I want to make three stops on our journey together this morning: the first stop is with the prophet Elijah, sleeping under a broom tree in the desert. The second stop is with Jesus, standing on the lakeshore in Capernaum, speaking with some of his neighbors. And the third stop is with some friends of mine in Detroit. And then we’ll come back to our own gathering and see what, if anything, is different.
When we encounter the prophet Elijah this morning, he is completely exhausted from trying to be heard by the authorities of his time, especially by Ahab, the king of Israel. Ahab is introduced in 1 Kings as the worst king Israel ever had. So Elijah has his work cut out for him. Serving one’s country as a prophet was a specific calling in the time of Elijah, a public office. The prophet’s calling is to express a God’s-eye-view of what is happening in the nation, especially in relation to what those in positions of leadership are doing. Elijah had the thankless task of confronting King Ahab, to make it clear to the people just how far Ahab’s leadership diverges from God’s vision of justice and care for the people. Reading his story from our vantage point, it’s easy to misunderstand what the issue is. It might seem that Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, are in trouble only for “religious” reasons, for worshiping the wrong gods.
In both the Old and New Testaments, the word for “worship” refers to a physical posture, not to a set of beliefs or ideas. It means to bow down before someone, to prostrate oneself, the way people used to bow down before a king. That posture means three things:
- I acknowledge your power.
- I trust you to keep me safe.
- And I will do whatever you command me to do.
Ahab and Jezebel publicly worship Canaanite gods, the Baals. Elijah reveals through various challenges that the Baals are not really gods at all. So while seeming to worship something, what Ahab and Jezebel really give credence to is their own power, their ability to keep themselves safe by attacking and destroying anyone who questions them.
As the leaders of the people of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel set the public values of the nation. In the face of their destructiveness and self-interest, Elijah has been trying to prove that trust in God is the only grounds for ultimate human safety. Elijah has demonstrated God’s generosity and compassion for all people by miraculously feeding a non-Israelite woman during a devastating drought and by healing her deadly ill son. Elijah shows clearly that God’s love is not limited by human borders. But Ahab insists on defaming Elijah as a “troubler of Israel.” By the time Elijah flees into the desert and collapses, exhausted, under the faint shade of a broom tree, hoping he will die, the hundred other prophets who exist in Israel at the time are all hiding in caves, afraid to speak out, being fed secretly by none other than a steward of Ahab’s court. This is as complicated as any story of political intrigue today.
Then something unexpected happens. Just as Elijah is giving up, a messenger from God comes to him under the scraggly broom tree. The messenger comes two times with a wheat-cake baked on stones and a full jar of water: “Get up and eat, Elijah. Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.”
That food sustains Elijah all the way to an intense and strengthening direct encounter with God on Mount Sinai, a 40-day journey through the desert from the place where he had completely given up. “Get up and eat, or the journey I have planned for you is going to be too much for you.”
This is the point when Elijah’s story bumps against the story of Jesus almost a thousand years later. In all the Gospels, Jesus is compared to Elijah, usually in Elijah’s role as a maligned prophet who persists in bringing God’s vibrant life and justice to bear on an unjust time. Like Elijah, Jesus cares for the suffering beyond Israel’s borders, and feeds the people Rome would be content to allow to starve. But John’s community goes a step further, when Jesus says, “I am the bread. I am the bread of life . In essence, he’s saying, “You be the prophet. I will be the bread that sustains you.” This is what Christ is saying to us this morning: “You be the prophet. You speak out. You feed. You heal. You cross borders. I will be the bread that sustains you.”
In the current state of things in the United States, many of us find ourselves at the very limits of our ability to know how to respond thoughtfully to the challenges of our national life. There are a lot of different ways to fuel our lives, a lot of different kinds of fuel that we could use to energize our response to the injustice, neglect, mistrust, and cruelty going on around us. Many people choose to be fueled by anger, or even by righteous indignation, and that’s one way to go. But then there are those enigmatic words of Jesus this morning: “Let me be the bread and the water, the courage and the wisdom that fuel your life.”
Here is a little story about friends of mine in Detroit. Maybe it will help you find some bread.
My friends just moved to the city a couple of years ago, and they intentionally chose a neighborhood located in one of the city’s food deserts. Over the winter they covered what had been their backyard lawn with layers of newspaper to discourage the lawn from doing anything to come back in the spring. It sat dormant under the winter snow, and when the ground had softened, they tilled it up and planted a true farm — not just a garden — a farm edge to edge behind their urban house. The only word I can think of to describe it is burgeoning. Vegetables are practically leaping out of the soil in every color, curling or smooth or hairy or shiny or fuzzy: intensely red, purple, green, yellow. I ate some of their produce last weekend, and all I can say is that I ate the cucumber of God. I had no idea. I ate it in the evening, and went to bed still dreaming of that perfect fresh taste, and when I woke in the morning my first thought was: cucumber. I must have more cucumber.
A few weeks ago, my friends decided that they wanted to gather some people together to bless their farm, and the one who is not the principal farmer said to her spouse, “Great. I’ve got a lot of work this week. You take charge of the invitations.” What the farmer did was invite the neighbors who had come over earlier in the week for some vegetables. She invited the complete strangers who came to their door, asking about the farm. She invited some people she had met at the Farmers’ Market and people she ran into at the drug store. She invited basically anyone she encountered all week. When the day came for the blessing, their yard was burgeoning in a whole new way, burgeoning with friends and strangers all eager to speak aloud the blessings of the farm that they had experienced for themselves, friends and strangers fueled by an exuberant vegetable love.
This is not just a sweet story. The urban farm and all the labor that has gone into it speaks out against those who put profit ahead of the well-being of the people. It cries out eloquently against the city leaders and business owners who have allowed food deserts to keep the poor unhealthy, to keep schoolchildren unable to learn and grow as they might. In the face of dereliction of duty, this urban farm proclaims God’s justice and mercy as a single creative force.
My friends consume a third of their production, sell a third at the Farmers’ Market, and give away a third. Their practice challenges the zero-sum financial markets that dominate the United States. The farm is a prophetic voice, fueled by love. The vegetables invite us: “Darlin’, get up and eat this love. Otherwise, you’re not gonna make it.” Bite by bite, Christ is present, the bread of life fueling a new way to be a city together.
There is so much to be distressed about in the world around us: the heartache on our border; mistrust intentionally sown among us; the degradation of the natural world; systemic racism; vastly unequal access to food, education, and healthcare; numbingly frequent acts of horrific violence. Each of us feels a tug on our heart to respond to something. Today we are just concerned with step one: what fuel are you going to use to energize your response?
I’m interested in how you are thinking about fueling your lives in the world.
- Do you know what I mean by “fuel”?
- What have you learned about different fuels, from your experience? What fuels have proven problematic or short-lived?
- What is challenging about trying to be fueled consistently by love?
- What practices help you be fueled consistently by the power of love?
- What kind of community helps you be fueled consistently by love?
Closing prayer: “Gate A-4,” by Naomi Nye
The Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson is associate professor of New Testament at Seminary of the Southwest.
