August 12, 2006
The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
Proper 14 ~ 1Kings 19:4-8, John 6:35. 41-51
My mother used to have an expression that she would use from time to time when she wasn’t feeling “up to par”. She would say, “I’m feeling kind of puny today.” Feeling puny… We took that expression up in our family, too. “You feeling okay? You’re looking a little puny.”
What she and we meant by that was just not feeling or being “up to it”, whatever it was. Feeling a little weak, not our usual robust self. You get the idea.
Well, in the lesson from the First Book of Kings, we meet up with Elijah who is feeling kind of puny, not his usual powerful, prophetic self, not up to the task, vulnerable to the whims and actions of other people, other powers, vulnerable to fate, itself.
Let me provide a little context for this unusual, for Elijah, but supremely common human situation.
To use a baseball analogy, Elijah had just pitched a no-hitter. He had just cleaned the clock of the prophets of Baal. Elijah was the last and only true prophet of Jehovah left and there were in that territory 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a showdown, actually a call-down, where the prophet of each god would call down from on high the power of their God to take up an offering.
It is written in 1Kings 18: “So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, ‘O Baal, answer us!’ But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.” (It is rather clear whose side the writer is on.)
Then it was Elijah’s turn. “At the time of the offering of the oblation, the prophet Elijah came near and said, ‘O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.’ Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt-offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, ‘The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.’”
It was a magnificent display of the power of God and the power of God’s prophet, and yet we find him in today’s lesson skulking off into the wilderness, feeling sorry for himself, feeling not up to the task, feeling downright puny, and wishing it all would end for him.
It could all be written off with a facile, “Oh, its only a post-miracle depression. It happens all the time. He’ll get over it.” Well, maybe it does happen all the time, but it is happening now, here with this person, and he is in great suffering, he is sick of it, even unto death.
I have not experienced a post-miracle depression, but I do know the feeling of “puny”. I do know the feeling of “it all being just too much”. I do know the feeling of just not being up to it, not having it. I do know the feeling of wishing it would just go away, if it would just pass me by, if I just didn’t have to do deal with it. I feel the puniest in the middle of the night.
Perhaps you have felt that way once or twice, or from time to time, or during some extended period. Feeling that what you know to be your gifts, your strengths, your powers… they are nowhere to be found. Your “getup and go” has gotten up and gone away. You’re running on empty.
Elijah and you and I need some Bread.
One way of looking at Elijah’s situation is to see that he has forgotten the Source. He has moved away from his center. He is relying solely on “what he brings to the table”. And he has given his all, given his best shot, and it still isn’t enough to do all that is needed, to provide all that is needed, to finish the job, to bring it to completion. He feels alone, bereft, and empty.
And it is then that the Angel of the Lord comes to him to point out what is needed. He is in need of Manna. He is starving for the bread of life. He hungers to be filled. He needs sustenance for his strength to be renewed. And the Angel of the Lord comes and provides bread enough.
“He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.”
And Jesus tells us, “I am the bread of life; they who come to me shall not hunger; and they who believe in me shall not thirst… even if they die, they shall live forever.” (Hymn 335)
Whenever we have moved from the center, whenever we have forgotten the Source, whenever we have spent all that we have, the Angel of the Lord comes, in whatever guise, to re-center our lives, to remind us of the source, and to replenish our supply of bread.
So we come weekly, regularly, to the Source, to the table, to the altar of God. As our friend Ann Fontaine says, “We come to the Eucharist to drink the wine of encouragement and eat the bread of sustenance.”
And we remember, “My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, says the Lord. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood dwell in me and I in them, says the Lord.” (Anthem S169)
We find it to be, as my stepfather used to say, an “elegant sufficiency”. Bread sufficient for all the days of our life… and beyond.
You’re feeling a little puny today? Try some Bread.
