Today’s readings: 1 Kings 19, 4-8; Ephesians 4, 30 - 5,2; John 6, 41-51.
In our faith journeys, it is the vision we have of God that darkens or enlightens our paths. Elijah is an outstanding prophet in the Hebrew Bible. Yet the Elijah narrated to us in today’s first reading is someone who decided to quit his mission. “I have had enough. Take my life,” he pleads with the Lord.
That was the darkest night for Elijah, who was not spared the hurdle even though he had gone through bright experiences with the Lord. But that dark night was a threshold to a radically new vision of God. At that point, when he was practically dead, he gathered new strength to head on towards the mountain of God.
The mountain of God in the Bible is always a meeting place, a place where God encountered his prophets, a place of vision that restores beauty where it was lost. Coupled with the long Chapter 6 discourse in John, which we are revisiting these Sundays, this Elijah experience is enlightening for all of us who experience our dark nights of the faith. In the gospel of John, Jesus is reported to have said: “It is written in the prophets: They will all be taught by God.”
God teaches us very patiently so that our life journey, bumpy as it may be, can proceed towards wholeness. This point is made also by St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians in the second reading: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal.” Grieving the Spirit means entering into the usual ruts and succumbing to attitudes of despair in the face of mishaps.
Many a time, the problem with our religion is that we make our own images of God and stick to them without ever moving on. Many grow up in all aspects of their life without any corresponding growth in their relationship with God. An infantile faith proves inadequate to make an impact on life and to make one face boldly what one comes across. Elijah needed an extra and invigorated faith to face the journey ahead: “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you.”
In John’s gospel, the Jews represent us with our constantly questioning hearts and doubtful minds. What does it mean today to speak of Jesus as the bread of eternal life?
Our problems today, where faith is concerned, may seem far bigger than those of the Jews at the time of Jesus. The world has changed so much and our understanding of life has changed accordingly. But what has constantly remained unchanged is the fact that “No one has seen the Father”.
God remains the unknown, the infinite, whom we can never domesticate. Journeying is the only way of knowing the Father, and believing boils down to holding true the words of Jesus, the bread for the journey. It is only the existence and the words of Jesus that constitute a point of reference in our mind’s journey toward God.
That is why Jesus presents himself as “the bread of life”, because he is not simply a teacher who teaches, but one who sustains and nourishes and energises our will to move on, which otherwise would fail miserably in the face of discouragement. Wanting to die is unfortunately becoming symptomatic of today’s generation. Our generation is a generation that has specific difficulties to speak about the future, be it environmental, financial or even political and social.
Too much happens that makes us believe that the future is bleak. It is here that faith comes in and that our responsibility as believers becomes pivotal. Faith does not simply look beyond time; it is rooted in history and in the way history evolves. This is our moral duty in today’s world and we owe it to today’s and future generations to provide the reason for our hope.
Elijah in the Scriptures becomes an icon. He senses that his mission was above him and was convinced he would not make it. The bread and the jar of water are nothing in the face of what he needed and what he was going through. Yet they are signs of how God encounters us in our dark nights and provides the right vision that keeps us going.