Commentary
Sunday, 8/12/2018, Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Food from God Gives True Nourishment
First Reading Commentary: 1 Kings 19:4-8
In today’s first reading, Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert. He actually fled to the desert because Jezebel had made a threat against his life. But the focus of today’s reading is on what happens to Elijah while he was there.
There are striking comparisons between Elijah’s time in the desert and Christ’s time in the desert. For starters, they were both there for forty days. That is not just a coincidence. They both had a reason for going to the desert. Elijah: to escape from Jezebel and Jesus: to be tempted by the devil. Ultimately, they both had the same mission—to get one over on evil.
Once again, we are reminded that forty is a multiple of ten and in the Book of Revelation, the number ten signifies completeness. In this case, after forty days, both Elijah and Jesus were prepared and strengthened and therefore ready to carry out their mission.
You may ask; why did Jesus who is the Son need to be strengthened and prepared? I believe that the reason is because Jesus was one hundred percent divine but He was also one hundred percent human. In His humanity, Jesus experienced everything that we do and came into the world with the same free will that each of us have. It was His humanity that had to be prepared to stand up to and defeat the devil. This is also yet another example of Jesus reliving an event in the Old Testament.
Elijah’s mission was to restore the covenant between the LORD and the Israelites so that they would be in union with the LORD. In order to complete his mission, he had to flee from Jezebel and be strengthened although, at the time, he did not understand that.
Jesus’ mission was to take away the sins of the world so that all who believed could be with God in heaven. In order to complete His mission, He had to overcome and defeat the devil’s temptations in the desert.
Both Elijah and Jesus were tended to by God’s angels but let’s focus on Elijah since this reading is about his time in the desert. Elijah was no different than the rest of us. Some of us are too proud to admit it and/or some of us are in great physical condition and don’t consider ourselves as being weak. But no matter how strong our bodies may be, we all have flaws and weaknesses in our spirituality and we are weak because of them.
Elijah became weary and fell into despair and prayed, “This is enough, O LORD! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” What Elijah said in his prayer did not come from a lack of faith. He was admitting to the LORD that he was weak and therefore not worthy.
We are all weak but that does not stop God from using us to carry out His Will. We are worthy because God has faith in us and that is because He knows that if we place our faith in Him; there is nothing that can stop us from carrying out His Will.
So, the LORD sent His angels to tend to Elijah. They encourged him eat so that he would have strength. They gave Elijah hearth cake and water. These things were physical; yes. But they were food and drink from heaven just like the manna, quail and water that the Children of Israel received in the desert and just like the Eucharist.
The message here is a repeat from last week: The real food and drink needed for our spiritual nourishment and eternal life may look, feel and taste physical, but it is food and drink from heaven and if we receive it in faith; nothing can keep us away from God.
Take Out Your Trash
Second Reading Commentary: Ephesians 4:30—5:2
How does Paul’s message in today’s reading from Ephesians relate to the message that real food and drink come from heaven? The answer is that we all have trash inside of us and we have to dump it in order to receive God’s nourishment and live according to His Will.
Paul tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit that we were sealed with for the day of redemption. We receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism and the Spirit is strengthened within us in the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Holy Spirit bestows on us His Gifts and Fruits which we are to use in living our lives according to God’s Will.
Paul is telling us not to complain about our problems. Rather, we should show gratitude for our many blessings by giving praise and honor to God and by placing our trust in Him. We should not grumble the way that the Children of Israel did in the desert. We should learn from their mistake instead.
Paul is telling us to clean house getting rid of all the junk that the devil constantly throws at us. Junk like bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling and malice. All of those things and anything else that might steer us away from God needs to be purged. This means that we must be on a constant vigil as we look at ourselves from within. We have to scrutinize ourselves with honesty and an open mind as we pray asking God for His mercy and forgiveness.
Paul also reminds us to obey the Second Greatest Commandment when he says, “And be kind to one another…forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ…and live in love, as Christ loved us…”
Finally, Paul reminds us that God’s love for us is so strong that the Son handed Himself over as the Sacrificial Lamb for the forgiveness of our sins. Is there anything that you would not do for someone who loves you enough to lay their lives down for you? We should think about that question more often because the Son did lay His life down for us—the devil only wants to destroy our lives. The devil is not who we should listen to but when we sin; we pay perfect attention to him.
The Bread of Life
Gospel Commentary: John 6:41-51
Keeping our faith in God should be the easiest thing in life for any of us to do. And yet, it is and always has been a struggle for mankind. All throughout the history of mankind, people have doubted God, questioned God, grumbled against God and some people have completely refused to accept Him.
The beginning of today’s gospel is John’s account of the people of Nazareth refusing to listen to Jesus let alone accept Him for who He was. These people were not Gentiles. They were not non-believers in God and many of them knew the Scriptures very well. So, what was their problem?
They had several. First, they could not get out of their humanity. They could only see Jesus within the context of humanity and as a result, they saw Him as the son of Joseph and Mary and never gave a moment’s thought to the fact that Jesus just might be the One who was promised in the Scriptures.
The things that Jesus said and the works that He was performing should have given these people enough of a hint about who He really was for them to listen to what He was saying. But that brings about their next problem: their minds were closed and their hearts were hard. Consequently, they looked down on Jesus for what He said and that presents their next problem. See a pattern here? One sin leads into another. That's the way sin works.
They; fell victim to the sin of pride. They said, “Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” In other words, “Who does this guy think he is? He is no better than any of us.” In fact, some of the people felt that Jesus was not on their level. Well, they had the right idea but they had it all backwards. It was they who were not on the same level as Jesus.
We have to be careful not to make the same mistake. Virtually no one considers themselves to be on God’s level but all of us make the mistake of not listening to God when we sin. When we make that mistake, we are no better than the people who were in Nazareth that day.
Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him…” In other words, you have to believe in the Father in order to believe in the Son. Jesus also said, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.” Therefore, if you do not go to the Son, then you are not listening and learning from the Father. From this we learn that to follow the Father is to follow the Son and vice versa. If you do not follow both, you do not follow either one.
The Father told us that the Son was coming in Genesis 3:15 which I consider to be one of the most important passages in all of Scripture. I say this because I find myself referring to it over and over again and if God had not kept that promise, all of us would be doomed. God told the devil that he would put enmity between him (the devil) and the woman and between his offspring and hers. The woman was Mary and her offspring, was Jesus.
To not accept the Trinity with Jesus as the Son is to not accept this Scripture and if you do not accept this Scripture, you are not drawn by the Father because you are not listening to Him. Because the Trinity is three persons in one God, if you do not listen to the Son, you are not listening to the Father either. Remember the Transfiguration which we celebrated August 6th. Remember that the Father spoke from heaven and said, "This is my beloved son, listen to him."
Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” He also said, “…the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” Think about it. With those words, Jesus was speaking of the Crucifixion, the Eucharist and the Kingdom all at the same time.
This is not the only gospel where we hear Jesus telling us that He is the Bread of Life. This message has been a part of our liturgy for several weeks now. The bread of life comes to us in two forms; the Word which is everything that Jesus taught us and the Eucharist which is the living body and blood of Christ. Those of us who believe this and try to be like Jesus in the way that we live our lives will be with the Son in the Kingdom because we have listened to the Father.
