There are very few stories in the Bible that do not, in one way or
another, find an echo in our own stories. That’s one of the reasons why
the inspired Word of God is not only timeless, but almost always timely.
Take the prophet Elijah’s story in today’s
first reading. Elijah had had it. He had gone from the heights to
the depths. Literally! On the top of Mount Carmel God had allowed
him to score a stunning victory over a whole army of false prophets,
calling down fire from heaven in a dazzling display of power that put
the false prophets to shame and ultimately, to death.
But the victory
was short-lived. Elijah’s prophetic finger-pointing incurred the wrath
of Queen Jezebel who determined to kill this upstart prophet who was
threatening her power and influence. So, Elijah found himself running
for his life – running into the wilderness, running until he could run
no more. When he collapsed under a broom tree – which is where our
reading began today – Elijah wanted to die. God had abandoned him. There
was no hope. “This is enough, Lord, he prayed, “Take away my life.” The
despair Elijah felt was particularly bitter because he knew he had been
faithful, and where had his faithfulness gotten him?
We all wonder about this at times, don’t
we? Wonder about where our faithfulness gets us? Faithfulness seems to
be no guarantee of rewards – certainly not in the short run, anyway. I
think, for instance, of families dealing with the unexpected, tragic
death of a loved one, or of someone trying to come to terms with a very
dire medical diagnosis, or of people who lose all their earthly
belongings in a wildfire or some other natural disaster. With God’s
grace and the support of family and friends, people who face these huge
challenges often do manage to cope, bravely holding onto faith through
some dark days and nights but, at times, like Elijah of old, they wonder
where their faithfulness has gotten them. Like Elijah, there are times
when they come close to collapsing under that tree, wanting it all to be
over.
And how about you? What’s your ‘Elijah
experience’? I’m not talking about the normal bumps and bruises of life
– we expect those and can usually take them in stride. I’m talking about
life-altering things: the break-up of a marriage; getting laid off at
work with a family to support; having a child turn against you and
reject everything you stand for; getting diagnosed with a debilitating
illness. Any of these can land us under the broom tree with Elijah,
convinced that we can no longer go on.
I offer no easy answers here because
there aren’t any, but I do have a favorite story from a favorite saint
of mine, St. Teresa of Avila, the great Spanish Carmelite nun of the
sixteenth century. It’s a story I love to tell because it can shed some
light and bring some hope – and maybe even a smile. Teresa had a
difficult job: she was a reformer. She traveled all over Spain on a
totally thankless mission of trying to reform the Carmelite convents
which had become quite lax and loose. Not surprisingly, Teresa was not
universally loved by the nuns! When she would arrive at a local convent
for her visit, she was rarely greeted with open arms! One day, worn out
and weary from her travels and travails, Teresa got caught in a storm,
complete with thunder, lightning, and torrential rains. Her
carriage overturned and she landed in the mud. Her ensuing exchange with
God went like this: “Why, Lord, is this happening to me?” And the Lord
said, “Because, Teresa, that’s the way I treat all my friends.” To which
Teresa replied, “No wonder you have so few…!”
Where do we go with that? To the same place
Teresa did, the same place Elijah did. They went on: Teresa to continue
her disheartening work; Elijah to walk forty days and nights to the
mountain of God. They went on, but not under their own power. The
God who had seemed to abandon them was there with them. For Elijah, God
was there in the form of an angel who brought food, refreshment, and
encouragement. For Teresa, God was there in an intimate, mystical
friendship more real to her than life itself.
And what about us who can grow weary of the
battle and be tempted to throw in the towel? Should we expect an angel
to comfort and feed, or a voice from heaven? Maybe not, but angels come
in many forms, and God speaks in many ways.
In today’s gospel Jesus speaks of a gift
greater even than the ministry of angels, promises food more wondrous
even than the manna given in the wilderness. Jesus promises himself –
the Living Bread come down from heaven, bread to nourish us on our
journey, bread to assure us we will never die. “I myself am the living
bread come down from heaven,” he says. “Whoever eats of this bread will
live forever; and the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the
world.”
Dear friends, we would not be here were it not
for our hunger for this bread and our belief that in receiving it we
receive what we need to continue our journey, to go on with our
struggles whatever they may be. We eat this bread in faith, faith that
is itself a gift from the God who draws us; we eat it in hope, confident
that it has power to lift us up as the angel once lifted up Elijah; we
eat it in loving communion with one another, conscious that, in
receiving the Bread that is Christ’s Body, we are also becoming his
Body. And we eat it in gratitude, counting ourselves blessed, along with
St. Teresa, to be among the friends of God -- “few,” perhaps, but so
very fortunate!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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