Scripture Study for
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Kings 19:4–8 / Psalm 34:9a / Ephesians 4:30 — 5:2 / John 6:41–51
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Understanding the Word
By Br. John R. Barker, OFM
As God’s prophet, Elijah makes enemies of king Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. In the scene immediately preceding the reading, Elijah has bested Jezebel’s prophets of Baal, whom he puts to death (18:1–46). Jezebel’s response is predictable: she will have the head of the prophet, who now flees for his life into the wilderness (19:1–3). Here we find him praying for death. But his task as God’s man is not done, and so an angel comes to bring him some food. This, then, is not simply a story of God providing food, but is particularly a story of God providing food to sustain the prophet so that he can continue divinely-commanded work.
Paul reminds the Gentile Ephesians that they have been brought into the household of God in Christ through baptism and “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (1:13). Those who fail to conform to the character of God by “living in love,” the same self-giving love shown to them in Christ’s “sacrificial offering,” grieve the Spirit who has been given to them as a pledge of their adoption. The emphasis here, as throughout the letter, is that the church, as the people of God formed to announce God’s salvation, must in its internal and external relationships reflect the love that motivates that salvation. The world must be able to see God’s love in the church created by God.
When Jesus announces to the people that he is the “bread come down from heaven,” the bread the people have asked to receive, they turn on him. Jesus cannot possibly have “come down from heaven”— they know exactly who he is, the “son of Joseph.” Jesus’ call to “stop murmuring” recalls Israel’s “murmuring” in the wilderness when they didn’t believe that God would provide for them (Exodus 16:2, 7–8). The theme of belief thus now comes to the fore. Only those who listen to God (a form of belief) are able to believe further that Jesus has been sent by God and that he, indeed his very flesh, is the bread of life, which is far greater than any manna.