Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Food For Spiritual Exhaustion

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, August 11, 2024

What is Elijah, the greatest prophet of all time doing in the desert? Is he there to reflect, to recollect and to pray? Is he in the desert to prophesy, to preach and teach? Not at all! The desert is a very dry place and there’s hardly any life there. But what is he doing there? And why is he beckoning on God to take his life? Why is he praying for death? Elijah is running away from the king of Israel at the time, Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. Why? As a judgment for their idolatry, Israel had gone for more than three years without rain in the land. The drought has adversely affected every aspect of life in Israel. As a result, prophet Elijah confronts king Ahab and challenges him to a spiritual showdown. After agreeing to the contest, king Ahab summons the people of Israel to gather on Mount Carmel. He also invites the 450 prophets of the false god Baal. On Mount Carmel, Elijah says to the people of Israel, “How long will you waver over this issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). But the people remained noncommittal. Elijah then turns to the prophets of Baal and challenges them to prepare a bull as an offering for their god and to call upon the name of their gods. Elijah also promises to do the same. Then he adds, “The God who answers with fire is God” (1 Kings 18:24). At this time, the people of Israel chanted, “We agree!”The prophets of Baal went first. They cried out and danced around their altar from morning till noon with no answer from Baal. Elijah began to mock them saying, “Call louder, for he is a god; he may be busy doing his business, or he may be on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened” (1 Kings 18:27). So the prophets of Baal “shouted louder and even slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.” Midday passed and evening approached, yet, “there was no sound, no one answering, no one listening” (I Kings 18:29). 

After that, Elijah invites the people to draw closer to him, and they did. He rebuilds the altar of the Lord that had been destroyed. When it is ready, he cuts up a young bull and lays it on the wood. He then asks the people to dump twelve large jars of water on the altar of sacrifice. The water soaked the sacrifice and the wood. Elijah then prays, “Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord! Answer me, that this people may know that you, Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back to you.” Then God did what Baal could never do: the fire of the Lord fell from heaven and consumed the burnt offering, wood, stones, and dust, and lapped up the water in the trench. Having witnessed this great event, all the people fell down on their knees and said, “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!” Right away, Elijah instructs the people to seize all the prophets of Baal and put them to death. Following this event, the Lord ended the drought and sent rain upon the land. When Ahab, the king of Israel got home, he narrated everything that Elijah had done, how he had murdered all the prophets of Baal by the sword. In anger, Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah and said, “May the gods do thus to me and more, if by this time tomorrow I have not done with your life what was done to each of them” (1 Kings 19:2). Upon hearing the serious message of threat to his life, Elijah flees the city and is now hiding in the desert. Sitting under a broom tree completely exhausted physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, Elijah prays for death, “This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors” (1 Kings 19:4). He has hit the wall and can no longer go on. Did God answer Elijah’s prayer? No! As Elijah was sleeping, the angel of the Lord brought to him bread and water and said to him, “Get up and eat.” After eating, Elijah goes back to sleep. Yet again the angel comes back to him and says, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you.” And for the second time, Elijah got up and ate. Having been strengthened by that food, “he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb” (1 Kings 19:8). 

Sisters and brothers, are there times when like Elijah, you feel you have hit the wall? Are there times when spiritually and psychologically you feel you have hit the wall? You don’t know what else to do or where else to go. You may have even prayed for death or wished death could come. Spiritually you feel you can no longer go one. Now, in those moments, what do we need? Food from this world? Not so much. If you notice, the food that Elijah ate was provided by an angel, which is a symbolic reference to the fact that the food we are talking about here is food from another world. It’s food from another plane of existence. In this life, we need to eat and drink this heavenly food if we are to go on. When we are out of gas spiritually and then hit the wall, what we need is food. But not earthly food, but heavenly food. 

Now, the story of Elijah, his hitting the wall, his spiritual exhaustion, and praying for death is meant to prepare us for today’s stunning Gospel from John 6:41-51. Speaking to the rebellious Jews, Jesus refers to himself as “the Bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41), and as “Bread of life” (John 6:48). He is not talking about dessert; he is not talking about some side dish rather the main food. And this food, this bread is not ordinary bread, rather the bread that came down from heaven, bread from a transcendent source. What’s the difference between ordinary bread and Transcendent Bread? Jesus says, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died, this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die” (John 6:49-50). Physical food allows us to live for a time and indeed for a very short time. That’s why we eat several times a day. Physical food sustains physical life in a restrictive way. But the Bread which Jesus is is not the bread just for one day or for a few hours or for the moment. It is the bread that lasts to eternal life. Do you want to live forever? Do you want to live in this perfectly heavenly realm? You need this sustenance. We have within us a desire not just for life in this world. We have a desire within us to live forever. If you want that life, you have to eat. End of story! The spiritual physics in full display here is, if you want to live in the eternal realm, you have to eat the food that prepares you and sustains you for that life. Think of Jesus not merely as a teacher, but as the Bread of life!

May God bless you and give you peace!