St. John’s Lutheran Church
11 August 2024 + Lectionary 19b
1 Kings 19:4-8; John 6:35, 41-51
Rev. Josh Evans
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
Words made famous, of course,
by 19th century English novelist Charles Dickens.
Words which might, just as well,
describe one of the most prominent figures
in the Hebrew Bible.
In the midst of a drought,
Elijah provides for a destitute widow and her son,
in his own mini feeding miracle –
centuries before Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand.
Not long after,
when the widow’s son becomes ill and dies,
Elijah calls on God, hoping against hope,
and, miraculously, the boy is revived,
sparking his mother’s confession:
“Now I know that you are a man of God
and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
Meanwhile, after King Ahab confronts Elijah,
accusing him of being a “troubler of Israel,”
Elijah, with a little bit of sass, responds:
“I have not troubled Israel … but you have!”
This, of course, is the prophet’s job description:
Called by God to be God’s spokesperson,
calling out a monarchy that has repeatedly failed
to hold up their end of God’s covenant,
abandoning the worship and commandments of Yahweh,
refusing to listen to calls to repent and turn back.
So Elijah challenges Ahab:
“Assemble your prophets, all 450 of them, and we’ll settle this.”
The plan:
We’ll prepare two bulls for a burnt sacrifice,
one on Baal’s altar and one on Yahweh’s altar.
But … we won’t light the fire.
We’ll let the true God take care of that.
Maybe you remember how the rest of the story goes:
Baal’s prophets pray and cry and rave on and on …
but … there’s “no voice, no answer, and no response.”
Meanwhile, Elijah, now in full-on mocking mode,
has four jars of water filled and poured three times on his own altar.
Then he prays.
And Yahweh’s fire consumes everything –
even the last drop of water.
Elijah is high on power.
He is confident and fearless.
He alone challenged and defeated 450 prophets of his adversaries.
Even the drought comes to an end.
It was the best of times …
… and then, in an instant,
it was the worst of times.
On the run from Jezebel, the king’s wife,
who has sworn by her gods to kill Elijah
in the same way he killed her prophets,
Elijah flees into the wilderness.
Elijah is tired,
burnt out,
done.
He has nothing left to give,
and now – here – in the wilderness,
he asks that he might die.
Why the sudden and drastic change?
Was it the guilt of slaughtering 450 false prophets,
however “right” and “just” it might have seemed in the moment?
Was it the mounting pressure of Jezebel’s almost certain death threat?
Or was he just physically tired from his journey,
emotionally and mentally fatigued by his very calling as a prophet?
The text doesn’t say,
but I’d venture to guess:
it was a little of all of the above.
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
Elijah’s story is worth paying attention to.
Elijah: the great prophet of Israel.
Elijah: a human being who struggles.
Each of us: human beings who struggle:
with loneliness and isolation,
with loss and grief,
with fear and anxiety,
with despair and hopelessness.
Everything from the unrelenting news cycle
to the challenges and uncertainty closer to home:
illnesses and diagnoses,
the stress of work or finances,
strained or broken relationships.
Each of us, like Elijah: human beings who struggle.
***
This past week,
we welcomed singer-songwriter Spencer LaJoye
for a small listening concert here at St. John’s.
Spencer ended their set with a song
they introduced as a song written to their younger self:
You won’t believe me,
you won’t hear me –
the song concedes –
but it’s possible, whatever happens,
you’re gonna be alright …
You won’t believe it if I tell you now,
just entertain the possibility somehow,
you’ll never see it coming,
never see it becoming this way,
but someday you’ll wake up okay.
(“Someday You’ll Wake Up Okay” by Spencer LaJoye)
Perhaps written as much for our own younger selves
as for Spencer’s younger self.
Perhaps written for our selves here and now:
human beings who struggle.
Whether from our future selves,
or from a divine messenger sent by God,
the good news is the same:
You’re gonna be alright.
Elijah’s mysterious messenger comes
not with condemnation or a quick fix,
but with cake … and water …
recognizing Elijah’s fatigue,
and offering him respite:
bread for the journey.
You’re gonna be alright.
The food and drink from his divine messenger
is enough to sustain Elijah
for forty days and forty nights –
a number that is no mistake,
but itself an allusion to the forty years
the Israelites spent in the wilderness:
forty years of God’s continued providence,
time and time again.
You’re gonna be alright.
***
Elijah’s story is worth paying attention to
because it shows us a human being who struggles –
and a God who provides.
A God who provides real bread for hungry people –
five thousand of them, to be precise.
A God who, having filled the hungry with good things,
recognizes a deeper hunger,
and a yearning.
A God who offers himself as bread –
a bread which is more than bread
that satisfies our deepest hunger.
As one writer puts it:
“By comparing himself to bread, Jesus makes himself as necessary to us as the food we eat. He is our food, enabling us to live our life’s call, to be alive, our source of spiritual energy when exhausted, our consolation when we are troubled, our strength when we are weak.”
(Peter Claver Ajer)
Suddenly, bread is more than just bread:
but a means to an eternal and abiding relationship with God.
Jesus, the bread of life,
sustains us, human beings who struggle:
in our loneliness and isolation,
in our losses and our grief,
in our fear and anxiety,
in our despair and hopelessness.
Jesus, the bread of life,
speaks to us, here and now,
offering bread for the journey:
You’re gonna be alright.