AUGUST 13, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
I KINGS 19:4-8; PS 34:1-8; EPH 4:25-5:2; JN 6:35, 41-51
A Steady Diet
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
While I was on sabbatical, Carolyn and I went to church…faithfully… regularly…some might even say obsessively. In our three weeks at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp alone – we worshiped thirty different times! And in our other travels we attended services in congregations scattered over four states and four denominations.
Though they stretched from campfire to “cathedral” in setting and free-flowing to formal in style, almost every worship service included what we do here: music, the Bible, a sermon, prayers, often the Lord’s Supper, a sense of community - oh, and (ha, ha) the opportunity to give…our offering!
All of this leads me to ask the question, What is it about worship that is most meaningful for you? Tell me which part of the service blesses YOU the most. – All our answers, I hope, somehow address our spiritual journey, a desire for a closer connection to God.
This is exactly what our Bible lessons invite us to focus on this week: how we are fed spiritually by God. The connection in the Gospel lesson is obvious: Jesus mentions both the feeding of the 5,000 and the eating of manna in the wilderness by his ancestors.
But the connection in the O.T. lesson is also easy to see. The prophet Elijah, alone in the wilderness, is twice awakened by an angel and ordered to eat. It’s in preparation for a journey that we’re told he must take.
Here’s a background question: Can anyone tell us why Elijah is in the wilderness AND why is he so mired in despair?
-In fact, he has just won an incredible duel with the priests of the god named Baal (I Kings 18ff) forced by the disloyalty of Israel’s king and queen. So you would think that he would be on top of the world. Here’s what happened: each side agreed to build an altar on holy ground, and call upon their (g)God to send down fire from heaven. Whichever deity prevailed would be the recipient of Israel’s worship.
The priests of Baal went first, shouting, dancing, even cutting themselves to prove their piety. But after hours of tortured prayer…nothing happened. Finally, it was Elijah’s turn. In contrast to his opponents’ dramatic display of devotion, the prophet kept it simple. His only attention-getting act was to have the Lord’s altar soaked with water…three times in a row. Then he offered a simple prayer…and stepped back as fire from heaven consumed the altar: wood, water and stone alike!
Sure the queen was very angry and ordered Elijah to be killed, but he escaped and in today’s lesson is alive and healthy, so why is he not on cloud nine? -It’s often true for many of us that emotional highs are followed by depressing lows, that downs come after ups, that valleys of dark shadows creep in behind our bright mountaintop moments.
Obviously, then, part of the answer to our spiritual journey lies not in seeking a dramatic demonstration of God’s presence in our lives. For here sits the great prophet Elijah, fresh from God’s stunning victory…yet feeling hurt, depressed, abandoned, powerless and alone.
Can anyone fill the role of PAUL HARVEY here and tell us the rest of Elijah’s story?
(He was sent to a cave on Mt. Horeb and told to stand at its entrance as the Lord was about to pass by. At first came a wind, so fierce that it broke rocks…but the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind, an earthquake…but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire…but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence – or, in the words of the old RSV, the still, small voice of God).
So the journey, for which the angels make Elijah eat, has two purposes. First, it is to reaffirm God’s continual presence in his life – not in any dramatic display, but in that sound of sheer silence, or in that still, small voice of God. And from there, the prophet is being sent to care for all who hurt, who can’t see/hear/feel or, in any other way, get it that God loves us… absolutely, completely, continually.
This same issue is true in the Gospel lesson where we continue to explore this notion of Jesus as the bread of life. Last week we heard about the people who went clamoring after Jesus the day after the feeding of the 5,000. When the crowd finally finds the Lord, Jesus chastises them saying, in effect, You’re here because your bellies are empty, not because you want to fill your spirits. In today’s lesson he says something similar, Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness…and they died.
Do you see the connection? We all crave some kind of concrete contact with God – from Elijah, who was stuck in a low following the high of his battle with the priests of Baal; to the crowd around Jesus, who acted like lost lambs looking for another handout of food; to the likes of you, and me, and the rest of the world as we wonder and worry, as we fret and stew.
But the truth is that what serves us best, what strengthens us for the journey that lies ahead…is a steady diet of the Bread of Heaven to nourish our spirits, to help us with life’s challenges. This bread includes everything in a worship experience: gathering as a family of faith; some music; the Bible, our prayers; a sermon; the Lord’s Supper – all of it is meant to feed us so that we might go out into the world to feed all who are hungering for God’s forgiveness and love. Amen.