Proper 14 -- I
Kings 19: 4-8; Psalm 34: 1-8; Ephesians
4: 25 – 5: 2; John 6: 35,
41-51
A
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker given
at St. John’s Church, in Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania, on Sunday, August 9, 2015.
“REFLECTIONS AND
BACKGROUND OF THE READINGS”
(Texts: I
Kings 19: 4-8; Ephesians 4: 25 – 5: 2; John 6: 35, 41-51)
Introductory Remarks
As on July 19th of this year (Pentecost 8), an actual homily won’t be delivered today. Instead, the congregation was given three readings in advance, so that they may, if they choose, develop questions concerning one or more of the readings, or to share insights and comments on them.
I Kings 19:4 – 8
SETTING and BACKGROUND
Our reading from First Kings
outlines part of the prophet Elijah’s struggles in dealing with King Ahab, who
was king over the Northern Kingdom of Israel from 875 – 853 BC, and Ahab’s
Phoenician wife, Jezebel. These two
persons had encouraged the Cana’anite pagan worship of Ba’al and of the Asherah
(a pole-like idol). Jezebel had gathered
a large following of the prophets of these two pagan deities, 450 prophets of
Ba’al and 400 prophets of the Asherah. In the passage immediately preceding
this morning’s reading, we learn that Elijah had defeated the prophets of Ba’al
at Mount Carmel by bringing down God’s fire on the altar which had been soaked
with water. Subsequently, these prophets
of Ba’al were eliminated, causing Jezebel to go after Elijah, threatening to
kill him. In response, Elijah flees
southward, and we find him in this morning’s reading at Be’ersheba, which is
about 120 miles south of the Northern Kingdom, in the very southern part of the
Southern Kingdom of Judah.
REFLECTIONS ON
THE PASSAGE
Elijah, whose name in Hebrew is Elijahu (which means “My God is YHWH”)
is in the wilderness, where he despairs of his situation. He is fleeing from Queen Jezebel for his
life, and despite the success he had had at Mount Carmel in defeating the
prophets of Ba’al, he feels alone and defeated.
In I Kings 19: 14, he says, “….I, even I only, am left, and they seek my
life, to take it away.” In contemporary
parlance, we might say that Elijah is having a “pity party”. So Elijah lays down, perhaps out of sheer
exhaustion, and falls asleep. But the
Lord’s angel awakens him and provides food for him to eat. Then, the Lord’s providence looks ahead to
the journey that He has intended for Elijah, for the angel returns a second
time and says, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” I Kings tells us that Elijah will go on the
strength of those provisions for forty days and nights, making his way to the
mountain of God, Horeb (which is in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula).
The significances that might strike
our attention are these: 1. Not one but
two miraculous feedings are given to Elijah.
The purpose is to give Elijah the strength he will need to make his way
to Horeb. There, Elijah will find
himself on the very same mountain where God revealed Himself to Moses, giving
the Law to God’s people. God will reveal
Himself to Elijah as well on this very holy spot (see I Kings 19: 9 – 13); 2. God has more work for Elijah to do. In order for that to happen, God will have to
overcome Elijah’s despair. That seems to
be the reason for God’s self-disclosure of His glory to Elijah. The food given to Elijah supports God’s wider
purposes for him.
Ephesians 4: 25
– 5: 2
SETTING and BACKGROUND
We continue making our way through
St. Paul’s letter to the early Christians in the city of Ephesus, which was a
major port city on the western side of Asia Minor (now the modern country of
Turkey). Ephesus was the place where the
pagan goddess, Artemis, had a shrine, and the place where silversmiths made
images of her for sale, which bolstered their incomes. The early Church in Ephesus was, most likely,
composed of Jews and Gentiles, as was the case with many of the early churches. The Church in Ephesus figures prominently in importance,
for tradition tells us that it was the place where the Beloved Disciple
(traditionally, John) settled after the resurrection. Tradition also tells us that Jesus’ mother,
Mary, lived out the remaining years of her earthly life here (following Jesus’
instructions to the Beloved Disciple from the cross, that he should take care
of Mary….see John 19: 26 – 27). Living
the Christian life within the culture of the first-century Greco-Roman world
was both easy and difficult, all at the same time. It was easy in the sense that, to live by
Christian values and virtues made a person quite easy to identify as a
Christian. On the other hand, such a
distinction caused friction with others in the community, a distinction that would
become more and more hazardous to one’s well-being as time went along. Eventually, Christian refusal to make
sacrifices to the emperor at the pagan shrines and temples was regarded by the
Roman authorities as treasonous behavior, and it was on this basis that some of
the persecutions were promulgated. At
this early time in the Church’s history, however, the Christians’ situation had
not yet deteriorated to such an extent.
The Book of Acts recounts Paul’s work in Ephesus (see Acts 19: 1 – 41),
where he ministered for about two years.
REFLECTIONS ON
THE PASSAGE
“How does one live the Christian
life?” I think that’s the basis of St.
Paul’s instructions to these early believers in Ephesus. We might rephrase the question and ask it
this way: “By what actions will people
know that you are Christians?” In the
verses immediately preceding this morning’s selection, Paul tells the Ephesian
Christians that they are not to “live as the Gentiles do…” (verse 17)
So Paul offers some very basic
advice: Christians are to deal honestly
with one another; they are to remember that we are interrelated to one another by
virtue of their faith in Christ; that they are to work at a respectable
occupation, always with the view that we are to have something to share with
those who are in need; that they are to set
limits to our anger; that they are to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving, and
to be imitators of God, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
The goal here is to proclaim by word
and example the Good News of God in Christ (as our Baptismal Covenant states
it….see the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pages 304 – 305), so that others will
see what a difference being a Christian makes.
Looking at this truth from the other perspective, the point seems to be
that, if there is no difference in being a Christian, then why become one? Being a Christian is supposed to make us
different from the ways we might have been before coming to faith in the Lord.
John 6: 35, 41 –
51
SETTING and BACKGROUND
We continue, this morning, making
our way through the marvelous sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel. (We have three more Sundays to enjoy making
our way through this rich and revealing chapter, finishing our journey on
August 23rd.) Recall with me
that this chapter began with the recounting of the miraculous feeding of the
5,000 people (an event that all four gospel writers record). Now, in this morning’s passage, we read of
the continuing interchange between Jesus and those who had been fed with the
five barley loaves and two fish.
In John’s gospel account, a
recurrent pattern emerges:
Event….(Conversation)….Discourse
(teaching)
So this morning, we are moving away
from the original event, and we are moving into the discourse/teaching phase of
the conversation. We hear Jesus begin to
turn the conversation away from the physical act of His feeding people with
bread and fish, toward a deeper and more enduring meaning. His goal is to enlighten His listeners (and
us), so that we come to see Him not only in a human way, but as God Himself. It is obvious, however, that Jesus and His
hearers are on very different wavelengths (as is often the case), for they make
this remark about Him, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know?”
REFLECTIONS ON
THE PASSAGE
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus
says. A prominent figure in John’s
gospel account is the repeated record of Jesus’ “I am” sayings. Most often, we read these “I am” sayings with
an object at the end of the sentence:
For example, as this morning’s saying goes, “I am the bread of
life.” But there are other sayings of a
similar nature: “I am the way, the truth
and the life,” (John 14: 6) for example.
Or this one: “I am the good
shepherd.” (John 10: 11) On one occasion, the “I am” statement simply
stands alone, as when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, ‘I am’.” (John 8: 58)
These sayings evoke God’s self-revelation to Moses at the burning bush,
where we read that God told Moses that His name was “I am that I am.” (Exodus
3: 14).
Jesus’ teaching (discourse) is going
somewhere: He is telling His original
hearers (and us) that He is the one who will be able to feed us during our
earthly life, and that the benefits of His feeding us here will have benefits that
will last into eternity. For in
eternity, we will live forever with the Lord.
Most scholars believe that the sixth
chapter of John’s account is the closest we ever come in the Fourth Gospel to
an outline and understanding of the Eucharist.
Nowhere in this particular gospel do we ever read an account of the
institution of the Eucharist (Communion) of the Last Supper, as we do in
Matthew, Mark and Luke.[1] But John holds in common with the three other
gospel writers a plain description of the connection between the Lord’s body
and blood, as we will hear in coming weeks the Lord’s statement that, “Whoever
eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in them.” (John 6: 56)
[1] John’s account omits the institution of the
Lord’s Supper entirely, but he does tell us about the foot washing which also
took place on that occasion.
