11 August 2024, 19th Sunday "B
1Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:30-5:2; John 6:41-51
Homily
Elijah is a fascinating figure in the Bible. One of the great prophets, he was a man of action rather than words. I don't think that Scripture records a single one of his speeches. He was a mystic, a loner from the great desert of the East. The Spirit of God moved him constantly from one place to another: Phoenicia, Mount Horeb, the torrent of Kerit, the palace of King Ahab, the Jordan... His mission was linked to every movement in the history of his people. And everywhere he spoke through his actions.
He was also an ardent defender of Yahweh and was ready to kill all the priests of Baal, those enemies of God, to demonstrate the authenticity of his mission. In the Book of Kings, this was precisely the account that preceded the one we heard as the first reading. After that, Queen Jezebel was furious and wanted to kill him. So Elijah, that great prophet full of zeal, becomes afraid and flees for his life. He discovers that he is a man like any other -- weak, even a coward. He flees into the desert and after a day's walk, he can't take it any more. He wants to die and says to God (this is the story we have just read): "Enough, Lord! Take my life, I'm no better than my fathers!
Elijah's despair was no different from the desperate situation faced by the people of Israel in Egypt, when Pharaoh threatened to exterminate them. Elijah's situation summed up what the people had experienced in the past, and his deliverance echoed theirs. His pilgrimage becomes not a journey into the darkness of night but into the light of day. Just as God intervened to save his people from slavery, so he intervenes to save Elijah from despair. We are witnessing a mini-Exodus.
This is the first time Elijah experiences his weakness, his fear, his sin. He then receives from the Angel of God the bread that will enable him to continue his journey in the desert, towards Mount Horeb, where he will meet God (symbolically, in the opposite direction, the journey made by the People of Israel during their forty years in the desert, starting from Mount Horeb). The bread Elijah received is obviously a symbol of the Eucharist, just like the manna mentioned in last Sunday's readings. Another figure of the Eucharist is, of course, what Jesus says in today's Gospel: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven".
A symbol of the pilgrimage of the people of Israel, his pilgrimage is also the prototype of our own. It is not when we are secure in our virtues and the truth we believe we possess, that we experience God; but rather when everything seems to crumble under our feet -- and this happens sooner or later in every life -- when the virtues we thought we had evaporate, when our truths are called into question, that God begins to act.
The first lesson we can learn from these texts is that we don't meet God and enter into a personal relationship with Him when we're sure we're good, and certainly not when we think we're better than others or -- even worse -- when we're ready to eliminate -- one way or another -- those we consider God's enemies or our own. No! To enter into a personal relationship with God, we must, like Elijah, discover our weakness, our need for healing, that is, for conversion.
Then we can receive the Eucharist as a bread of life, a bread that will enable us to continue our journey through the desert. When we receive this bread, we do so not only to renew our strength, but also and above all to express our faith in Jesus, who said: "The bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world". Let us make our communion today such an act of faith.
Armand Veilleux