I.N.I.

A sermon to be preached on the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, a.k.a. 13 August 2006, and based on the RCL lessons for the day, 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; and John 6:35, 41-51 — and particularly on John — at Christ Lutheran Church, Elizabethtown, PA

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord,

Dear Friends in Christ,

Anyone who has read a Dr. Seuss book recently knows exactly what a broom tree looks like. Or at least can picture one. It’s a kind of sprawling shrubby thing with brooms hanging down from its branches. And that’s exactly what it is, except for the part about the brooms hanging from the branches. I did a little hunting about and couldn’t find exactly why it is called a “broom.” For example, were the twigs used to make brooms, like our more familiar broom corn? I don’t know. What I do know was that there was one growing by itself out in the wilderness under which Elijah sat, disgusted with and tired of life.

I know about chemical and genetic reasons for depression and suicidal thoughts. That wasn’t Elijah’s issue. He was really down in the dumps for the exact same reason everyone gets worn out and beaten down: sin. In this case, the immediate cause wasn’t necessarily his own sin so much as someone else’s. But it was still sin. And haven’t you experienced the same thing at some point? Sin dragging you down? Sometimes it is the exact result of some excess in living that can be sinful and physically depletes our resources. Sometimes it is guilt over sinful conduct that depresses and immobilizes us. Remorse and regret for having done wrong to other people and to God can really wear us down, can’t they, until that guilt is removed. When it is other people’s sin that puts us in such a depressed condition, we’re feeling another side of the results of sin. We feel wronged. We feel cheated. We feel offended and betrayed and let down all at once. And we feel powerless to make it better.

That’s what was going on for Elijah under the broom tree. He’d been doing his best to be a faithful servant of the Lord. He’d been talking the talk and walking the walk. He’d been preaching God’s word, and illustrating the Word with a faithful life. He’d just come down off Mount Carmel where he had scored a marvelous and miraculous victory for the Lord (this was the huge tournament, if you will, between Elijah and the priests of Baal to see whose God would kindle a fire to consume a sacrifice — and after Baal’s priests wore themselves out to no effect, Elijah’s turn came; and he had buckets of water poured over the altar and sacrifice he had constructed before he prayed to the Lord, and the fire of the Lord fell on the altar, consuming the offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and the water in the little moat around the altar). Elijah under the broom tree wasn’t put out about that. After the tournament, he had told the people in the crowd to seize the prophets of Baal and not let them go. So the people grabbed all of them and put them to death. And that wasn’t exactly why Elijah was under the broom tree. It was because of what happened next: Queen Jezebel had put Elijah under an immediate death sentence for killing her prophets. She promised to kill him before the day was out.

I think that would have gotten to me, too. Score a huge and public and obvious victory for God against the idolatrous forces of the day, and what do you get? A death sentence! Shouldn’t be that way. There ought to be some thanks, some relief, some reward. But there wasn’t. Sin was so rampant that it chased Elijah from Mount Carmel out into the desolate, deserted wilderness. He sat under the broom tree and asked God to take him away from all of that, asked God to let him die.

In the midst of his depression and weariness (worn out from travel, worn out from fighting the prophets of Baal, worn out from the effects of sin), Elijah called out to the Lord. And God came to him. God came in the person of his messenger, the angel. God came and fed him.

In the words from King David’s psalm [34:4-8] that served as the appointed introit for today, and that he may well have known, Elijah could have sung “I sought the Lord and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. … The poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.” Elijah’s soul had cried out. Elijah was heard. The Lord’s angel was there protecting him. And he was able to taste just how good and refreshing and strengthening the Lord our God really is. David was rescued from his trouble and wrote a psalm to celebrate the goodness of God. Elijah was rescued from his trouble and went on a hike to celebrate.

The text says that after eating twice of this heavenly meal, Elijah went 40 days and 40 nights without needing food. He wasn’t fasting or starving or going without. He simply went on the strength of that food for more than a month. And at the very end of verse 8 he gets to Mount Horeb, some 200 miles to the south. Now, 200 miles in 40 days is a pretty easy walking pace. But doing it without food is quite a feat. There must have been quite a lot of power in that food. Maybe Elijah felt like he’d never want or need to eat again. Ever felt like that? Perhaps after a big holiday meal? Or after grazing at an all-you-can-eat buffet table one too many times? We, of course, return to the kitchen by the next day at the latest. Elijah went more than a month.

Now then, when Jesus says in John 6 that “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” he is reflecting in a way, he is fulfilling, the experience of Elijah. And he’s upping the ante, if you will. Elijah went 40 days on the strength of the bread the angel brought him, but Jesus promises that those who eat this New Testament heavenly bread will never go hungry or thirsty again.

Paraphrasing the woman at the well, we are prone to ask him “Lord, give us this bread that we will never go hungry.” This is bread worth having. This is bread more filling than the manna in the wilderness ever was, a heavenly bread that had to be collected every day (except on the Sabbath, of course) and prepared, and eaten and not saved back for the next day in fear that there wouldn’t be any more. This bread that Jesus speaks of is more long-lasting than the miraculous meal of loaves and fishes he had recently provided for the crowd of 5,000 people out in the countryside. This bread does better than providing a 40 day supply of energy and nourishment from two small servings. This bread from heaven provides eternal nourishment.

Lord, show us this bread. Lord, how do we obtain this bread? Lord, how do we get some of this bread?

We need, obviously, to be in a relationship with him. In any kind of transaction or exchange, there needs to be at least minimal relationship. What Jesus tells us here in John 6 is how our relationship with God comes about. It’s really throughout this whole chapter, but look now at verses 45 and 47 “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. … whoever believes has eternal life.” There is the key. There is all we need to know about it.

The single prerequisite for that eternal life offered by the Lord is our faith. And, as we know from here and elsewhere in Scripture, faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God. When you hear and learn, only then can you come to Him. And what you are to hear and learn is God’s Word.

When that happens, we are in a relationship with the Lord. We are in a “faith relationship.” Our connection is built up and grows because He first comes to us, because He gives us His Spirit, because the Spirit works faith in our hearts. And whoever believes, whoever has that Spirit-wrought faith, also has the gift of eternal life.

Faith is what makes us able to receive that eternal life. Faith is what makes it possible for us to eat the bread from heaven. And faith is what makes it possible for us to swallow what Jesus says at the end of this passage, that “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” That statement really called the Jews up short. In the verse following our text, the next thing it says is that they disputed among themselves about what he had just said. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Here’s what we Christians believe: By Jesus’ real death on the cross, giving up his flesh on our behalf— giving his back to the whips, his hands and feet to the nails, his side to the spear — by giving his perfect, sinless life on our behalf, he becomes our eternal bread from heaven.

It is through and by and because of the death of our Lord Jesus that you and I have the eternal life giving bread from Heaven about which he spoke. We may eat the bread that comes down from Heaven and not die. In doing so we finally conquer Satan’s deception back in the Garden of Eden that our first parents could eat of the fruit of the earth coming up from the ground and not die (Gen 3:4). Satan suggested, tempted really, Eve to eat the fruit and break God’s direct commandment. Instead of not dying, she and Adam hid from God when He came to talk with them. Their guilt and shame separated them from God. Elijah felt worn out by the sin of others and sat under the broom tree, hoping to die. You and I feel guilt and shame from our own sins, we feel worn out by the sins of others, and we’re often ready to go into hiding, too, simply to give it all up.

But God has another plan. He came to Adam and Eve with the promise of a Savior. He came to the children of Israel in the wilderness with miraculous manna. He came to King David so vividly that David could taste it. He came to Elijah with a miraculous food and — at the end of that 40 days — in a miraculous encounter, coming to him in that still, small voice on Mount Horeb. He came to the crowds and disciples along the Sea of Galilee with loaves and fishes, and then with this powerfully sublime teaching.

And God came to each one of us when we first heard His word and believed. He came when we were baptized. He comes when we commune at the altar.

Now we live as Christian people forgiven of our deepest and darkest sins by the God who created

us. We live fed by the heavenly bread he brings us. Martin Luther said in a sermon on this passage from John 6 that “We continually preach that these two things constitute the Christian life: in the first place, a sincere faith in Christ, whom God sent to us; in the second place, the performance of good works and a godly life. The evangelist Matthew does not emphasize this important and true doctrine of faith in Christ as much as John does; he expounds the other part, the works and the fruits of faith. The evangelist John, however, stresses the Christian faith more vigorously than the other evangelists, who have described mainly the miracles of Christ.” (Luther’s Works, vol. 23, p. 109) So this morning John tells us about faith, but St Paul tells us about the godly life that faithful people live here on earth.

Our epistle from Ephesians is one of those passages where Paul seems to run down a grocery list of things for his readers to take in. Speak the truth to our neighbors … be angry but don’t sin; don’t let the sun go down on your anger … thieves should give up stealing, get a job, and contribute to the poor … let no evil talk come from your mouths, but let your words build up and give grace to others; don’t grieve the Holy Spirit; and put away bitterness … and wrath … and anger … and wrangling … and slander … and malice; be kind to one another … be tenderhearted … be forgiving; in short, “be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

It’s quite a list. And it’s a list of actions and attitudes that can only be carried out by those whose lives are taken over by God, by those who feed on the heavenly bread. As far as where to start, there’s something for everyone on this list. Pick one item and prayerfully consider how — by the grace of God — to exhibit it more openly.

See? There’s a pretty clear path from despair under the broom trees of our lives (wrought by sin), to a faithful relationship with the Lord (wrought by God through the means by which he gives us his grace), to the bread which comes down from Heaven (wrought by Jesus in his death on the cross) that powers us to live Christian lives here on earth and carries us through into life eternal. It’s a pretty clear path. It’s a path that’s been taken by centuries of believers before us. It’s a path being taken right now by believers around the world. Let’s go hiking. Amen.

And the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.

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Bonus Notes Made in Lectio Divina on the Texts While Preparing for this Sunday:

1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51

Elijah going out to the wilderness to give it up under the broom tree … sort of like the way we often feel as a result of our own or someone else’s sin.

He was out there because Jezebel had threatened to take his life before the day was out. And she had threatened to do that because he had the false prophets who did her bidding put to death after the water-soaked altar business on top of Mount Carmel.

In the midst of his deep depression and weariness, he called out to his Lord, and God came to him by an angel to feed him (twice). In the words of David’s psalm, Elijah’s soul cried and was heard … tasted and saw that the Lord is good. He was happy to take refuge in the Lord.

In the strength of the Lord’s feeding him bread from heaven, he went 40 days and nights to Mount Horeb (aka Sinai), some 200 miles to the south. [And at that place was to get a direct revelation (a theophany) from the Lord, the still small voice passage, in verses following our lesson for today] He must almost have thought that he’d never be hungry again.

When Jesus says in John 6 that “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,” he is reflecting — perhaps — or fulfilling this story about Elijah. And upping the ante. Instead of Elijah’s 40 days/nights, those getting the NT heavenly bread will NEVER go hungry/thirsty.

Paraphrasing the words of the woman at the well, ‘Lord, give us this bread so that we may never go hungry!” How do we get some of this bread? When we are in relationship with the Lord.

Jesus talks in vv 45-46 about the way people come to a relationship with him [“Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.’ ‘] When you hear and learn, then you can come to Him.

He adds that it takes faith to have eternal life (v. 47). The single prerequisite for that life, then, is believing. It takes faith to be able to swallow what he says at the end of this passage: “and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Here’s what we Christians believe: By Jesus’s real death on the cross, giving his flesh on our behalf— his back to the whips, and hands and feet to the nails, and side to the spear — he becomes our eternal bread from heaven.

We may eat of the bread come down from heaven and not die (v. 50), finally conquering Satan’s deception that our first parents could eat of the fruit coming up out of the earth and not die. (Gen 3:4), even though God had commanded otherwise.

See? There’s a pretty clear path from despair under the broom tree (wrought by sin), to a faithful relationship with the Lord (wrought by the Lord coming to us through his messengers), to the bread come down from Heaven (wrought by Jesus in his death on the cross) that takes us to eternal life. We walk it over and over again.