Strength for the Journey

 

I Kings 19:4-8

John 6:35, 41-51

Proper 14 / Year B

I have told you before the time after my marriage ended in 2002 was a very dark and difficult period in my life and I leaned heavily on several spiritual disciplines.  The prayer book’s daily offices – especially an Order of Light for the Evening – affected me deeply.  I began to attend a Saturday evening service at a nearby Episcopal Church.  Being a worshipper, not a worship leader, reminded me just how powerful a church service can be for a participant.  God always touched me in some way.  One time it was something in the sermon, another a line in a hymn or anthem, still another something in the liturgy, or, most often, simply receiving the sacrament.  No Saturday night passed without sensing God was with me. 

And then I began to look for what I called my “daily bread.”  The phrase, taken from the Lord’s Prayer, became a quest each day to find one thing to lift my spirit; to bring light into the darkness around me.  It didn’t have to be miraculous, just encouraging.  I remember one day it was a small child sitting in a shopping cart facing me as his mother placed groceries on the check-out belt.  He smiled and waved a little wave to me.  What does it say to you I still remember this brief, seemingly insignificant moment from 22 years ago?  Things as simple as this happened each and every day and sustained through a very low point.  I don’t look as intently for this bread today, but most days I recognize moments of grace or beauty or joy and it never fails to lift my spirit.

This morning we read about a difficult episode in Elijah’s life.  Just twenty-four hours earlier he experiences the highest of highs.  The prophet publicly criticizes King Ahab’s marriage alliance with Jezebel, a Phoenician princess.  She has statues of the pagan god Baal erected in the Temple and commissions some four hundred fifty prophets to serve it.  Elijah proposes a contest.  He challenges them to set up an altar and make it ready for a sacrifice.  He does the same.  They then are to pray to their god to send fire from heaven to ignite it.  They go first.  They pray.  They dance.  They cut themselves.  Elijah heckles them: Maybe your god is asleep… Maybe he is on vacation.  When it is clear nothing is going to happen, Elijah takes his turn.  He orders water – lots of water – to be poured all over and around his altar.  It is a soggy mess and nowhere near a threat to ignite.  Then Elijah prayers and fire comes down, consuming the sacrifice.  Onlookers need no more convincing.  They put the prophets of Baal to the sword.  It is Elijah’s high point.

The low comes swiftly as Jezebel vows to have him executed within twenty-four hours.  The prophet flees fast and far to the south, avoiding capture.  Alone, exhausted, famished, thirsty, frightened, he finds himself under a broom tree; the only source of shade in the Negev wilderness for miles.  He lays down and falls asleep.  All he wants to do is die. 

An angel of the Lord wakes him and places before him a cake of bread and a jar of water.  “Eat, drink,” the angel instructs him.  Talk about daily bread!  It is as much physical nourishment as spiritual.  Elijah falls back asleep and again the angel wakes him.  There is more bread and more water.  “Eat, drink,” the angel tells him, “You will need it to have strength for the journey ahead.”  Elijah spends the next forty days traversing the wilderness to get to Mt. Horeb; the mountain where Moses first encountered God in the burning bush.  The bread and water sustain him.

I love the phrase ‘strength for the journey.’  Elijah is instructed to eat because he needs strength for the journey he must undertake.  Where do you find strength for your journey?  What for you is daily bread?

For the next few weeks we are in the midst of pondering Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life after he feeds 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and two fish.  Now, for many of these people, the prayer for daily bread is a request for physical nourishment.  Many live with dire food insecurity and having something to eat every day is not at all guaranteed.  No wonder they follow Jesus hoping to get just a little bit of food.  Jesus labors to teach them the most important bread he offers is spiritual.  It comes from heaven and it gives life.  It satisfies our deepest longings and meets our greatest needs.  Just as Elijah finds under the broom tree, it is this bread which comes to us in the wilderness moments of our lives which transforms them into places of safety and wellbeing.   

Jesus gives us strength for the journey.  It is something those of us here today find each week as we come to the Lord’s table.  The motivational speaker Steve Maraboli says of life it does not get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.  This rings true with my experiences of dark times and searching for daily bread.  Think about what happens when Elijah eats the bread given to him.  Ahaz and Jezebel still have murderous hunters looking for him.  The wilderness is not transformed into a Club Med.  He is not outfitted with the best hiking gear from R.E.I.  What changes?  He now knows God is with him.  He now has strength for the journey.  It is my story too and I trust it is yours as well.