person God is always calling you to be through His beloved Son, who sustains us and assures us, as the hymn puts it:

I am the bread of life. the person who comes to me shall not hunger; they who believes in me shall not thirst

even if they die, they shall live for ever.

and I will raise them up on the last day.

Let us pray:

O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray You, to Your presence, where we may be still and know that You are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.