Can
man live on bread alone? Well, in Elijah’s case the answer might be,
‘yes’. He thinks he is no better than his ancestors but actually that is
far from the truth; because we don’t find him complaining like them
about the lack of food in the wilderness. Conscious of his own
inadequacy as a prophet he entrusts his soul to God. It is a lovely
irony that just because Elijah gives priority to the word of God he is able to survive on bread alone.
Perhaps ‘survive’ is not quite the right
term here. Recent scientific research suggests that regular ‘fasting’,
keeping down the number of calories we consume, is actually good for us.
It gives the body an opportunity to repair damaged cells and can
prevent the onset of cancers or diabetes. If Elijah managed to walk all
the way to mount Horeb on a stone baked loaf (which sounds rather good!)
and a jar of water that might indicate that he was used to a meagre
diet. It would be quite fitting if, without knowing it, the prophet
lived a longer and healthier life as a result of self-denial in the
service of God.
The fact that an angelic being ministers
to Elijah’s very human needs reminds us that there can also be
spiritual dangers in self-denial. A failure to respect the body’s needs
for food and drink may be a sign of depression or self-loathing. The
material and spiritual dimensions of life are inseparable and it can be
just as much a temptation to undervalue our bodily nature with its
various needs as it is to overindulge it.
In the gospel today people are
complaining –they are ‘murmuring’ just like the Israelites in the desert
– but they are not complaining about a lack of food. They are
complaining that Jesus seems too ordinary, too human perhaps? They know
him, they know his family. The problem is not one of communication. Many
of them would readily have understood the implications of what Jesus is
saying. The giving of manna, the feeding of the chosen people with
bread from heaven, was often associated in Jewish minds with the giving
of divine teaching. In other words Jesus is clearly giving his teaching a
unique status – he sees his own teaching as indispensable and as
life-giving as our daily bread. In what he says we can hear an echo of
those words from the book of Proverbs (9:5) –‘Come, eat of my bread’.
If the Israelites in the wilderness were
sceptical about God’s ability to feed them, Jesus’ contemporaries are
sceptical about something else – the possibility of finding divine
wisdom in their own midst. It seems a not unreasonable position until we
reflect that these are the very Galileans who have just seen Jesus
feeding 5,000 people. According to John’s gospel, they had no doubts then
that Jesus must be some kind of prophet. That is why they took the
trouble to pursue him, hoping perhaps for a repeat performance. As with
so many of us, their problem is really inconstancy. They are waverers,
given to changing their minds, unwilling to accept the truth, unable to
trust even their own judgment. As Jesus reminds them, those who come to
Him must be drawn by the Father. It is not, then, just an inability to
accept his authority but something more basic that is lacking, something
that is missing in their relationship with the Father. And if they are
unable to accept the divine wisdom in Christ’s teaching they will
certainly baulk at the very idea that they must consume his flesh and
blood in order to have life.
The brief extract from St Paul’s letter
to the Ephesians reminds us that we no longer suffer from this inability
to relate to the Father or to His Son. The apostle assures us that
because Christ has sacrificed himself for us we can now recognize that
we are God’s children and even imitate the Father’s love. Liberated by
the Spirit, our communities can truly become the models of harmony that
God intends. We still have the task of preaching the word and we may
still have very positive reasons to fast and exercise self-discipline;
but we have no reason to complain, no reason to doubt God’s providence. (John Kenrick O.P.:here)
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