A Higher Love

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

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

In today’s passage from 1 Kings…  Elijah is despondent…  his success on God’s behalf…  the killing of Baal’s prophets in the Kidron Valley…  means nothing to him now…  he has escaped Jezebel’s reach and threat to kill him…  and hightailed it to Beersheba…  where he leaves his servant Obadiah…  and then continues a day further into the wilderness…  and for those of you who’ve been to that desert… as I have…  you know it’s an inhospitable landscape…

Dean McDonald…  Director of the Cathedral College of Preachers…  wrote…  it’s easier for us to relate to Elijah on the lam…  than it is to Elijah slaughtering his enemies…  or speaking directly with God…  as Moses did on the mountaintop…  and now…  in hiding and sitting under a broom tree…  Elijah asks God to end his life…  his depression is untenable…  unendurable…  the critical voices in his mind…  tell him he’s no better than his ancestors…  perhaps they tell him he’s worse…  but God does not abandon him…  God sends angels to feed and tend to him…  not once…  but twice…  to strengthen him for his journey…  the text tells us that Elijah then travels forty days and nights to reach Mt. Horeb…  which is the name preferred by the writer of Deuteronomy…  for Mt. Sinai…  on which Moses remained…  also for forty days and nights…

Elijah’s depression is awful…  and many of us can relate at least to some degree…  he exhibits some of the characteristics which afflict battle-worn soldiers who suffer from PTSD…  and even when there are no physical wounds…  PTSD can cause deep and long-lasting spiritual wounds…  and we know that because of the soldiers who return from battle uninjured and seemingly whole…  but who die by suicide weeks or months later…  we know that because of the four officers who responded to the Capitol insurrection on January 6…  and who have since died in that same way…

Earlier this week we were given the chance to reflect on mental illness…  when Simone Biles withdrew during the women’s gymnastics team finals…  citing mental health concerns…  all around the world…  we struggle with mental health issues…  sometimes keeping our distance from those so dis-eased…  as though they had a virus with which we could be infected…  but sadly…  a number of conservative pundits and writers labeled Simone as arrogant…  claiming she is not a good role model for kids…  and on his radio show…  Charlie Kirk…  a twenty-seven year old community college dropout…  called Simone a selfish sociopath…  but when D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone was interviewed on a CNN talk show earlier this week…  he said…  we need to normalize the conversation about folks struggling with trauma and mental health issues…  we need to get rid of this stigma that people who struggle with those issues are weak

We tend to think that grief is appropriate only after the death of a loved one…  but there can also be grief when friendships end…  when you lose your community…  when you no longer have the certainty you once did…  when you question your judgment…  when you’re feeling lost and unanchored…  when beloved traditions are lost…  and when you must let go…  of who you once were…

We are always changing…  some changes are easy…  like changing to a new brand of toothpaste…  and some changes are more difficult…  like that moment when you decide to be true to who God created you to be…  and some of those changes are accompanied by mental health concerns…  and how we weather them…  is dependent on what we know…  and when we know it…  when I was ten years old…  I knew more than when I was five…  when I was forty… I knew more than when I was thirty…  and now that I’m sixty-seven…  I know there’s more that I don’t know…  than I do know…  and so I’ll never run out of new things to learn…  or the insights they’ll reveal…

And Joel and I recently saw a TED talk on quantum mechanics…  and the speaker explained that one dominant understanding about electrons…  is that they can exist as a diffuse energy field whose exact location is unknowable…  when they’re not being observed…  or collapse into a particle whose position can be detected…  when they are…  that is…  they exist in both states simultaneously…  depending on our perspective…

Jesus’ audience in today’s Gospel knows him as Joseph and Mary’s son…  he is human…  he is mortal…  he can bleed…  they seem to forget that he has just fed more than five-thousand people and that the leftovers filled twelve baskets…  but in v. 35 he says…  I am the bread of life…  in v. 38 which is omitted from today’s reading…  he says…  I have come down from heaven…  and in v. 41 the Jews complain when he says…  I am the bread that came down from heaven…  so which is it…  is he human…  or is he divine…  in their either / or thinking…  they cannot intellectually reconcile how both can be true…  they have no point of reference for both / and…  but if God is always free to act in unexpected and often incomprehensible ways…  then Jesus is also able to be fully human and fully divine…

The Jews ought not complain among themselves…  when people who don’t know insist that they’re right…  their claims expand into diffuse energy fields of opinion…  and Jesus’ emphasis was not directly on his human identity…  and therefore on his authority…  a theme with which the religious authorities were obsessed…  he emphasized his role as the giver of divine life to others…  the bread he offers is more than manna…  which was earthly food intended only to sustain earthly life…  but the bread he offers satisfies hunger forever…  he expands their short-sighted understanding of what they thought possible…  and so when he says…  I am the bread that came down from heaven…  he reveals himself as living bread which sustains and transforms people through death and to eternal life…

Those who have come to Jesus…  have come…  because they heard God’s call through the One whom God sent…  and the ones whom God teaches…  recognize the fullness of God’s life…  the life that is everlasting…  that is at least partly why Jesus also says…  I will raise that person up on the last day…  because those who are lifted up will be lifted up in love…

We’re struggling these days…  with an idea which has gained prominence in recent years…  the idea that truth is relative…  and all points of view are equally valid…  and that everyone is capable of judging which conclusions have merit and which do not…  education… scholarship…  and expertise…  have taken a back seat to personal opinions…  but genuinely smart people look for answers from those who are more experienced than themselves…  only ignorant people believe their guess is as good as anyone else’s…

The Rev. Kirk Kubicek…  at Christ Church in Forest Hill, MD…  wrote…  for their Greek-speaking…  Greek-hearing audiences… Paul and the four evangelists had a number of words from which to choose to convey love…  but they all chose the word agape…  which speaks of a love…  in which the one who is loved…  is raised to the level of the one who loves…  and just as Jesus has been raised to the level of the Father’s love…  his love for us raises us to the level of his love…  and that kind of love heals prophets like Ezekiel who wish to die…  and gymnasts like Simone who can’t go on any more but who find enough healing to do so…  those who were traumatized during the January insurrection…  and with God’s help have the strength to testify…  and yes…  even those who die by suicide and are brought into God’s loving embrace…

And some of the lyrics from Lauren Daigle’s song You Say…  name this dis-ease…  and help us frame this truth…  lyrics that are almost like a prayer…  she sang…

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not   
   enough…
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up…
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low…
Remind me once again just who I am because I need to
   know…
You say I am loved…  when I can’t feel a thing…
You say I am strong…  when I think I am weak…
And you say I am held…  when I am falling short…
And when I don’t belong…  You say I am Yours…
And I believe…  Oh I believe…  what You say of me…

Amen.

About the author: The Rev. Mike Wernick

The Rev. Mike Wernick is a second-career Episcopal priest who grew up in a Reform Jewish family. He relishes his role as the Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Officer for two dioceses and affirms all faith traditions (he has this idea that diversity was never intended to be divisive). He serves on several diocesan and synod committees, including the ELCA N/W Lower Michigan Synod’s Task Force on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity; and in July 2020, he finished a two-year practicum to become a Spiritual Director.